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From the Illusion of Separation to the Practice of Love

ADOrduna

This is the written text of my keynote address at the 2026 Annual Santa Monica Area Interfaith Council MLK Breakfast. It is not verbatim as the room at Mt. Olive was filled with spirit and spoke what it wanted in the moment – but these words were written in reverie and offer a jest – acknowledging all of our complicity in our separated/segregated world and our longing to reconnect through love. May these words offer some encouragement and affirmation of what brought you to this site and what you are seeking. Ase’.

I thank my sister Sinaa Greene and her colleague Akinlana Kwesi Williams for carrying the spirit of the drum – ayangulu, and opening the space for spirit to enter. 

From the Illusion of Separation to the Practice of Love . . . 

Dedicated to the people around the world suffering through the wound of separation that causes othering and devolution of human life. 

Elders, Rev. Kathleen Benjamin and Mother Rickie Byars, may I have Permission to begin . . . 

Opening Water Libation

  • Omi tutu – May water be cool
  • Ori tutu – May our heads be cool and open to receive
  • Emi tutu – May our hearts and spirits be cool
  • Ile tutu – May this space be cool
  • Ona tutu – May the road here for those on their way and the road to our homes be cool
  • Ase, ase, ase. 

I come to this gathering reflecting on my 30 years in the homelessness sector and at a crossroads where I feel the wounds within of surviving through extractive policies and transactional solutions normalizing the lifetime experience of homelessness as personal choice and responsibility or as of charity and an accessory of faith (the poor will always be with us ) – these are false illusions of social hierarchies and separation – that ignore the fragmented economic, social, and spiritual root systems that have produced the landscape of where we are today – longing, desiring, missing – deeper connection to ourselves, our feelings and emotions, one another, to the earth, and the divine essence that is bigger than ourselves. – essentially existentially homeless in a world that feels out of control, divisive, and absence of hope, blinded to the blooming of who and where we are in exercise of our divine right to be. 

This poem written during my dissertation process – looking at the overrepresentation of African American men in the Los Angeles homeless response system: 

Oh Great Mother I hear your cries and feel your heaves as you lay down your burden on the river’s edge. Your breasts are no longer filled with the nourishment of milk, but of contaminated blood, shed through the sacrifice of your male child, the pharmako of this society. Your surviving sons are as a lost tribe of Israel, wandering through the desert of life like zombies seeking a sign or symbol to tell them where exactly they belong. As long as they are lost, as their daughter, so am I. Oh great one may you shake the earth with your rhythm so that we feel the beat and dance our way back to home, back to love, back to self.

In his 1956 speech – Birth of a New Nation, Dr. King affirmed “there comes a time when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of exploitation, where they have experienced the bleakness and madness of despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing in the pitying state of an Alpine November. 

My fellow relations, I believe we are in this time now and have gathered to find a remembering of and creation of a new way of relating to one another – and we must understand how we got here. 

From illusion of separation to the practice of love . . . 

Prayer to Osun 

Osun is the great Mother warrior being of light, an orisa, in the Ifa spiritual tradition. She is a defender of humanity and both reminds and users in our understanding of self-love so that we may share love with one-another. 

This is an oriki- a greeting prayer that I would like to offer in this space to open our eyes and hearts to receive. 

Osun ni ki baabaa o si

Ko lo ree bole niwajen igi oko

O ni ki baaboo o si

Ko lo ree bo eruwa lo dan

Ki ona oma doju olona ru mo

Oyiya losun fi n ya won loju peregede

Ya mi lo ju n rinu

Oyiya ya mi loju n rina

Ya mi loju n rina raje

Oyiya ya mi loju n rinu

Ya mi loju n rina ri gbogbo ire

Oyiya ya mi loju n rinu

Osun ordered darkness to move

And land in front of forest trees

Osun ordered darkness to move

And land on the grass in grass fields. 

Least they miss the path again 

It was with comb Osun opened their eyes clearly

Open my eyes to see

Oyiya, open my eyes to see

Open my eyes to see wealth

Oyiya, open my eyes to see

Open my eyes to see all good things

Oyiya, open my eyes to see. 

Ifa as an understanding of our times

In troubling times such as these, it is Ifa, my faith, that I turn to for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding – doing my best, but not always doing it right – to not react too soon emotionally or physically to people, words, action I disagree with – but seeking to see deeper what is the need of the universe being asked to be seen in this moment – remembering that even those who cause me harm are a part of the same human family – a form of agape love where wisdom and understanding come together in sweetness. 

In Odu Osa Adijo – Ifa says

  • Osa take a look
  • Iwori take a look
  • Whatever we look at together, we will be perfect
  • These were Ifa’s declarations for Ologbon (the wise)
  • The same was also declared for Imoran (the Knowledgeable)
  • They were advised to offer ebo
  • They complied
  • Both the wise and the knowledgeable
  • When they meet each other
  • Their matter will be as sweet as honey

Ifa is an old tradition. As a cosmology and culture it survived the period of Enlightenment intact – not undergoing the Carthusian split that separated the European mind from body and opened the portal to colonialism –  “I think therefore I am.”

The sacred is amplified throughout the beingness of the world – our interdependent humanity, water ways, mountains, deserts, animals and vegetation. 

One aspect of Ifa that I love is as an earth-based tradition, when you read through the Odu, you come to understand that every being has a purpose and was intentionally placed on earth as there are many stories about when a certain plant or animal – as well as not just humans, but all of our body parts – came to earth and reference to their purpose or struggle. In sharing their stories – they also point to the medicine in the interconnectedness. 

So how through time and culture have we become so separated when many of our ancient texts  give guidance on the interwovenness and sacredness of humanity? 

Wendell Berry, a 91 year old white southern man – an author and poet who I met through the late bell hooks, said back in the 1970’s  “We are all to some extent the products of our exploitative society, and it would be foolish and self-defeating to pretend that we do not bear its stamp. 

He goes on to state how as we advanced into the modern age – we separated from the interconnectedness of our world and into an imaginary fantasy of a sovereign human that could create the world through materialism and technologies where anything could be commodified and transactional with no accountability as even justice could be bought. 

As I have reflected on the amplified narcissism of our culture and its embodiment among leaders in many settings today – I think about how we have been hoodwinked – to call in Brother Malcom X – into thinking our worth has been pulled outside of ourselves into these objects we call apps and our value cheapened to the number of likes and the more we leverage this intense longing of connection within to talk at people about everything no longer creating anything and yet we are ‘influencers.”

I think about how many people proudly say how many followers they have, yet do not know the name of their grandmother or great-grandmother – let alone 7 generations back. 

Berry -How could we divorce ourselves completely and yet responsibly from the technologies and powers that are destroying our planet? Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose. We can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live. 

