Inner Life Writes: A Manifesto For RE-Connecting To Love, RE-Newing Your Light and Radiating Your Light
Author: Denise James
This following piece of writing is taken from the Introduction of my new book, Inner Life Writes: A Manifesto For RE-Connecting To Love, RE-Newing Your Light and Radiating Your Light. Book two in my Back To Love series.
Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The literal translation for the word and the symbol is “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”– Carter G. Woodson, ‘The Mis-Education Of The Negro’
Sankofar is derived from the words: SAN (return), KO(go), FA (look, seek and take)
Visually and Symbolically, Sankofa is expressed as a mythic bird with its feet firmly planted forward with its head turned backwards. The Akan believe the past serves as a guide for planning the future and that there is wisdom in learning from the past which ensures a strong future. For the Akan there must be movement and new learning as time passes.
Carter G. Woodson was an African-American scholar whose dedication to celebrating the historic contributions of Black people, led to the establishment of Black History Month which is marked every February in America since 1976, following suit in London, England, in 1987.
Carter G. Woodson, in his ground-breaking book, ‘The Mis- Education of the Negro’, draws on the meaning and importance of Sankofar to help African people rediscover and reclaim back their true history and identity, as Historic Generational Identity theft had taken place. In this body of my work, ‘Inner Life Writes’, individual pieces of my writing speak on this looking back to UN-learn, RE-learn and RE-turn to who I truly am and move, more securely, towards my purpose in this world; the reason for our being here, and being here truly.
It has been thirty-six years since I made that Sankofa Braveheart move to go and get help for the psychological wounds I had incurred from a past that was my childhood. Past hurts, unprocessed, in need of being grieved and healed, enough that I may RE–new and RE-turn and go/grow on. It has been some journey, one that has included the healing of the racial trauma from the experience of being a Black African (Caribbean British-born) woman in this time. Generationally healing from the experience of slavery which, just like the loss of my childhood, continues to negatively impact today.
Black people today are still losing their lives at the destructive hands of the ‘malignant powers that be’ laws. And the black child, by the age of 3 years old, has already swallowed wholesale Western society’s unconscious envy, masked in hatred of his darker hue brothers and sisters, now internalised in the black child as self-hatred; also known as Internalised Racism. The traumatic is set skin-deep. Black people have been very much mis-educated against; an education in the Western world that feels more like a violence, like an experience of being ‘done to’ as a race of people. It is very wise to understand this – this mis-education hurts us all! It hurts the world and its future livelihood. The cry of the Sankofa has never been so loud at this current time and in this current climate in the world. As Dr. Martin Luther King warns,
We must LEARN to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.
So, from the healing-dream-making-journey I have been on, I have discovered my reason for being is to start with myself and dare to make that RE-turn for the sake of the planet, the love of my people, and the joy and fulfilment of my Soul. My Soul just loves that stuff!! Just loves that kind of deep and true life and living.
Having RE-turned from the wreckage of my personal & collective past, arriving at my more psychologically, racially, spiritually liberated Self, I believe my purpose on this earth plane is to be a Light-Giver and Bearer, offering in the sharing of my Inner-sight, pearls of wisdom: lessons learned from The Great Wisdom School of Learning from Experience to Progress and Move Forward.
Like the Ancient Egyptian Goddess, Maat, I bring my heart to bear and weigh against the light of my most deep and true inner-outer life experience, coming from my Soul’s unique perspective. I own these Inner Life RE-flections. I own them totally and soulfully, knowing that how I see, we see, “the world” is “filtered through our own individual experiences: one REALity many people to experience it, in unique diversity. Out of One, many.
The Critical Psychological and Philosophical Analysis INSights/ Her Says (Essays) shared here are raw, real, relevant and contemporary, “filled with the wisdom gained from knowing myself deeply, from this learning and RE-turning, and learning and RE-turning some more. Some of the Essays/Her Says shared here are memoir-like, some teachings, some poetry. All very human and applicable to the human (felt) experience and condition. The Personal is universal as well as political.
I truly believe, as human beings, we have that something inside so strong, that InnerLight In-Sight, that can help us overcome almost anything and everything in this life, whilst holding steadfast to an unwavering love for humanity, in all its light forms. This collection, and petition of and for opening more to Inner Life, are on subjects very close to my heart and the Heart and Soul of my healing, RE-Newal and RE-turn. Subject matters which us humans struggle & grapple with, which have reached fever pitch in the world again today. Yet, a critical mass has been building, especially off the back of the 2020 Pandemic that was, still is, and still has us reeling from, Covid. Michael Meade in his book, ‘Awakening the Soul’, sums up most beautifully this Renewing way of being & experiencing the world more lit and awake when he said,
In the course of Life, we must awaken to a greater Sense of Self or else become more isolated, divided and subject to increasing anxieties and feelings of helplessness and despair. The most common reason for despair and alienation comes from not being who we truly are at the Core of Our Souls. The human Soul, by its very nature, is ancient and resilient.
For more, buy Inner Life Writes, available at all book selling outlets.