The Awakened Woman

by Tererai Trent

  Feel that love coming to you from the past. Breathe it in, dance in it, hear it without reservation. As a tribute to that legacy, begin a monthly practice of honoring the gift of that love. Each month, make a short list of women who inspire you. Include women you know and women you’ve never met. Use the following questions to help you make your list:

  • Think of a successful moment you’ve had in your life and all the little moments that got you there. Who had a hand in making that moment possible for you? Even down to the smallest encouragement?

  • Who are the inspirational women in your life? In your family? In your community? Who has achieved something that makes you long for the same success? Whose work tugs at your heart?

  • Think about a woman who inspires you who you have not met. Include the heroines and superheroines that inspire and fire you, and that speak to your spirit and your soul, beyond the conditionings of what you have learned in this lifetime. What do you admire in them? What one quality of theirs can you begin practicing today?

  Once you have your list, clean off your writing space, put on music and a nice, comfortable outfit. Make sure you are not hungry or tired.

  Get your best pen and paper and write a note of gratitude to this person. Be specific, thanking them in detail for what you appreciate in them, their work, and their attitude.

  Put it in the mail. If you cannot get their address, place the note on a little altar of your own making, or stick it to the wall of your room or office. With this practice you will not only be cultivating humility and gratitude, which in itself is a significant action to take in pursuit of your sacred purpose, but you will also be creating a robust and ongoing catalog of actions and ideas that you, too, can use.

  Draw upon the wisdom of your elders, as well as those who have walked a similar path before you. Be in touch with these torchbearers daily, whether in prayer or in reflection. Listen to or read their words frequently. Feel them in your heart and let them be the messengers that guide you, even when you feel you cannot guide yourself.

  After you’ve gotten comfortable with this monthly practice, I invite you to add a final exercise for recognizing opportunity. Make a deliberate plan to inspire action for another woman, or to find another opportunity to be shared. This may mean taking a moment from your busy day to ask someone “What are your dreams?” It may mean volunteering your skills to women at a domestic abuse shelter, perhaps helping them on the path of education or employment. Maybe you watch a friend’s children so that she can take a class or build the website for her sacred dreams venture.

  There are so many ways we can show up for each other. The actions of others will not drain you; they will encourage you to act on behalf of your dreams as well. When we are willing to show humility and gratitude for our heroines, when we support action in other women, my sacred sisters, our own actions will be infused with a mighty energy that cannot be stopped.

  As you become lighter on your feet you will notice that you are able to dance more freely with the world around you. You will find yourself responding to the circumstances of your external world, and being more resourceful with what is available to you.

  New opportunities will appear when your heart is open to receiving the resources available to you. You will find that people who cross your path can help you with your dreams. At first it may seem like coincidence, but as it happens more and more, you will come to realize that the universe is supporting you to achieve your dream and you are lining up to receive all it has to offer.

  As more and more opportunities come your way, a two-way process occurs. You open your heart to receive the gifts of the universe and at the same time you cultivate your own generosity of spirit, so that giving and receiving become a constant exchange.

  As your dream project contributes to improving the lives of others, you will begin to connect with them, too, engaging them and listening to their needs, grounding your dreams in their reality. You will naturally adapt your vision to the real world, allowing it to be received in the best way possible for all involved.

  8

  THE SACRED SISTERHOOD: CULTIVATING YOUR SAHWIRA

  If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

  —AFRICAN PROVERB

  The driver of the hearse carrying my mother’s body smiles nervously as she gets out of her car. Wiping raindrops from her forehead, she shakes thick strands of dreadlocked hair. Striding deliberately toward the back of the hearse, she unlatches the tailgate, which opens with a soft, hydraulic sigh. Inside, a dark brown mahogany coffin decorated with a patch of black leather blends into the darkness.

  Moonlight reflects off the coffin’s steel handles as the woman carefully opens the car’s side window curtains. With perfect synchronicity, six middle-aged men emerge from the circle of silence to lift my mother’s coffin. As the coffin is slowly raised, the sound of an eerie, shrill ululation fills the dark rainy sky.

  The driver of the hearse closes the door, my mother’s dearest friend, Mai Chigowo, asks, “What took you so long?” but she continues speaking before there is an answer. “Has anyone brought lamps or candles?” By now it is completely dark but for the light of the moon and a nearby fire.

  My mother has just died and the hearse has brought her body from the hospital to her final resting place—our rural home. In my culture, no dead person is buried without her sahwira (pronounced sah-wee-ra), a Shona word that translates to “friend for life,” to make sure burial protocols and rituals are observed before the dead’s final departure on earth. The sahwira also presides over burial activities, overseeing food preparation and entertainment. But the sahwira’s role transcends beyond burial and is cultivated early in life.

  As mourners gather around my mother’s coffin, a voice imitating my mother’s brings my daydreams to an end. The sahwira imitates her friend in order to represent her values. It is common practice in our community to use role-playing and “stand-ins” in a variety of different circumstances. Likewise, the sahwira becomes my mother to elevate our mourning. Our identities are fluid and transferable.