The late bell hooks in her book All About Love stated – there is a gap between the values they (we) claim to hold and their (our) willingness to do the work of connecting thought and action, theory and practice to realize these values and thus create a more just society. 

Coming Back to ourselves

So how then, do we come back to ourselves when not only have we been disconnected for so long – but many of us are disillusioned in thinking we ourselves are whole -pointing fingers at everyone else as the problem referring to this illusion of separation when really, we are part of a whole. 

From illusion of separation to the practice of love

Further in Birth of a New Age, Dr. King advised – We must prepare to go into this new age without bitterness. That is a temptation that is a danger to all of those of us who have lived for many years under the yoke of oppression and those of us who have been confronted with injustice, those of us who have lived under the evils of segregation and discrimination, will go into the new age with bitterness and indulging in hate campaigns. We cannot do it that way. For if we do it that way, it will be just a perpetuation of the old way.

Whew – ouch – Dr. King was asking us to reach down into the bellows of the soul – when in these moments of sense making – we are simply seeking to survive. AND, Ifa has helped me understand the call of a new consciousness that is asking to be born.  

In the homelessness services sector – a philosophical approach called harm reduction – centers the vision to see that we live in an abundant world where everyone can meet their needs. Shira Hassan in Saving our Own Lives stated – transformation is never a painless process. Along with growth and expansion comes inevitable pain and suffering. But society must break down.

Paulo Freire advised that “liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person, viable only as the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is superseded by the humanization of all people. 

Clearly we are all gathered here for something new to emerge so we must ask ourselves – what is the work that we are doing right now to prepare for the birth of the emergent? 

Some day I hope we will sit in dialogue and co-vision our beloved community. Until then, I  offer these three steps, a number sacred in Ifa – you, me, and earth as witness – that you can take starting now. 

  1. Apologize to yourself – an act of self-love for all of the ways you have survived the wilderness of modernity – including forging yourself to conform with recognition from dominant society and not attending to the wounds you carry; releasing the shame and stigma that often arises when our value-consciousness meets the authoritarianness of society and we deny our own spiritual, mental, and physical needs and inherent wisdom to fit in. 
  2. Honor your Ancestors – I don’t care if your ancestors owned people or held racists or sexist beliefs or drank too much. No human is all evil or all good. We are humans that have good and bad moments – so can we find the good to honor? Isn’t there someone in your lineage who fought for you? Had a dream for you to be here at this moment? In honoring our Ancestors, we are not calling them from the realm of where they dwell back to the present – yet instead are seeking to shift the wake of their energy left behind on earth so its stagnation does not shapeshift and replicate the harm they may have done on earth.  

In honoring our ancestors – include the lands where you were born, lived, and dwell now; include the plants that nourish our souls through their beauty, nourishment, protection, or medicinal properties. Not long ago, a drunk driver veered off the main road onto the front of our property. The ivy in front of both our neighbor’s home and our home slowed her car down, and our walkway railings steered her away from running into my fiance’s home office in the front of our house, where he was up late working.  (story of ivy and the drunk driver). 

In hooks book on Belonging, she shares stories from her childhood community in Kentucky spoken by the Elders who said their relationship with the earth and attunement to the various cycles of nature – affirmed their belief in a higher power and negated the ideas of supremacy that white people projected onto them during the period of enslavement and beyond. How many of us connect to the earth as teacher for her wisdom gained through the survival of millenia? 

  1. Connect with an Elder – Too  many of our Elders are dying with  libraries of unshared knowledge because in a capitalist, transactional, exploitative society – we do not value aging. I try once a week to ‘hang out’ with my mother-in-love and her friends. The youngest is around 76. I have learned so much from being quiet in their presence, watching their interaction and seeing the genuine excitement that they share when they see one another. Through them, age is no longer a limiting factor on life – and instead learning the sacred value of relationships as the medicine for long-life. We also must recognize that in some cases, elders will be chronologically younger than us too –  out of the mouths of babes. 

Do these things. Apologize to yourself, honor your ancestors, connect with an elder – Be unafraid and surrender where the path will then lead you – Carl jung – once said – the known path is dead.. 

When we heal ourselves – and disrupt the separation within us – we will by universal law change the world. 

I end with this final quote from Birth of a Nation – taking license to think about physical segregation as a collective spiritual separation – – 

“So that we are not to think that segregation will die without an effort and working against it. Segregation is still a reality in America. We still confront it in the South and it is blaring in conspicuous forms. We still confront it in the North in its hidden and subtle form. But if democracy is to live, segregation must die. Segregation is evil, segregation is against the will of the Almighty God, segregation is opposed to everything that democracy stands for, segregation is nothing but slavery covered up with the niceties of complexities. So we must continue to work against it.”

Thank you for listening. 

May the Mothers be pleased with these words and may those inspired to action be supported, and may we all walk out of here in the spirit of love. 

Ase, Ase, Ase.

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Dear Drunk Driver,

ADOrduna

I am glad that you survived your crash on our property and able to walk away with what looked like not even a scratch. You could have died by hitting at least two light poles and about 4 trees. Yet your angels were watching over you. 

I understand this wasn’t your first DUI and you have faced other law enforcement engagements. And yet, there was a little girl’s backpack in your car – a child perhaps? I am glad you will have an opportunity to speak with her again.  

While my first reaction was shocked at the damage you caused to our property, I then boiled with anger when I realized how you could have driven into the studio office where my finance was working. I am grateful to our guardian angels for protecting us, him, our home, even you. At that moment, I felt you were selfish and careless. How could you drive? Why did people let you drive home? Why didn’t you call an Uber or Lyft? I initially didn’t care if they locked you up, yet the human in me both felt sorry that you would have to spend the weekend in Twin Towers – a place no one should ever enter, and wondered if you had been there before, what difference would this time make? 

I obviously don’t know you, and yet your presence will linger in our minds for the rest of our lives. You interrupted our sense of peace. I don’t think people really reflect on the wake their actions leave – no judgement on the quality – just the fact that there is always residue of our spirits left behind. 

We have spent the weekend readjusting the energy to secure our house back to peace. Hugged the tree. Swept the debris. We aren’t rich in money, but live modestly in careers that we love. A friend connected us to this place for healing – my partner from his pending divorce and my recovery from breast cancer and grief from the reality of never being able to have a child. 

Our home is our sanctuary – the place that nurtures our creativity, the place to rest, the place to prepare home-cooked meals that feed our soul, and a place where friends and family can visit for shelter, respite and safety or simple laughter. A place we hope to age together.

Now when I open my door and see our twisted railing, tire tracks across the ivy, metal pieces projected into the tree, and as I sweep up endless shards of glass and other debris – I feel the connection of our souls through the intersection of our paths early on a Sunday morning just after midnight. 

