Journey to Empowerment Page 3

  Building Bridges

  BY MARY E. PASCHALL

  Busy hands clap for Jesus, vibrations fill the air, Moans of joy, moans of sorrow, sometimes in silent prayer,

  When I think of Mt. Nebo, its fragrant pine-needle path,

  Trees and cousins aplenty, those memories make me laugh.

  Busy hands churning butter, cooks everything from scratch,

  Country sausage, fried apples, sweet oatmeal none could match,

  I think of a country homestead with a sweet magnolia tree,

  Warm, cozy patchwork quilting, those memories strengthen me.

  Busy hands create a poultice, pungent, strong medicine,

  Red flannel warmth flowed freely, healed me from toe to chin,

  Memories of Momma Celie’s steaming spiked-honey tea,

  Still Angels linger watching, those memories comfort me.

  Busy hands making biscuits, crochet scarves Argo stiff,

  Cactus plants in red clay pots, create sharp, pointed tips,

  Memories of seeds and harvests, big families once strong,

  Take me to the water, those memories linger on.

  Busy hands peeling apples, tart slices, simmering sauce,

  Steamy, hot-sugared laughter, red-checkered tablecloth,

  Strong bridges brought me over, times I just can’t repeat,

  But when my life tastes bitter, those memories are sweet.

  Journey to Self-Awareness

  I stand poised before my canvas,

  I am Fearless.

  I reflect upon Your Teachings,

  I am Meditative.

  I create the extraordinary,

  I am Divinely Guided.

  I am a vibrant work of sacred art,

  I am Beautiful.

  I portray the essence of Spirit,

  I am Blessed.

  I am Radiance, Love,

  Grace and Accord.

  —Maria Denise Dowd

  Silent Cry for Love

  BY LOIS H. CARTER

  I remember crying silently in the backseat of my cousin’s car. I was about sixteen. My older sister, my cousin and I were coming back from a party. I remember being thankful for the darkness of the car so that they wouldn’t notice my tears. I was crying because I didn’t think I was pretty like my sister and cousin. I’ve always been overweight and was very conscious of it. I didn’t love myself and that feeling stayed with me for a long time.

  I had no idea what to expect when I participated in a women’s Rites of Passage workshop. It turned out to be a most rewarding experience. While the women I met were from all walks of life, within that weekend we became like sisters. I remember singing, “Am I my sister’s keeper? Yes, I am!” with them and rejoicing in that fact. I felt the love and it was beautiful. A seed was planted within me that weekend. It was the beginning of a transformation for me, one that was completely unexpected.

  Although I had a better idea of what to expect when I participated in the Rites of Passage again the following year, I was still in for a surprise. Both times were amazing experiences, but what became a part of me the first year made the second time more special. The seed that had been planted was about to blossom. Although it was for only a couple of days, it truly felt like a journey. Our spiritual teacher’s heart was so loving, it was as if I’d known her all of my life. She gave me a gift that I always carry with me. She heard my silent cry for love, self-love. She told me that I was a queen, and by the end of that weekend I felt like one. This time around, deep in my soul, I believed it! For the first time in my life, I truly felt beautiful inside and out!

  I remember gazing around the room at the different women dressed in white, waiting for our “crossing over” ceremony to begin. I saw how beautiful black women are in all our diverse colors, shapes, features and sizes. And I was one of them! I cried silently again…but this time it was for joy! And it wasn’t about the outer beauty. We were all smiling and our inner glow radiated. We were queens and proud of it.

  We were all given cards with angels on them at the end of the Rites of Passage ceremony. It was so fitting that the card I received was the Angel of Beauty. That weekend was the beginning of my journey to self-love. From that special day forward, whenever self-hatred rears its ugly head, I promptly remind myself, “I’m a queen.” With that affirmation, I hold my head up and face the world as the beautiful black queen that I know I am.

  Life is not an intellectual experience.

  —Robin Johnson

  I am limitless power;

  My old perception of

  Restrictions or boundaries

  Are only illusions.

  —Ona Brown

  Mama Was a Magician

  BY EDNA OLIVE

  My mama was a magician. Yes, that had to be it. In my unsophisticated, barely educated and yet-to-be cluttered seven-year-old brain, there was no other logical explanation. It was 1967. And, it was the year I discovered I had a magician for a mother.

  It’s been said that God works in mysterious ways. On that day, I discovered there was something different and special about my mama. This time, God was working through a chest cold. On the wondrous morning that changed my life forever, I woke up and realized I didn’t feel well. So in my most sickly and pitiful voice, I told Mama I had a cold and that I couldn’t possibly go to school.

  I’m the youngest in my family and I always believed this position should’ve come with certain privileges that my older sister didn’t have, such as being catered to when I was sick. But this particular privilege didn’t seem to be in effect today. Instead of my mama saying, “Okay, little one, you can stay home,” my hopes for staying under the covers dissolved when I heard the words, “Well, I can’t stay home, your daddy can’t stay home and your sister can’t stay home, so you’ll just have to go to work with me.”