  Mai Chigowo makes people laugh and cry at the same time. She emerges from my mother’s bedroom, wearing her favorite dress, eyeglasses, headdress, and hat. Walking with a limp, she holds my mother’s walking stick just as my mother did. Because Mai Chigowo and my mother were approximately the same height and weight, the sahwira—with her face partially covered by the hat—seems to bring my mother back to life.

  Mai Chigowo approaches the mourners and pretends to talk to a young man with a cell phone. She dictates this message for the invisible young man: “Wanyora here zvandataura, umuudze Tererai kuti kana ouya, atiigire mabrofeni”—“I want you to send a text to Tererai! Tell her that on her next visit from America, she must remember to bring back ibuprofen pills for our headaches!”

  In response, some in the room begin to laugh while others wipe away tears. Even I laugh—for the first time since my mother died. Mai Chigowo smiles at me. I smile in return for she has fulfilled one of her fundamental roles—to lighten our grief and to remind us of my mother’s special qualities and extraordinary capacity to care for others.

  Unlike in the West where such a role is either left to family mediators—social workers, psychologists, or the “Dr. Phils” of the world—in my village it is common to have someone in the family or close circle who gives advice. The sahwira is such an adviser, a resource of information on all matters that one might not fully understand, a friend who grounds you and brings a better understanding to some things in life.

  A sahwira can be closer than your blood siblings. She is the one who becomes your sacred sister because she believes in what drives your soul without judging. Sometimes it is not easy for families to listen to pain, to empathize with what hurts us, or to acknowledge and understand the source of the hurt. The code of silence in our families is often much preferred, as it makes it easier for family members to stick together rather than pointing fingers of blame and shame. A sa
hwira has none of that; rather, she gives honest and direct feedback, helps us to face the good and bad, including the source of our pain, and the part anyone played in our suffering, including ourselves.

  The choosing of a sahwira is an organic practice established among many generations. For example, if my family was sahwira to your family, then my grandchildren are more likely to play the role of sahwira to your grandchildren. Like a beneficiary inheritance, however, only good sahwiras take over the relationship as they replace a late sahwira. In informal discussions, members of the community play a role in pointing out good characteristics they see in a potential sahwira that resemble those of the previous (late) sahwira.

  People establish their potential as a sahwira through their behaviors in daily life: we recognize the importance of a person’s role in helping families raise their children, the care and frankness a person uses as they facilitate difficult discussions, and how well someone lightens bereavement and brings joy to celebrations. Sahwiras are also notoriously known for playing the devil’s advocate in difficult discussions that might need out-of-the-box thinking, as well as for exposing destructive secrets that otherwise might have remained hidden because others are afraid to share. Our Korekore families depend upon this close friend to initiate difficult discussions about such sensitive topics as sex, incest, rape, and domestic violence—in other words, it is a socially acknowledged and valued relationship that offers women solidarity with other women.

  You can see then why Mai Chigowo was a woman on a mission: she was my mother’s sahwira, and while she is not a blood relative, she has a special place in the family. My mother’s sahwira helped us see the bigger picture. She kept us attuned to our higher purposes when some of the issues that could trigger us into pain or sorrow were ignited. As a result of her guidance, my mother’s funeral was a meaningful celebration for such an exceptionally beautiful soul.

  My mother and Mai Chigowo were inseparable friends. As widows in their later years, my mother convinced her friend to attend church to alleviate the burden of parenting grandchildren alone. But what cemented their lifelong relationship occurred many years earlier.

  During an era of economic collapse, Mai Chigowo had a land dispute with one of the most powerful men in the village, who also happened to be the son of the village chief. Not surprisingly, when she took the case to the chief, she lost. Without an education or money to hire a lawyer, she and my mother decided to take the case to Chief Dandahwa, the senior chief presiding over all other chiefs in the Hurungwe District. This took real nerve: among the Korekore, women don’t do such things. But the two women were determined. Undaunted by the lack of bus service to Chief Dandahwa’s homestead thirty miles away, my mother and her sahwira walked for days to speak with him.

  The matter was decided in Mai Chigowo’s favor.

  This was a hugely important achievement, one that is rare among the patriarchal Korekore people. In our community, it is rare for a woman to prevail in a formal dispute with a man, as Mai Chigowo did, even if it appears that the woman is in the right. As children, we are taught to believe in a natural disparity between male and female worth, and many of our daily customs help to reinforce the notion that boys have more inherent value than girls. Growing up, my brother Tinashe is addressed with respect as “Moyo Sinyoro” (our heart totem) while I am simply “Tererai.” The message underlying these different greetings is not lost on me.

  Therefore, this experience was a major awakening of these two women’s feminine energy, and they could only have done it together; they knew that an insult to one was an insult to the other, as well as to all women. You could hear Mai Chigowo and my mother’s celebratory ululations a mile away as they danced and let everybody know of their victory. A few days after their return to our village, the two women role-played the whole thing for us.