I can’t imagine internal wounds or simple addiction to the alcoholic taste, I just hope you find a way to honor this chance to live another day, have another conversation with your daughter and loved-ones, and even more importantly love yourself to see many, many more days ahead.  All of our actions impact our living environments, even when no one is hurt or killed, a call to all to remember our interconnectedness.

Drunk driving doesn’t just impact the driver. It impacts the entire community.

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Be Free

ADOrduna

I hate meetings before 10:00 as they stifle my morning moments – yet at this risk of being late, I had to write these words that came so demanding in my twilight dreams and so clearly in between yoga poses.

Recalling Thomas Jefferson’s words of “what to do with the Negro?” in Notes on the State of Virginia I understand that there will always be a certain set number of people who since the kindling of the idea to create the perfect union where European paupers could become kings of their own plantations; and whom are so deeply wounded with moral injury of consciousness from kidnapping, trafficking, raping, killing, and enslaving fellow human beings – Biblical descendants of Ham- that their collective unconscious refuses to see today’s Black person in skins of a radiant hues from honey-milk to copper brown to royal purple and indigo black – as human.

From a dream of the white gaze

To them I say – be free. Stop obsessing over our Blackness allowing us to live rent free in your mind, dreams, ambitions, and fears. Free yourselves and enjoy your all-inclusive segregated ecosystems of people who look like you – your neighborhoods, schools, restaurants, stores, travel clubs and golf courses, board rooms and state rooms. Live in your gated communities. Love who you love. Measure your own merit and achievement on your own standards of those who are like you. Collect your own taxes and profits from one another or not. Hire those whom you trust. Speak freely without fear of cancellation. Continue to vote for candidates who think like you and dare to be governed by them.

In short – live your life in the ideal world of your imagination without waiting for us to disappear. Take all of this and be free at the simple cost of forgetting that we exist and NEVER speaking of us again. No policies, practices, violent encounters, jujitsu words, selling/marketing, listening to our music nor adapting our dances and rhythms, praying to our gods, stealing our medicines, spying on our innovations, stealing or poisoning our lands, entering our communities, raping our women and children, incarcerating our men, or collecting income of any sorts from us.

Be you. Because thankfully, you are actually a minority. The rest of the world, including many who look like you, live in a higher consciousness of a world of abundance and divine intellect built on a web of belonging where everyone and being of the animal and natural world – have a contribution to make, and it is our interdependence – not just our diversity, that makes us stronger. Stop fighting. Stop jarring with words. Stop the violence. Simply Be. Be free.

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Safety Planning Under Authoritarianism

ADOrduna

Economic crisis produced spiraling inflation, speculation, hoarding, and shortages of basic necessities. Industrial production dropped, unemployment increased, and sales of consumer goods shark, resulting in demonstrations and strikes that by July culminated in a forty-eight-hour general strike by over seven million workers throughout the country. In response, the congress passed legislation legitimizing repression of the opposition.

Love in a time of Hate – Liberation Psychology in Latin America by Nancy Caro Hollander – an interviewees awareness of the rise of the 1974 authoritarian regime in Argentina

How do we know if this moment is a complete collapse of American democracy as we know it? If we are in a transitionary era of authoritarianism? Dictatorship? A period of revenge by the grandsons of those who lost both the American Revolution and the Civil War determined to eliminate everyone who is not White, male, cis-gender, able, Christian, rich, conservative, and heterosexual?

I believe we are. I don’t know the days ahead. The emergence through rupture and pain, can be rich, dark, nourished, and evolves from the collective visioning and manifestation of our cultural psyche. And, for peace of mind and grounding – here is my safety plan for the chaos. COVID was a dress rehearsal for these times. Are we ready?

This plan comes out of lessons learned from living through 9/11, COVID, and active shooter defense training; studying liberation psychologists like Franz Fanon, Nancy Caro Hollander, Orlando Bishop, Mary Watkins, and Ignacio Martín-Baŕo; and too many wildfire/earthquake warnings.

It is not exhausted and may it provide inspiration to you and your family to create your own plan:

1) Retain the will the live. No matter how tense areas of life may become, always, even force yourself to see yourself alive on the other side of the current situation. Many survivors of street violence, torture, mass-shootings, and social violence survived by believing that they would.

2) Know your surroundings at all times. Unsettling times brings out the worst in many people. Recall the junior high school yard where insecurities ranged high as people struggled to understand who they were as they sought to fit in. In these times, small runs to the coffee shop or gas station can become hostile with folks emboldened in white supremacy thinking, regardless of ethnicity and skin color. Make sure your cell phone is charged and you have a portable charged charger in case you need to call for help. Identify exits as soon as you enter a room and if cornered, what can be used as a weapon to block and/or protect yourself.

3) Manage anxiety. All of our emotions are high, even frayed. Yet, when we are hurting, fearful, angry, or however we are in our feelings – we can escalate violence and further threatened the wellbeing of ourselves or those we love. Practice meditations to control the breath or keep some sort of fidget toy or smooth stone in your pocket to play with to bring you back into your power stance – a place of coolness, steadfastness, nimbleness, and agility so that you can respond in the best way possible to whatever comes your way.

4) Limit watching the news/social media. Understand that the bombardment of activities, actions, ‘executive orders’ is a strategy to overwhelm the senses and push the psyche into a state of fear and confusion for social control. Resist the temptation to be plugged in at all times. This is a fear response that somehow you will miss something of importance or waiting on pins and needles for something evil to happen. Instead, pick a time of day to check in on the news and pin SM sites that bring you joy (e.g. your favorite YouTube video).

5) Strengthen trusted social bonds (e.g. family and friends). We need small, safe, supportive, and trusted circles of friends and colleagues to help us move through this moment. Even with suffering around – don’t self-isolate or isolate others. Instead make time to check-in, text someone a funny Gif, host a small gathering on your front porch or back-yard scratch pad, enjoy the parks and botanical gardens, enjoy a coffee at a local coffee shop. In these spaces, honor your feelings, share, allow your tears to fall. At the end of the time together, collectively find a pathway towards hope and hold each other accountable.  

6) Fight for joy. Joy affirms our right to be. It is not happiness, it is the emotional substance that emerges after or risk of suffering that reminds us we are still alive. It could be – saying no to a meeting you do not have the emotional capacity to participate in, sleeping in, or dancing in the rain with a loved one.

7) Keep cash on hand. Keep at least 2 to 3 months of expenses in cash in a safe, accessible place. We never know if there will be disruptions in the banking system or you have to move around and it may not be safe to go to the bank. Also keep various money apps like CashApp, Venmo, Zelle too as not everyone will take cash at all times.  

