Sankofa. It means to go back.
To give thanks and praises to the Creator, regardless of the name in which we call Him/Her.
To remember our ancestors, we know not by name, and their ultimate sacrifice.
To remember our recent ancestors, and the wisdom their lives left behind.
To reflect on where we have been, to be clearer on where we are headed.
This is my personal diary of the last decade of experiences with attending Sankofa: The Caravan to the Ancestors, hosted by the Houston Chapter of the National Black United Front….and how these experiences changed my life.
The intent of this is not only to inspire all who have attended a Sankofa: Caravan to the Ancestors to share their their stories, but to bring an artistic and literary perspective to the history of this ceremony.
The art of storytelling has long been a part of ancestral tradition. 2010’s diary gives my perspective of this ceremony as a “transitioning Christian.”
Pataki. Oni mi Ojo Abameta, Owara Merindilogun, Odun Egbawa Mewa,
Merindilogbon ojo Igba Ooru.
Translate: Diary. Today is Saturday, October 16th, 2010, 26 days into Autumn Equinox.
The day vibrated on an 11/2…a day of spiritual mastery.
The Moon was waxing in the 11th house of Aquarius.
It was a 3 year.
My very first caravan was caravan number 13. That adds up to a 4, a number so divinely aligned with my destiny. This year’s Sankofa was in memorial tribute to Dr. Imari Abubakari Obadele, focusing on land, power, reparations, and self-determination.
It was one of the most beautiful Saturdays of my life. It was new, and one of the first times in my life I felt my spirit elevate, then open up. There were many familiar embraces from spiritual family I never met. Love and mystery were all in the air, universal, spiritual, and even intimate in equal measure. It was a relationship I was in at the time that led to my ending up there.
It was an action-packed year for me, a prophesied rebirth that changed my vision of dragonflies, Ogun taking my car away and changing my life’s roads, and being at a crossroads where blood ties with my bloodline. I had no idea how much I needed this.
We arrived on the beach as the officiating priests were collectively administering their prayers of all faiths. I had never seen it before, and I praised the Divine for the sight! There were Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, those of the Ausar/Auset faith, and Ifa Orisa priests, altogether in the name of one God/ess, void of quarrels as to whose belief was more real. It was the first time I saw us LITERALLY as one nation under a groove. I could feel my inner rhythms tune in to that which my DNA always knew, but was foreign to my surface understanding. I blame it on the drum language. I removed my shoes and felt my energy fuse from a B-Sunday sharp….to a B-Flat I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-I-believe, to a B-Natural in the divinity I’ve always been. As a transitioning Christian, I knew a thing or three about laying my burdens down by the riverside and wading in the water. But this was a whole other ball game. Why?Because THIS…was its origin.
I gazed upon 2 seas. One was Mother Ocean’s currents on the backdrop of Father Sky’s glow. The other was a sea of beautiful indigenous people dressed in white. It was nothing like anything I had ever seen before.
In the midst of all of the mingling, my mate and date decided to “have me looked at” by a traditional practitioner. I had no idea what that meant, and I was skeptical because I was still shaking off the teaching that such things were sinful and demonic. The next thing I knew, this strange man started walking in a circles around me. My man (at the time) gave me a look of reassurance to match my glare of alarm. I then gave the same alarming look to the lady who was with the priest circling me. She gave a similar reassuring look that all was well. This was new, but my spirit told me to see what would happen. I allowed myself to shed some fear attached to religious indoctrination. He circled me three times before coming into the center of the circle where I was standing. He removed his sunglasses and beamed deeply into my eyes. I simply stared right back, and neither of us blinked for about 30 to 45 seconds. He closed his eyes, nodded his head, put his sunglasses back on, and went back over to my man. I watched them talk, but I did not hear what was said. It later came back to me from both parties that the priest’s revelation about me was a warning to him…a warning that I was wielding a strong “ase” that I was unaware of, and that mistreating me would not go well for him. The funny thing was, the intention of “having me looked at” was to reveal whether or not my love was loyal to him. I was just learning what “ase” was, and had no idea how to see myself as wielding power. It was a warning I would never hear the end of, until this power was revealed, and a warning my mate unfortunately failed to heed.
Back in the main circle, I noticed that people were going to a table, gathering handfuls of beans, grains, and fruits and taking them to the water. Others were going into the water. Some were praising, others wept. People were embracing, singing, and doing all forms of praise. It was truly beautiful. However, I wasn’t yet open to participate in group ritual. Instead, I walked a ways down the beach where I could have a moment alone. I walked until my spirit told me to stop. The drums and the crowd were more in the far distance, and as I listened to the wind and the waves, I meditated on what sacrifice and offerings meant to me. Usually, the first thing to came to my mind was the sacrifice of Christ. It dissolved into visions of crosses to nooses, my grandfathers hanging from trees. My grandmothers working their fingers to the bone, ever silent in their trauma and suffering. It hit me. Hard. Documented a million times over, my ancestors were and are my Jesus. They died for me, literally. I shed tears of gratitude for this truth, and I saw my father’s face. I knew enough about ancestor offerings to make an offering of foods my father loved, so I did that in private..and I did one thing more. I’d brought a very important piece of paper that represented my ultimate offering to the spirit world. I stepped into the water enough to cover my ankles, and prayed until my tears were one with the sea. I laid the paper on the water, and watched the sea carry it away until it was no longer in sight.
As I made my way back to the dispersing crowd, I felt so much lighter, stronger, and more aware, feeling my first taste of the “ase” the priest may have been talking about. A group of women embraced me before we left, and told me the sea’s name. Yemoja. Ase.
Ase in Love,
iiiYansaje T. Muse
Hear the audio version of these diaries infused with old skool music and other mystic teachings on 222.9 The Mothership Internet Radio!