  “Go to work with you?” I thought. “Didn’t you hear me? The baby girl is sick! I need to stay home!”

  But I knew Mama and nothing could change her mind. It never did. So in resentful silence, peppered with the occasional mumble under my breath about how unreasonable my mama was being, I dragged myself through my morning routine. I washed up as I had been taught to, put on my clothes, made my bed, gave my teeth the usual quick brushing, snatched a few tissues out of the box for the trip in the car and headed to work with a magician who happened to have me as a daughter.

  As we pulled into the parking lot, my thoughts were filled with the boredom awaiting me on the second floor in the room belonging to my mama. I coughed my way into the office where Mama signed in every morning. I sighed my way up the stairs to Room 205, the place where I never suspected Mama worked her magic every day. I sniff led myself across the floor and plopped into the chair that matched the desk where, I soon discovered, Mama hid all kinds of secret magician things. And, in her typical fashion, Mama gave me a pencil, some paper and a book and told me to read and write something to keep myself busy and, most importantly, quiet. So I dragged the pencil, the paper and the book across the desk and began to quietly busy myself.

  Early in the day I was so involved in entertaining myself and making sure I coughed at the right intervals, I didn’t notice the magic. Kids came into the room and they seemed so much bigger and older than me. Some of them noticed me sitting at my mama’s desk and asked who I was. Mama told them I was her baby girl and that I was sick today but assured them they were going to do their work as usual. Some of them smiled at me and said “Hi,” and I sneered back. After all, I was sick. Some of them were loud and engrossed in their adolescent whirlwinds. These kids didn’t speak to me at all, but I sneered at them, too. Mostly, I just sat at the desk quiet and bored, with a drippy nose, reading and writing words neatly with my No. 2 pencil on the white paper with blue lines.

  Swinging my legs back and forth from Mama’s wooden chair with the wheels, I wished I were home under the covers. I didn’t want to be bothered with these irritating kids my mama had the dubious honor of interacting with. But even in th
e midst of my disgust with my current circumstances, I became aware that something magical was unfolding. Although the exact moment eluded me, the realization gradually descended upon me as the day progressed. Something special was happening. The children in Room 205 were changing and my mama was the reason.

  It all began with a look. As Mama walked around the room, I noticed that she was smiling. Then, I noticed that the kids were smiling back at her. And through all the smiling, the kids and Mama kept talking to each other the entire time. I don’t think the room was ever totally silent. Instead, there was a constant, happy chatter. From my place at the wooden desk, I wondered what they were talking about and what they were all so happy about. After all, didn’t they care? The baby girl was sick! They just kept talking and smiling and smiling and talking.

  I asked myself, “What was Mama asking them? Why were they smiling at her when she talked to them? What were they saying to her that made her smile so much?”

  There was so much smiling going on in the midst of my sniff les and coughs, I decided I’d better pay attention so I could get happy, too. So I put down my No. 2 pencil and pushed aside my white, blue-lined paper with all the neat words written on it. And I watched and listened.

  Somehow I figured out that Mama and the kids were talking about a book. A book! That’s what all the happiness was about? A book? Not that I had anything against books. I had dozens of books at home. Mama read to me all the time and we both loved it. But Mama didn’t smile about any of my books like she was smiling now. And there definitely wasn’t any giddy laughter like Mama had going with these kids. I began to worry. Perhaps they were doing something to please Mama I couldn’t do, something that only much older and bigger kids could do. Then I realized they were reading the book to Mama. Reading? That’s what all the excitement was about? They were happy about something as simple as reading? Heck, I could do that! My chest cold and my blue-lined paper all but forgotten, I decided to pay closer attention to see exactly what was happening between these smiling kids and my laughing mama.

  It went something like this:

  Mama would ask a question and one of her students might mumble, “I don’t know the answer. Ask someone else.”

  “Oh, no,” Mama would smile and say. “You know the answer.”

  Then Mama would give him some information or ask him to read the book a little more. Then, he’d read some more and suddenly, he’d blurt out the answer!

  “Yes! I knew you could do it! You’re right,” Mama would declare. And he would actually smile back at her! He might even laugh with her! What in the world was going on in Room 205? I decided to watch some more. So I leaned forward across the big wooden desk and stretched as far as I could, so I wouldn’t miss a single word.

  Next, Mama would ask a girl, “Do you know what that word means?”

  “Tell me what you think it means,” she would whisper.

  “I don’t know, Mrs. O. Ask someone else to tell you,” one girl shyly replied.

  And Mama would say, “Oh, yes, you do know what it means. Try reading the words around it and then guess what it means in the sentence.”

  And the girl would read the entire sentence and tell Mama what the word meant. Then there would be more smiling and laughing.

  Now I was really amazed. I was consumed with my discovery. My mama knew how to perform these wonderful magic tricks with kids. It was inconceivable to me to think my mama could just give a kid a clue, and like magic—they knew stuff! What was going on?

  From that moment forward, as I watched Mama work her strange and wonderful magic on the girls and boys who sat before her, I knew I wanted to do it, too. I had to do it, too. So, through a runny nose and a sore, dry throat, I accidentally and joyously discovered the thing that shaped my life from that day to this very day: My mama was a magician and my mama was a teacher.