8) Identify safe meeting places and have an evacuation plan. There may be events that make getting home delayed or hindered.  Have a few rendezvous places to go temporarily until safe to get back home. In L.A. – have someone in each direction. In addition to private homes, also think of parking lots, parks, parking lots, libraries, schools, etc.  Also, be sure to plan for Elders and others with limited mobility to help them evacuate. As the Eaton fire was starting to burn and we heard an increase in fire truck sirens, my partner and I made a concerted effort to go get his Mom. We were afraid that by time she was told to evacuate – it would be too congested to pick her up. Trusting your gut will go a long way.

9) Create a family communication plan. During emergencies and periods of system-level stress, we may experience more frequent power outages which knock out wi-fi and cordless phone systems. Have a back-up way to communicate including use of apps like Whats App, reddit, etc. Ensure you have a portable charger for cell phones and keep it charged. Have a transistor radio with plenty of batteries or solar charged. Also, create a distress word in case a loved one is detained and may not be able to go into details on their situation. Identify an advocate or lawyer who will take your call if needed. Identify someone out of state. Finally, make sure you and your loved ones tell each other where you are going and a reasonable time that you will be back. No more, “I’ll be right back,” especially if curfews are put into place.

10) Identify/create safe food/water supplies and other infrastructure. During COVID when supply chains were interrupted – many people returned to gardening to create a stable food supply, even if just creating a potted porch garden or joining a local community garden. Keep bottled water and if safe and feasible, collect rain water. Also acquire a range of tools that can also be weaponized if needed, but mostly to be used to fill in the gap if government services collapse. Check flashlights, lanterns, and other items every six-months to update batteries.  

11) Keep your car gassed up and supplied. Rapid mobility is key is times of disasters. Keep your car gassed up with at least a half tank at all times. Keep a small suitcase in your trunk or rear that includes a change of clothes, underwear, sneakers, snacks, blanket, flashlight, and emergency kit. Have a battery charger and jumper cables and emergency utility tool that you can use to break windows and cut seatbelt in case you are in an accident and need to quickly evacuate the car.  

12) Protect and copy key documents and passwords. Make and keep copies of birth certificates, passports, DL and keep up with renewals.

13) Double down on reaffirming self. Re-read your favorite books that uplifted social identities important to you or a biography of someone you admire. Write, dance, paint, create music. Watch life-affirming movies. Cook your grandma’s favorite recipe. Find one action a day to reaffirm the divine human being of who you and/or your loved ones are.

14) Have faith – Dream. Be true to yourself. Try to stay present in healthy ways and not escape to denial. Be self-reflective with grace. Take time to imagine or reimagine the world you want for yourself and future generations. Remember nothing is permanent. Even rain is never the same.

May everyone be safe. Know you are loved. Time keeps going forward and we will to carry us to the other side.

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A Call Home

ADOrduna

Thank you President Conroy, the Dominican Sisters, Gloria and my friend from junior high school – Jouslynn Griffin for inviting me to join you on your inaugural celebration of the African American family.

It is no accident that each of us are here to share this space in this moment. Look around you. Be aware of who else is in this environment. Some of us have been directly impacted by the recent wildfires, whereas at least everyone else knows someone. We have gathered in the safety of sanctuary to be present with one another. Others have come seeking an opportunity to advance their educational journeys in one of the finest institutions in the world and a safe place where girls and young adults can both be poured into with academic and spiritual enrichment, and explore who they are with affirmation and encouragement. Some of you may be current students and coming to learn, be seen, or be an ally to friends living their own Black experience. And then there are some of us that are just here to be. No matter why you are here, know you are in the right place. Together, we will write “Our” story – affirming our presence today and into the future.

You heard my bio – a collection of doing. But let me share who I am.

  • I am the daughter of the late Dora Aliese Jones Brou.
  • I am the granddaughter of the late Florence Orduna Hickerson and Aliese Lucille Robinson Jones. 
  • I am the great granddaughter of Callie Butler, Manwilla Jones, Pearl Tolbert, and Bessie Hill. 
  • I am the great, great granddaughter of Mary Looney Jones, Phoebe Briggs, Dora Durham Butler, Jennie Bell,  Velmer Saunders, Martha Howard, and Bruna Lopez.
  • I am the great, great, great granddaughter of Minerva Foster Looney, Tena Bell, Mary Strange, Nancy Houston, 
  • I am the great, great, great, great granddaughter of Roxanne Campbell 

Many of these women in my lineage experienced periods of enslavement and survived, both protecting their families and adopting in families separated from their own – kinship. Others lived through the period of post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era, migrating away from our southern roots in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to find new opportunities of freedom, safety and economic mobility in the Midwestern cities of Chicago and Omaha, NE. My mom and those of her generation, later migrated west first to Pasadena, CA – many who stayed until retirement before relocating back south. Each generation in its own right participated in their own form of resilience and resistance to settle in a place called “home” an elusive concept of place where they could experience a sense of belonging and purpose.

As their living descendent, I too have experienced this longing for home, journeying from Pasadena to New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and back to Los Angeles, and Pasadena adjacent in South Pas. The late bell hooks once stated that we are called home when we are ready to slow down and settle down. And it is not lost on me, that as soon as I moved in close proximity to the safest place in the world that I have known, after running away for so many years, it suddenly and violently erupts into transformative fires that call into question and reflection, the collective meaning of home, especially the meaning of home to Black folks and the Black family.

First, to begin, I would like to acknowledge the Chumash, Tataviam, and the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples who were the original caretakers of this land and all of their descendants who continue to thrive, work, preserve their culture, and continue to care for these lands today. It is an honor to be a guest in their homeland.

I would like to recognize and acknowledge the labor upon which our country, state, and institutions are built. We remember that our country was built on the labor of enslaved people who were kidnapped and brought to the US from the African continent and recognize the continued contribution of their survivors. We also acknowledge all immigrant and indigenous labor, including voluntary, involuntary, trafficked, forced, and undocumented peoples who contributed to the building of the country and continue to serve within our labor force. I particularly want to uplift our Indigenous communities – many who were involuntary forced into labor, and people of communities of Mexican, Central American, Fillipino, and Chinese descent who made significant contributions to the building of the state of California. I acknowledge labor inequities and the shared responsibility for combatting oppressive systems in our daily work.

Finally, I would like to open this gathering as a healing space that affirms the presence of each of you here today. In my spiritual tradition of Ifa, we use water to cleanse and cool spaces so that as we gather together, we can release the heavy thoughts on our mind and be present and supported in our convening. We say too that when coming to earth, water was asked to make sacrifice and it did rewarding it with the gift of creating a pathway forward wherever it flows. May our coming together, create a healing path of justice and transformation as we move forward in rebuilding our cities and nation and lives into one where all experience a sense of belonging.

