Birthdays are special to me. I like to think of unique ways to celebrate, creating memories to help me mark time and remember the gifts of wisdom, life and time. Sometimes I get close, like the 14 day cruise for my 50th, 6 months after my birthday. The gift to myself was memorable, as was the ocassion. Other times, I miss the mark and find myself on a plane or worse yet stuck in an airport. And then, there are those moments when the Universe conspires in way that are beyond planning.
This year, I was in Jamaica, the land of my birth for my birthday. I was there for a hearing on the legacies of slavery and yet it was a special time for me. As we heard testimony, I was struck by the ways in which inferiority and self-hatred were fed to enslaved people and their descendants. I am convinced this is a disease that must be eradicated if African descendant people are to be free, fully emancipated in body, mind and spirit.
Among the many gifts received was this poem which I co-authored with a dear brother Keon Heywood from Guyana. The poem was written two days after we met as participants in the hearing. “barely breathing” was given to us on the breath of the Ancestors, and was witnessed by the trees as we sat on the porch, capturing the words as they came. (The video is at the end of the post).