Our Mothers and the Motherland

A speech, adapted from June 29th! 2014

Habari Gani?

Our Mothers and the Motherland…

I think this is an amazing topic. I have had so many mothers — literally — I call most of them Mama.

I have my mommy, Barbara E. Evans who was not truly able to independently care after me since I was four, and passed on to the realm of the ancestors just as I turned 17. I can only recall the times I lived with my mommy and siblings as a preadolescent in Indianapolis’ Washington Township, 71st & Harcourt. Finally we lived near Shortridge, what used to be a public middle school, for 5th and 8th grade. By 8th grade, my mom and I shared a humble studio in a shitty (literally) public housing high rise, directly across from Shortridge on 34th and Meridian (the building has been boarded up for years).

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Because my mom was ultimately too sick to care for me and my siblings, I lived with my Aunt Sharon, my second mother, and was cared after by her for 10 years total in multiple homes. First I lived with my aunt in San Jose, California, then in inner-city Indianapolis (south of Broad Ripple, now called SoBro), and finally in Washington Township, east of Broad Ripple. As I started to allow my community and school to groom me into the person that I wanted to be, I started attracting mamas. There was Mrs. Berry, who’s now Mama Berry who I gained in middle school (third mama lol, you get the picture). Kind of consecutively, I gained my Mama M & my Mama Angie, the former from high school biology class and the latter my choir and youth director from my home church, Shiloh MBC.

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When I went off to college at Spelman in Atlanta, I attracted my Mama Johnson, then my Mama Veta, and my Mama Mandara (the last two from a Siddha yoga meditation practice of Atlanta). And as of late, as a struggling grad student in Philadelphia I attracted an adorable Mama Atiya Ola and Mama Dida, equally adorable (the latter having ties to Philly, Indiana, and Zanzibar — just like me). When I was abroad, I had two homestays, one is where I first learned Kiswahili. On top of Mt. Meru, the second tallest Mountain in Tanzania — not too far from Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain on the continent of Afrika (this is legit how the motherland is spelled in Kiswahili). My first mama there was named Mama Pili, and we had a grand time, her oldest daughter is named Pili and since she was off to school I would go by Pili when some locals would ask me my name. Mama Pili was also one of the first persons to call me Aprili, as opposed to April, besides everyone else in Tz.

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In Tanzania (Tz), where I spent most of my time abroad (I visited 6 other countries through the East, West, North and South of the continent), women are called by mama and then the first name of their firstborn child (thus, my Mama Pili). This reinforced my great adoration for addressing everyone as mama. In a traditional sense, one is not considered a woman until they have had a child. My second home stay was with the Maasai tribe, where I lived in a mud hut with a straw roof in a desert setting, near an active volcano — which is called Oldo Nyo Lengai, Mountain of God. All of the women in my study abroad program were called “girl”, kind of viciously, because we did not have children.

There were so many Mamas throughout my time in Afrika, traveling and learning for a year at first and then returning time and time again. In Nigeria, where I spent my first Christmas abroad, I was welcomed by the Minister of Finance of Nigeria and her beautiful family, and she simply goes by Auntie Ngozi — now I call her mommy too! She is a great mama in my life and treats me as her own. All the mamas in Naija were offered reverence by being called Auntie. Kenya shared some of the same traits as Tz when it came to addressing mamas.

In the orphanage where I resided and volunteered in Uganda, there was more of a tradition as is used in the U.S., we would say mama and then the woman’s last name. In Ghana we have what is called the Queen Mother of a village or even a region. Our very own community member Sis. Marshariki, was installed as a Queen Mother in Ghana. And lastly, of the Bantu countries that I visited, South Africa’s mama’s are called Cici, as well as their sisters and Sistahs on the street.

Upon returning to the U.S. in 2010, I was introduced to Mamas of the communities I joined, such as Mama Afiya, and Mama Aminata Umoja of Atlanta. Then, since 2014 I have reconnected with and accumulated more church mamas, such as my Mama Katrina and Mama Zenobia Offutt of Shiloh MBC here in Indy/Nap and one mama — Queenesta — adopted from my friend’s mama, holdin’ it down in Chicago. And Mama Qo, holding it down in Baltimore, Maryland. I would be remiss if I did not mention them today as I look over this speech, originally written nearly four years ago.

So, I say all of this about Mamas around the world and share these stories because, we are mothered by the earth, our mother/brother earth. By our Creator’s grace, we are able to witness this mothering through many beings in this human experience. I know I am not the only one. I know that there have been many mothers stepping up to make each of us the people we are today. We all accumulate mamas who deserve recognition, even if they never get to see it in their lifetime.