Omi tutu – may water be cool

Ona tutu – may the road be cool

Ile tutu – may our homes be cool and peaceful

Emi tutu – may our spirits/hearts/emotions be cool

Ori tutu – may our heads be cool

Tutu laroye – may the crossroads where important decisions have to be made – be cool

Tutu egun – may those who came before us be cool and take pride in our efforts here on earth, as we continue to remember and uplift their righteous deeds performed when they were here.

Alashowada tutu – may our gathering be cool.

Ase – so it may be

Ase – so it may be

Ase – so it may be.

[ring bell]

Since the fires and even back in the early days of COVID – remembering the late Sci-fi and Afro-futurist writer Octavia Butler keeps emerging as her words have become guides to navigate these climate changing and politically divisive times. Elder Butler was a Pasadena resident and prolific writer who leveraged her historical knowing and future forecasting to create the Parable collection of stories and other series in the mid-90’s (the last century) that have in many ways described today’s conditions. I thus would like to honor her contribution in these words that I share today.  

When I think about my ancestors, I often think about what were the vision, stories, and gifts they focused on during their time that they hoped their future generations would draw upon to thrive and know who we were outside of projections and limitations put upon us because of our skin color, gender, sexual orientation, where we were born, and socio-economic status. As I prepared for today, what came up for me were themes of dreaming, community/kinship, joy, and home.

Let’s explore these themes.

Dreaming –

We must dare to dream. In honest conversation among ourselves as Black folks, although TicToks on manifestation and Black Girl Magic are trending, we are skeptical about dreaming and receiving the material results of our thoughts based on a history of having what we worked for – suddenly taken away. Maybe we have been dreaming of a new car to finally purchase one and it is stolen; maybe we landed a great summer job or internship to suddenly be laid-off; or maybe we finally acquired our parent’s home or were able to purchase a home of our own from the wealth they created throughout their lives – to have it suddenly destroyed in an unexpected wildfire – such as what has happened to so many.

We cannot let adversity stop up from dreaming. Dreaming is an act of writing ourselves into the future in the life we want and deserve. For Octavia Butler, writing was a process of harnessing the depths of the collective imagination, and encrypting the vision she saw onto paper as security for existence into the future so that we could be here today. I think of this act dreaming, imagining, and writing as creating a passport for the future.

Yes, we may be separated from the material manifestation of our dreams, however we should not stop dreaming out of fear, but instead honor the powerful ability to see something in our mind’s eye – often as a beacon during desperate times – and bring it to life. If you have done it once, you can do it again.

Community:

In her book, Parable of the Talents, Butler wrote about her imagined community of Earth Seed: Our gatherings, aside from weddings, funerals, welcomings, or holiday celebration, are discussions. They’re problem-solving session, they’re times of planning, healing, learning, creating, times of focusing, and reshaping ourselves.

By show of hands, has anyone in the room ever attended a family reunion or a high school or college homecoming? National or regional Divine 9 convention? Maybe a journey back to the Motherland or church summer revival? These are all forms of gathering.

Why do we participate? Gatherings are an important aspect of Black culture that hold community together and create a sense of belonging. Many of the examples we shared happened prior to cell phones and emails – people from across the South and other regions – knew when to come together based on the cycles we were in such as harvest or planting times or new and full moons, solstices, etc.

Gatherings create safe places for Black folks to come together and be seen again (meaning we have survived and are still alive); a place to share news on kinfolks and loved ones; express culture to keep knowledge and healthy traditions going; to dance and take up space in a world that wants to confine us.

Gatherings usually take place in spaces that hold meaning. I think about the Annual Turkey Tussle tradition that takes place at the Rose Bowl between Pasadena High School (my alma mater) and John Muir High School. Although a football showdown between the two schools, students and alumni and community members from all the local schools also attend and it is a homecoming for many who share memories of school, place, special events (prom and homecoming), and at a deeper level – people who share certain values, belief, mannerisms, language, etc – that have been informed by their experience.

On this campus, gatherings are the special rituals and ceremonies that build community and a shared identity. Rather a special welcoming for incoming students to special recognition upon graduating to mark the completion of this part of your journey and wish you well as you move on.

Joy

While the devastation from the fires is beyond comprehension, the response from the community to uplift those who have lost everything, has been joyful – a testament that joy comes from suffering – a protective response to sustain hope and purpose – driving forces to thrive in life.

At the same time, I want to clarify that joyfulness is not a substitution for trauma and pain, but a coping mechanism to get through it. Since the period of slavery, how we have responded in resistance to acts of dehumanization and subjugation, have been misappropriated to beliefs that we do not feel pain or suffer from burdensome emotions like other cultural groups. This is untrue and has led to health disparities experienced today. Death, loss, grief, depression, anger, injury, fear, etc. impact us on par as others, yet it is the intergenerational memory of the frequency of sudden loss and displacement that is embedded within our DNA – imprinted from living in a racial hierarchical world based on white supremacy – that we prepare and respond to tragedies with joy. We sing, we dance, we gather, we write, we laugh, we tell jokes, we mimic, we give back and take care of one another – at times, even when we ourselves have lost it all.

How many of you have participated in a mutual aid effort to help other during this time? Volunteering at a local relief center, donating goods, transporting goods to people in need, sheltering kinfolks who had to evacuate, donating to a GoFundMe, cooking a meal, collecting items for hygiene packages, etc. You are a living example of joy.

This goodness of the heart compliments the pain and this expression of love moves like water retaining a sense of connection and ties to place – these gestures can make a place feel like home.

Home

I have worked in the houselessness sector for nearly 30 years. I have transitioned from using the term homelessness to houselessness, because even in witnessing some of the most desperate situations – I have come to learn that like the concept of hope, we can never take the meaning of home away from someone – as that is often the dream they are holding onto that wakes them up each day and gives them something to strive towards – creates an act of motion – “going home”, “being home,” “looking for home,” “settling into home,” “rebuilding home.”

As I mentioned in the opening – it took me the journey of the first half of life to find home. Similarly, to a heroine’s journey – I thought “out there” would be better than where I was. I was someone who could feel alone in a crowded room – accepted, but not quite feeling like I belonged. Has anyone else ever had that feeling?

Well, it took some maturity within me to fully define what home even meant. This included a process of reading, research, and listening to stories from the houselessness sector. Through these experiences, I came to understand home as a framework of aligned values, a place where all of me was affirmed and I felt enough, where I felt safe and protected, where expressing myself came natural and was not ‘policed’, and where I could offer and receive love. Through this new awareness of what home could be – I found it through repairing relationships with my family; writing in an authentic voice; reconnecting with my high school sweetheart; and even being gifted a beautiful cottage home that not only supports me, but that somehow expands to allow us to temporarily shelter others in need.  