  My mother took the multiple roles of Chief Dandahwa, the presiding judge, and Mai Chigowo, the plaintiff. Mai Chigowo played the local chief’s son, the defendant. My mother’s voice changed as she switched roles from Chief Dandahwa to Mai Chigowo. She put on the chief’s hat as she addressed the audience in mimicry, and in another minute she wrapped a Zambia cloth around her waist as she impersonated Mai Chigowo. The audience was in stitches with laughter as both women entertained the village, and yet, we could all feel their pain and their victory.

  In that moment, not only did we experience their journey and gain insight into the court’s proceedings, but we also shared in the deep friendship that binds these women together and enables them to fight for what is rightfully theirs. In this way one’s pain becomes shared, their fight becomes a symbol of their commitment to social justice, and makes others realize that women’s narratives and dreams will remain disjointed unless they are willing to not only voice their own pain and longing, but also witness each other’s pain and longing. This empathic sahwira relationship is how we band together.

  Friendship. Mentors. Community. Sahwira. There are many ways to name relationships of support and guidance. In my village and most of Africa we have these formal social support systems, such as a sahwira, that counsel us with vital wisdom, but regardless of your culture, everyone needs these relationships for survival. Sacred sisters, embedded in the sahwira dynamic is the ability of women to rely on each other, and to take risks by being open to love, hurt, and disappointment. This is because to rely on someone means you are willing to share ambitions, joys, and sorrows, and to reveal your own vulnerability.

  Researcher Brené Brown defines vulnerability as an emotional risk that exposes us to uncertainty, and she puts forward the notion that vulnerability is a healthy part of daily life. Brown shares a conclusion that relates directly to the sahwira concept: that vulnerability is “the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”1 We do not simply depend on each other, we also build each other up, and when this happens, we create something greater. In the case of my mother and her sahwira, they banded together and conquered a corrupt local chief, a success that was practically unheard of at the time.

  If there are no formal support structures in place, we must build a sahwira network for ourselves. This is not easily done; just the idea of building such a support network can conflict with the cultural norms with which we were raised, as we so often hear when someone says, “I lifted myself up by my own bootstraps.” We are taught that everyone must exist for themselves, and that we must somehow do it all alone if we want to be successful.

  How many mothers feel isolated and overburdened because we emphasize individual responsibility for child rearing over the social aspects? How many women are unaware that it is sexism that pays them less than their male counterparts at work? Or, sexism keeps them from getting a promotion, because they are socialized to believe that they are individually responsible for getting ahead, rather than to see that their personal concerns are indeed shared by women across the world?

  I am a firm believer in the power of hard work to lift us up and achieve our hearts’ desires, but even the hardest worker cannot do it on their own. Maybe this is possible if we are so powerful that we can impose our individual will on the world, but even then, we would need others to carry out our will. It is not a realistic vision of achievement. There are always other people and other forces that play a major role in our success. Even more important, there is another kind of power accessible to us: not the kind of power that comes from imposing our will on others, or stepping on others to achieve our dreams, or buying into the false belief that we both achieve and fail on our own, but the power to lift ourselves up by lifting each other up. This is the heart of the sahwira.

  When we operate as an island, a number of things occur. We cut off our ability to receive. It is as if we are saying “no” to the creator of the universe on some level. We are also much less likely to help others if we close ourselves off from receiving help. Having a tremendous capacity to receive can also come from our willingness to be generous. I am not necessarily talking about giving away material poss
essions, but giving love, support, time, and energy to others. If we give without the capacity to receive, we become self-sacrificing. And if we only receive without the capacity to give, then we lose touch with the needs of those around us.

  The sahwira tradition helps us remember that our identities are fluid and transferable; it offers us the powerful insight that we are social by nature. The sahwira tradition helps us hold in harmonious balance the seeming tension between personal and communal, for the sahwira shows us that each person has an individual responsibility for the well-being of the entire community, and that the community has a responsibility to the well-being of the individual.

  The Power of Female Friendships

  The first item on writer and professor Roxane Gay’s insightful list of tips for having successful female friendships is: “Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses—pretty but designed to SLOW women down.”2 Why is this so important as to be front and center in advice on friendships among women?

  We all know this myth. It is pervasive in the media, in everything from reality television to the lyrics of pop songs. It’s Alicia Florrick getting slapped in the face by Diane Lockhart in the final moments of The Good Wife, ending a season that had Diane and Alicia flirting with the idea of starting an all-female law firm with a bitter strike at women’s friendship. And although Gay writes about it with such smart humor, it is also quite serious: the cultural myth of toxic female friendships keeps up from the power of each other. We need to celebrate instead the power of female friendships by showing healthy and supportive intentional relationships among women; we need to introduce the sahwira concept anywhere this toxic myth pervades.