Finally, my grandmother has been a great mother throughout my life and she turned my life upside-down when she made her transition to the realm of ancestors on my grandfather’s birthday, in 2016. She shared the greatest advice and most loving embrace. I realize I am shaped by all of these women, and the women who shaped them.

The universe is designed to have the village required to raise a child be automatic — people just fall in line. And so I named all of those great women because I want to give thanks for everyone who has come across my path and has stayed awhile, especially to show me some grand guidance. I hope we all can give thanks for the efforts our mothers have given us and I request a moment of silence to ponder on that point. First I’ll ask everyone to take a deep breath in, and hold it for 5 secs before letting it out through your slightly parted lips. Ahh. We have given honor and offered a healing space to our mothers.

We never know when we may lose one of our mothers in any kind of way. Mentally, as my friend lost her mom to dementia, and another friend lost his mom to trauma, and I lost my mom partially to schizophrenia. We will all lose our moms physically, unless they lose us first. And hopefully we will not ever experience a spiritual loss of a mother. I had a scare that I may have lost my grandmother the year I wrote this, she had a remarkable recovery. It only took her a split second to have a life altering experience from a fall and for me to worry that she may never be the same. We have to cherish our mothers while we can. Everyday, every Sunday, or somethin must be done to spend those critical moments with those loved ones of ours! I was just gonna say, that while today is not Mother’s Day, and we just celebrated it last month, it’s so important that we touch on the topic again.

I’m starting to learn myself, and really have been learning for over 11 years now by living and working closely with my sister to raise my niece, it is a tough job. A mother, responsible for another human 24 hours a day. A parent, in the position to entertain and meet their child’s needs when they wake up in the middle of the night or get through the nights where they don’t sleep at all til 4am. I’m telling you, I’ve been going thru it lately! But, nothing was better in my life than waking up everyday to seeing that beautiful bundle of joy next to me when I cared after her independently and watching her sleep! We women, mothers and Brothas, must cherish the real entertainment in life, which comes from the young ones. So, as we celebrate mothers again today, I want to encourage mothers to take great, deep breaths, believe with all of your heart that all will be well. And, believe in your personal dreams and the dreams you have for your children so that they will have the energy needed to come to fruition.

The last thing I want to say about my observations of motherhood is that, from a biological sense, it is one of the most common threads of humanity, and of course of continuing humanity, in the entire animal king/queendom. Unless one has health complications, any woman or female is capable of bringing forth life. What I mean is, regardless of whether you’re poor, rich, large, small, whatever your characteristics or circumstances are, no one — at least in America and since we’re talking about the motherland, no one there from my knowledge — can keep you from having a baby. Sadly, China enforced a cap on the family size, and had a one child policy from 1979 — 2015, via forced abortions, etc. The baby that is allowed to come to gestation then needs to be fed and clothed and cared after. It always amazes me how people who cannot take care of a child keep on having them and then the world is thrusted forward to pick up where they leave off… Or those children leave the world just as quickly as they came — sharply showing a mother she has yet to reach the ability to care for a child. And so, it brings me back to my first point, we have many mothers.

Ahh. It is always best to take a breath. Our breath is the flow of our Creator, moving through us. And I like to say the Creator within is the Creator throughout, and there is only one of us. Ase? Ase

We learned yesterday at the NCOBRA conference that we must use our kioto, our healing breaths and we must create a mbongi, a healing space.

I can tell you what I know about the motherland. It touches, renews and refines the soul. And any place that is truly touched by the motherland’s spirit or those who carry her knowledge is a heavenly, purposeful space — a space that can only allow for growth, great intentions being met with great occurrences and bliss.

I encourage you to talk to the ancestors, in a language as close to your mother tongue as you can imagine. Praise and question them; inquire about your family tree and your best moves and what’s required of you. Read about Afrika, every chance you get. Let’s take back the knowledge we once had about self and our purpose and place in the world and allow that energy to lift others and bring them into the flow, or the vortex, of self love as the only result. Now I feared that I may be preaching to the choir, I feel moved to say this and share this today.

The motherland taught me we’ve grown to be too frivolous and frantic. We have to decide we will not do something if it is not true to our purpose, lest we waste the precious gift of time each of us is given. She taught me we must sit and breathe and wait on the right opportunity to come. And if we cannot sit exclusively, we must sit as often as we can to reclaim our truth. We must give ourselves the moments our bodies require to be lead in the best direction of our soul’s fire-dancing desire.

If you must run, if you must sprint — do it, but not without the warm up and the cool down to keep you planted to the ground. Mother/brother earth. The mothaland will give you the energy to let the fluff go. So, I transfer that energy to you. Don’t you try to do too much. Let love and let go. And what that means to me is when you let love be your guiding force and you offer love in replacement for your undefined energies (your aimless energies that are running around in knots, not circles because those are sacred but knots) then you let things go out of love. You let things go out of love for yourself and out of your love for others. Letting go is the basis of authenticity and we all must revisit it on a cyclical basis.