When I talk to family members, my partner, and friends on the meaning of Dena (Altadena and Pasadena) as home I often hear their stories that formed this region of the world as the place where the dreams of Black folks manifested into a safe pocket where they could experience safety, validation, financial security, wellbeing, and belonging.  It has its shadows too, but the good far outweighs the stress of the “isms” found in other parts of the region, state, nation, and world.

Exercise:

But this is my story. While I hope it may have inspired some thoughts – I want to know, what is your story? What does home mean to you?

Each of you should have an index card or two and a writing utensil. I think there is something magic about the act of writing, however if typing into your phone is easier – please do so by all means.

I am going to guide you through a series of questions with pauses in between so you can write what comes up for you, then we will take 5 minutes pairing up with a neighbor to share a few of your thoughts on the meaning of home.

1) Think of a time that you felt a sense of belonging. What were the cues in the physical environment that made you feel as if you belonged? E.g. sounds, sites, people, scents, physical comfort.

2) How did it feel to belong? What were the emotions or physiological responses (warmth, smiling, high/low heart rate)?

3) Now reflect on the concept of home. What does home mean to you?

4) Are there any overlaps between having a sense of belonging and home?

5) What do you need to carry the sentiment of belonging and home so that anywhere you go, you can find your welcoming place?  

  • Now, turn to a neighbor.
  • Introduce yourself and something about you – maybe – what brought you here today.
  • One person will take up to 2 minutes to share what came up for you, and the other person will listen without interruption. Then switch. You will have about 5 to 6 minutes total.
  • If we have time, I will then take a few examples from the audience.

Closing

In closing, I thank Flintridge Sacred Heart for hosting this space to reflect on the resiliency of the African American family and to share learnings from the history of our resilience to help us move through these times and the unknown ahead.

I hope that if this place is or becomes your place of residence, if you have recently repopulated your house after the fires, or you are in transition between here and there, until your house can be rebuilt – that you hold onto this meaning of home as a connecting strength gifted by the universe. That the uncomfortability of being in a new environment or the disruption of physical space does not hinder your sense of belonging or impede any other part of your identity. Find your people, your place, your song, your dance, your re-membering of who you are.

The specific key take-aways that I want you to remember are:

1) Dream yourself into the future that you imagine

2) Continue to gather in places of meaning where you are affirmed and are able to affirm others.

3) Lead with joy to compliment feelings of anger, grief, and loss, etc.

4) Find “home” for you and nurture the sacredness in its meaning so that the universe can meet you with love, validation, affirmation, connection and joy.

Close out with this affirmation from Octavia’s Parable of the Talents:

We have lived before

We will live again

We will be silk,

Stone,

Mind,

Star,

We will be scattered,

Gathered,

Molded,

Probed,

We will live,

And we will serve life.

We will shape God

And God will shape us

Again,

Always again,

Forever more.

God is change

And in the end

God prevails.

Thank you!

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Remarks: SPA 6 Vigil

ADOrduna

Thank you, Reba, Shannon, and members of the SPA 6 coalition, for the invitation to speak today as we honor our fallen unhoused siblings and make meaning of their lives through dialogue on solutions to this ongoing and growing crisis.

Nationally, there are many memorial vigils happening in correlation with the annual solstice – the longest night of the year. For those of us who practice earth-based traditions in observance of the many natural cycles –  this is a quiet time of stillness – quieting the mind to hear our own internal compasses and words of wisdom from the divine.

And as I prepare for this year’s Solstice, I have been noticing the many distractions that surface in my mind’s eye. More than other times, I find myself spending a considerable amount of energy protecting my space – my mental, physical, and spiritual composition that makes me, me. Some of these distractions are internal (e.g., does the laundry need to be done? Does anyone else see those dust bunnies behind the bookcase? Maybe I should reorganize my closet?  Should I attend that zoom meeting although my body hurts and I am tired?); and some distractions are external as the world around me counters the energy of this Northern hemisphere season of darkness to “push through” as if sitting still will erase one’s presence and all of their previous contributions from the collective memory.

As a test – count how many emails received after Thanksgiving through the New Year – are asking you to do something (e.g.; give, act, attend, host, join) compared to supporting your being where one simply says – thinking of you and holding thoughts for your greatest wellbeing.

Why is slowing down important? Because when we do not take time to pause, reflect, turn off the ego – we may push forward harm – to ourselves, to those seeking to support us, to those we seek to serve. It is painful when I enter conversations with siblings navigating homelessness services who speak of the trauma caused not from being on the streets – but the rules, demands, treatment, tone, and undelivered promises of our homeless response system. These are the harms that we unintentionally create when we do not take the time to care for ourselves. The old adage – hurt people hurt people – is true.

When we – the policymakers, service providers, system navigators, advocates, funders, enforcers, responders, peers – fail to pause, we often enter into auto-pilot where we lost our creative spark or joy in the work; or we may focus on things that we think we control like numbers (e.g.; How many attended? How many served? How many donated? How many housed? How many passed?) – numbing the complexity and frustrations of the crisis we are seeking to address and creating a dehumanizing effect on ourselves, the stories behind the numbers we share, and the people in need of the support we seek to offer. How many times have we heard – that [fill in the blank] event, agency, person – made me feel like a number, an act violating potential trust.

The late Paulo Freire stated, “functionally, oppression is domesticating. To no longer be prey to its force, one must emerge from it and turn upon it. This can be done only by means of the praxis: reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.”

Through the racial reckoning of 2020 – we collectively learned about white supremacy culture and the internalization of production as a means of relevance and being seen; Privileging “doing” over “being.”

And yet in more indigenous practices – especially in traditional Black culture – we understand that time, relationship building, dialogue, collaboration, stillness and reflection create life affirming and sustainable pathways towards solutions that best uplift and protect our communities. Over my life, I have spent time in the South – and even later when I lived in Philadelphia – it was not uncommon to see older aunties and uncles sitting on the porch – quiet, saying only a few words or raised hand to passer-byers. Or how many people have an older adult or old soul in their life who hums? As they work, tapping into the vibrational knowing of sound.

What wisdom came to them through those moments of reflection? How was it passed on to our benefit? Growing up, chopping up something – celery, onion, bell peppers – around the kitchen table listening to the women in my family and occasional male relative passing through to sample the cooking – is how I learned so much about our family history and approaches to life through stories. Now we have book clubs and FB groups and line dance classes and I guess TicTok (for now) where life hacks are shared. But how do we do we listen with intention and not how we will take the moment to speak? How can we age cultivating the quality of wisdom of those who came before us and out of the mouths of babes (before society conforms them), especially as we prepare to enter a time of unpredictable change and divisiveness?