  Music to Our Ears, Lyrics for Our Creative Soul

  BY MARIA DENISE DOWD

  Listen and you will hear

  Her birdsong of synchronicity and rhythm.

  Breathe and you will smell

  Her flowers lay hands on rainbows.

  Touch and you will feel

  Her waters cavort with harmony.

  Watch and you will witness

  Her enchanting confections of

  Sun, moon, planets and stars…

  In perfect accord with man and womankind.

  Do you feel the vibrations of Her Spirit?

  To know and assert your Spirit-guided creative self brings about a kind of joy that transcends all that is mundane and challenging in our lives. I can stake this claim because I, too, am a lifetime member of our Creator’s magnificent concerto.

  In God’s melodic universe, we are born genetically imprinted to pursue our creative propensities. We recognize it only when we open our eyes, ears and hearts to the spectacular art of Nature.

  This rhythm is made strikingly evident by the universe when feelings are stirred inside our souls by merely watching a sunset or tide come in. Every waking (and sleeping) hour, God delivers our sheets of music. Are you open to receiving?

  She calls upon us to be a part of Her sweet, sweet symphony. However, She only presents Herself just below the bass line…then, she waits unwearyingly. She waits for humankind to engage in its litany of life’s recitals. She waits for us to discover—at the appointed time and hopefully in this lifetime—our God-given vocations, then waits for us to begin our practice, and refine our workwomanship. Our Creator is our booking agent. She opens doors and presents opportunities.

  But what do too many of us do? Instead of getting to work on our creations, we are often a “no-show.” We shun our rehearsals by taking the easy, low or no road to death’s end. Instead of making music, we allow the bows of dictates, mandates, laziness, fatigue, hostility, sorrow or mania to overtake our artistic sensibilities. Rather than answering our Creator’s calls to compose works of art or science, we decompose. We hear no music because we tune it out. Consequently, we ruefully sap the song out of our lives.

  It’s not God’s intent for us to imitate, heckle, or nod our way through life. She calls for us to evict fear from the house (or, at least relegate it to the very last row), situate our creative energies onstage, and trust that She has taken the very best of box seats. When we follow our calling and do it wholeheartedly, She’ll reassure us with encores, and She’ll restring our hearts with faith. Our vocation is to embrace, not deny, our or anyone else’s lyrics. Then, sing praises to God.

  Whether your creative calling is to bear children, fruit, music, conferences, civics, grassroots causes, a cure for cancer or a mélange of many—know it, assert it and be guided by Spirit.

  I see the seedlings,

  The newness of God Stuff

  Growing before my eyes.

  And it fascinates me to no end,

  No end in sight.

  Only beginnings.

  —Maria Denise Dowd

  Cultural Shock

  BY CHERYL M. COCROFT-NOBLE

  In nineteen hundred ninety-seven, fresh from Milwaukee, full of enthusiasm,

  I was introduced to another side of San Diego via the street people.

  Young and old, white and black, male and female lying in the streets, one leg, no legs, using their salesmanship on me, teaching me how to deal with my own personal doubts. You should never give up!

  I stared at first, not sure of what I saw, then I looked away, began to build a wall so I could go about my daily task of not becoming one of them.

  Not only women street people, but also women in transition, had a special effect on me because I, too, am a woman, you see. Yes, one could knock on society’s doors of plenty one too many times, sit down to rest from the pain of rejection, then say, “What the hell, I’m giving up.”

  My own consciousness is the key for me not to become one of them.

  I am told that they are there for many reasons that could lead to homelessness. For new arrivals here, there was only the YWCA availab
le for women who had limited resources for a residence.

  What did we do wrong along the way to get to this? Hotels and motels cater to wealth, which I do not manifest now.

  But why are women and mothers, the image, the creatress—why is there no room in the inn for us? Has our labor of love, our toiling on the earth, our unselfish love been in vain?

  From a home with multiple rooms to one room that is rented for months could be seen as a prison to some, a vacation for others—it depends on the circumstance.

  A simple matter of a late check from whatever source could put you or me on the streets if you had no family or friends to rely upon.

  Moreover, if you have not doctored on your self-worth and self-esteem—too many nos and negative outcomes may lead to your breaking point.

  It seems to me we need to raise consciousness about this situation, because too many of us women are becoming a nameless, faceless “them” etching out a survival on the street.

  * * *

  I’m a Divine work of art and I’m proud of these qualities that I possess…

  * * *

  The Dark Night of My Soul Journey

  BY REV. VICTORIA LEE-OWENS

  I first encountered my conscious destiny more than twenty-five years ago, when I stood at what was a crossroad in my life, unaware that I had entered a place of dark journeying. I would either recover spiritually and physically from self-inflicted degradation or lose my life, not necessarily dying a human death, or remain in a zombie-ish state, wandering bewildered through life. It would be an additional five years of drifting along as an unlearned parent to five children, after three failed marriages, the last one being of an abusive course, before I realized that I was emotionally still a child.