Let me be clear – my message on reflection is not an excuse to delay urgency. We are in a growing and deepening human crisis. It is more the quiet before a battle – where before you suit up in armored clothing – we take time to rest and clear our minds, understand our mission, release the messaging from the critic inside our heads that we are not enough, or we are damaged. We dream and see ourselves in the world that we are fighting for – and yes – dreaming requires safety – but even if it is in the crack of a 5-minute walk from here to there – we must dream to sustain the vibrancy of our souls and the liberations of our placement on this earth. If a person does not carry their own dreams – they are susceptible to being the slave of others who project their desires upon them. We are free.

In conclusion – I ask that we move forward in this gathering with the confidence that we hold the knowledge on ending homelessness, especially in SPA 6. And tomorrow –with the oncoming of Measure A and other resources – we will advocate for funding for our solutions. But on today, I challenge you to look in the proverbial mirror and ask yourself the following questions:

  • How have I mourned the collective grief from witnessing human suffering?
  • Where does the wound of homelessness sit within me?
  • What steps have I taken to heal this wound?
  • Who am I surrounded by when even through the toughest of circumstances –I hear their name and feel joy? safe? seen?
  • What are the unique gifts, talents, and contributions that I bring to the work?
  • What is one action step that I can take to lean into stillness in this darkened season? (e.g. bake cookies, write notes in Christmas cards, go for a walk, sit in a park, make dinner with a friend you have been wanting to catch up with, sleep in)

Up to five to six siblings who experienced houselessness have transitioned from this life each day this year, representing nearly 2500 people in Los Angeles alone. In my tradition of Ifá, we call them Ancestors. May we uplift their names – even if we do not know them. May we honor their time on this earth – by committing to homelessness no more. May we reflect on our own lives and live in such a way that others will remember us and speak our name when we are here no longer.

12/19/24

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Liberation of the Feminine

ADOrduna

The Church imprisoned the Queen of Angels in a glass display case, and when the people showered her with more flowers than the Pope – flowers grown out of the bones of Ancestors erased, they took the Queen away and made a seating area for their wanderers seeking redemption from living.

What is the path towards liberation? Specifically, the freedom of sovereignty for the woman’s body in a female world managed by ego-fed men and women with beards?

A breakthrough of harden molds shaped over time by the waves of social thought and commentary – out maneuvering colonial guards, wardens and death sentences to arise and be.

It is recognition of Self as the source of water sought in the barren desert riverbeds experienced on walks across the molten glass-shaped sands sweeping the edges of here and there; life and death; birth and renewal; love and loss seeking the courageous feel of the heart.

With open arms as wide as the bank-full, I float on the gentle surface of rushing waters – taking up space as broad as I can imagine – letting my head fall under the surface to deafen the cacophony of demands to settle in peace so still I hear the heartbeat of me and all of my feminine bloodstream relations; Feeling the water wash away the residue of words, thoughts, memories, experiences ~ anchored in my lady parts manifesting discomfort and dis-ease.

Cleansed so pure not even the Black widow’s bite can paralyze the acting of late-life desires entitled after years of sacrifice. Freeing regrets crystalized in the womb – delivering them back into the earth to become compost and fertilized dreams birthed as Ancestors returned in the future.

I am free. I am sovereign. I am beauty. I am love. I am creating my own ethereal path of liberation.

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Puppy Love Post 50

ADOrduna

Puppy love: A gift of a little frog from a boy school mate when I was around 8. Scared to take it on the school bus, I hid it in an empty plastic juice bottle so the driver would not see it. It died and I don’t remember if the boy spoke to me again.  

But this love is seasoned; real love that stirs my womb. This man is a man and his love is thick like a velvety band around my heart with the utmost confidence and protection. 

This is primordial love. One from beyond the stars and centered in Ancestral dust. One that is patient and understanding. One that survives apart knowing he is on his own life mission, as am I, to experience and gain wisdom; a separation of only seconds on the clock of eternity. 

Yet, without doubt, the moment comes within our respected lifetimes, when internalized clocks of longing are activated by fated chaps and the magnetize attraction of celestial bonds calls me to my lover, reunited to finish out the current iteration of our earthly journey together so that we can return home together in time.

Hearts broken; ideations smashed; streets filled with shock and disbelief from our current friends and lovers; yet living without him leaves me with a dampened spark to live and the desire to return home before it is time –  ablazed, yearning to be back with source, my divine mate with whom I keep finding and finding again in each lifetime, even after promises to enjoy our current earthly experience without each other. Perhaps this time, I’ve been gone too long, or has he?

And yet even with this cosmological knowledge, being human brings unfolded emotions of love and pain. How then do I hold a porous love returned? One bruised by past and recent hurts that is in itself in search of love as a topical to heal the pain.

I kiss its tears and hold him down as we share the details of our journey. I apologize for not returning sooner, although I tried. I promise to hold on to his words of ‘I will never leave you again.’ And I open my heart for all the possibilities and line it with honey to absorb the upcoming unexpected jarbs of life, so my soul can continue to love him and receive his love that has restored my joy. 

This is the story of the Konjourman and Magician- a king and a queen – primordial lovers who arise out of the desert sands to be. To be. To be the embodiment of everlasting love. 

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Holy Woman

ADOrduna

Who is the Holy Woman standing at the edge of society, hands over her heart, eyes cast down, taking up space with her presence, yet invisible to people walking by. Tattered, faded robes draped by dreaded graying hair, bundled in strength, hiding-nurturing secret medicines for humankind.

Oh Great Holy One, you who feel the pain of community with each inhale breath, how many times have you journeyed to earth? How many scars paint your body – souvenirs of your many transits – you who seeks beauty in discarded people and places? Your heart aches but it does not bleed.

Illuminated One, who hovers over the earthen lands, divinely connected to the greater mysteries of the One. Worldly translator of roseal wisdom from the Divine, receiving in modification to prevent your heart from burning out like a shooting star by the magnificence of the Word and devoted to sharing it across the land in common language of food, dance, poetry, and song.

Mystical One, primordial wisdom incarnated in feminine form. Loving, joyful, seductively attracting humankind with sashaying hips, golden breasts full of milk to nourish, accented steps with brass bells mined from the Motherland; cenote eyes drawing dear ones in; intoxicating voice with your humming tonal vibration.

Strange One who rests on the fiery desert floor of burning sand during the high-noon sun, basking in the pure oasis of waters at the base of the opulent palm tree garden; re-awakening at night to soar with your blackened gold wings, observing household transgressions thought to be hidden by the darken skies void of the moon.

Beloved One, the rounded womb sanctuary who is present at creation when the embryo transforms into life and shepherds its safe passage into world, should it decide to stay; and who too is present at death to direct the spirit into the worlds of its belief, while receiving the body back into the earth so it may compost to nourish crops and consumed, cannibalized, never forgotten through the metabolic connection.  

Strong One, who resists and devours man’s many attempts to concretize you back into the earth, forcing forgetting among your daughter through martyrs of death, submission of their sovereign bodies by rape and execution, and internalization of patriarchy that swindles mothers and fathers into selling their blood to street markets in exchange for cheap trinkets masked as wealth.

Devotional One, untouchable to mainstream society – cast aside for acts that happened to you in the shadowed allies of world, yet whose prayers are amplified by your innocence of heart and unwavering belief, an example that God’s loving grace illuminates from our own inner temples without judgement.

Oh Holy One, Wanderer, Chosen Woman, Soul of strength and purpose who knows your worth more than the enlightened ones dressed in fine clothes and who foolishly seek to regulate the freedoms of world and judge Divine law.

Incarnation of Love, sweetness dropping from your soiled garments perfuming the space we share with a floral breeze, Oh how I wish I could be like thee; humble, strong, courageous, devotional, and thoughtful.

Holy Woman Mystic, please open my eyes so I can see you when you are at the city’s edge. Open my womb so I can recreate you to multiply your efforts in bringing balance back to the world. Open my heart so I can feel your essence and believe again in love.  

a.d.orduna 03/20/23 

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Osun: Return of the Feminine to the Human Soul (published Oct. 12, 2022)

ADOrduna

https://www.flipsnack.com/florencealiesenetwork/osun-whispering-of-wisdom-from-the-waters/full-view.html

Through my magic golden mirror, in the future I look back to the time when Obaluaye walked the earth and the women in the village of women returned the feminine back to human consciousness.

Do you remember?

Since crossing the seas, the sacred body of Olokun – the god.goddess of psyche and mystery in the Yoruba tradition, humans have evolved with amnesia of the sacred feminine inside of them – tilting the universe out of balance.

Halt – says the cosmic policeman. Esu. The one who sits at the top of the Babalawo’s Opon – the crossroads between heaven and earth; past and future. The one who sees it all and reports to Olodumare, the Supreme being.

Hearing the whispers of Ogboni, the universal court of justice, Esu conjures up the rainbow warrior tribe of Oya – the shemale who wears a beard and dances in a skirt weaved of rainbow scarves and bones as she simultaneously dances across the landscapes of earth and multiple universes bringing about sudden and transformative change. 

Esu commands Oya and her rainbow warriors to carry the sun’s breath in the fabric of their mighty winds stirring the sands carpeting the earth’s desert floors. On contact, their kiss of cosmic breath vibrates into the cracked, dry, droughted earth, sending tremors into the underlying fault lines, causing lands to quake and rivers to overflow and flood.

Birds pause and fly upwards, returning to Orun- heaven; animals seep into the velvet curtain of the deep forests and oceans; sacred plants immolate- catch themselves on fire – to protect their seeds for future generations; and great leaders fall into a deep sleep leaving only their footprints as evidence of their time on earth.

The cacophony of the chaos reaches down into the bellows of the earth’s soul where Baba- the one who spreads the pox – lies sleeping bored with social isolation and banished by human’s fears of his power, medicine, and being.

Jostled from his slumber by the desperate cry of the universe, Baba grabs his staff and palm fronds and manifests into humankind, hoping to awaken consciousness in the hearts and minds of humans destroying earth with hunger, greed, rape, exploited labor and power, pollution, homelessness – led by selfish leaders with broken character- violating the pact of coexistence between humans and Onile- Mother Earth.

The King of Earth was enraged and prepared to defend his Mother, Protector, and our sacred Orisa.  

Oya rides with Baba, applying her winds to spread medicine hidden in his palm fronds that dispersed into the air like dandelions seeds as he danced. Baba’s medicinal motion intoxicates every community he enters, shapeshifting arun – the ajogun of illness – into airborne structures that lodged into life sustaining passageways blocking the flow of air to lungs and clotting bloodstreams, commanding attention by stopping humans from breathing.

The pounding of grave digging for burials of bodies piling returning to the womb of earth, weakened the psychic membrane suppressing historical secrets of inequities, rising them to the surface like festering wounds needing to be healed. Historical archetypal energies of racism and patriarchy embolden in the chaos, seek to resist the change Baba and Oya are bringing to the world.

Tensions rupture in the climax of George Floyd’s cry for his mother as he labored through his last breaths under the knee of one possessed with past karma circulating since the first colonial ship. George’s cry vibrates across the universe. As his Mother comes forward from the ancestral realm to grab his hand and carry him home, women in the village of women too heard his call and ran to the river to see what was happening down below.

The women in the village of women ran away many moons ago as an act of defiance to the changing traditions that switched the energy of the world from feminine to masculine. They are women warriors – who escaped death on earth and in their isolation became keepers of the traditions and protectors of the future. They fought men who tried to enter their kingdom until the men found ways to exist without them and stopped trying to bring them home. Through time they forgot about earth and without their energy feeding the soul, their legacies on earth forgot them too. That is until dreams of remembrance of another way, began seeping into consciousness as their off-springs sought to navigate through these turbulent times through the calling of their ancestors.  

With guilt and fear, the women of the village of women looked deep into the river and saw the havoc on earth and saw Mother earth’s womb filling up with bodies piling up on top of decaying trash.

And then they saw him – the king – Obabaluaye – walking the earth, shaking his palm fronds – with illness and death falling in his wake.

Where is Osun they cried? Where is Yeye – Mother? Had she left earth again? remembering the time Osun left earth in Odu Ose-Tura, when as the only female irunmole she was ignored and disrespected so she left and earth began to die, only agreeing to return when she gave birth to the male energy of Esu.

On cue Osun appears out of the water with a cadre of women, dressed in white. Women who had been praying since the first breath of the sun touched the earth. Women who held the faith of Osun’s love and protection of humanity. Women like Iyalorixa Mainha da Bahia, a daughter of Oxum and mother to many communities the world over – for whom when the world leaned into fear and violence, continued to pray and lead with love.

Osun spoke to the women in the village of women in a stern, yet loving voice – “it’s time. It’s time to return back to earth. We must return with confidence and self-love, ownership of our own sensuality, respect for one another, willingness to tend to the wounds of the earth and protect her from new injury. We must learn how to forgive and re-enter into relationships with men – those that through all of this are willing to redefine their manhood in harmony with earth. It is time to burn the village of utopia and return to love ones in the present – bringing our Black queen magic to the alchemic pot in the creation of a new consciousness of love.

The women in the village of women returned to earth. The ways of the Ancient Mothers rose out of darkness into the public square through dance, song, ritual, initiation- aloshuada- our coming together. The feminine is back. It is inside of you, me, us. We thank our Elders the keepers of the tradition for preserving this knowledge so we can learn to become better caretakers of self and world.