Let love and let go (or is it lehgo and let love? ;). It means to let love from a far replace the entrapment feelings you accumulate when you’re sinking into something that does not serve you. Do you need to buy all the things you buy on a weekly basis. Can you save some of that money and put it towards a worthy cause? Can you seriously save to make that worthwhile pilgrimage to our mother on this Earth? Can you come out of the nasty habit of driving everywhere and get a bike to cut down on your environmental footprint you’re leaving on our mother/brother Earth? Can you cut down on letting consumerism control your wallet, bank account, investments or therefore lack thereof?

(In 2014) 🙂 we heard our president say it — yes we can. And, regardless of your political views you cannot refuse the truth and positivity that rings in that affirmation. Adopt it again, or another that sits well with your soul. We’ve come so far and we’ve got so far to go. But let’s not forget that we’ve come so far and our ancestors have gotten us here. They were strong enough to make it when they were torn, stolen from their sacred tribes — ostracized and dehumanized. Enslaved people were locked in Slave Dungeons (not castles) from the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast which is now known as Ghana to the West, central and yes East Africa as well. Stolen from all parts of the continent and made to walk in shackles to the coasts. Weathered the roaring seas and we know of the conditions on those boats in the middle passage. And I have to interject a short story hear about just how horrible I know that trip had to be. I experienced firsthand the roaring Indian Ocean when I took an overnight ferry, thinking we could save money and sleep while we travel and therefore make the most of our days.

Boy, were we wrong. We were supposed to be in the VIP section where we could lay down, at the top of the large ferry. Long story short the tides tossed & turned us & everyone was throwing up around me. I tried to hold mine, then when I opened the door for the general seating area, there was such a high stench from so many people throwing up and the bathrooms being broken — I threw up all over the stairs. Then, I was hunched over a trash can all night while I threw up gastric acid because I had already thrown up all the food and drink I had in my system (I was gagging and eventually nothing else would come out). I thought I might actually die. I didn’t. And our ancestors didn’t.

They Survived because something within them told them not to give up. Not to choose suicide, which has always been a choice — maybe not seen as an option, was a means by which the pain was endured for the hope of the next generation. Something in them told them to press on. And so we must remember that any African American actually comes from the strongest stock that this entire world has to offer. Anyone who is a part of the African Diaspora hones strength beyond their comprehension, trust me — it’s a spiritual reserve that we cannot truly fathom until we feel forced to put it in motion in a fight or flight manner — but that’s a topic for another day. We reserved our strength as we experienced slavery transpire for what’s reported in some records to be about 400 years in this country, even more when you consider the mental slavery imposed upon us from Jim Crow politics, education and media to the new Jim Crow pipeline to prison complex. Our strength is still innate and today we have the ability to act freely with our strengths and we celebrate the time when we were lawfully given recognition of FREEDOM.

It is evident with the Underground Railroad, the communication and grapevine network we had going on despite the sickening stench of slavery we never truly lost our ability to act and think freely as a whole. There were those who were not weakened by the willie lynch tactics, we just simply did it in private or had a select few who were willing to show this capability regardless of the result). Today (2014), we celebrate Juneteenth, or June 19th 1865 — the 149th anniversary of the date when the Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 troops took possession of the State of Texas and enforced emancipation of some of the human beings enslaved by way of the island of Galveston.

We can also celebrate Feb. 1st in Philly — a date that was installed as National Black Freedom Day to celebrate emancipation there and many dates from 1963 to 1965 when emancipation truly spread throughout the country.

I don’t really like the way the General Order No. 3 which was read to “free the slaves” reads, as though what Gordon Granger called “former masters and slaves” would practically be in a position to split or share property equally at that time. Then, he basically said stay where you are and naively, or just with a lack of giving a damn, says collect a wage from the leeches who just enslaved you. What I’m saying is our ancestors were given an inch. And we sure took a mile and made the best of it as we always do. We fled to the streets in jubilation — we may not have known how we were gonna get it done but we knew we were going to make a way for ourselves.

And what I need for us to realize today is, everything is not perfect. Black people still face an ugly discrimination, pure hate, a lack of remorse or recognition for how we have gotten white people to the place of privilege they experience in this country and throughout the world. We still face the raping of our motherland and the glorification of the raping and over-sexualization of our mothers, and girls. Lord knows we face the financial hardship that results from the miseducation of our children which leads them on to be cattle and work jobs to the likeness of flipping cattle meat instead of creating our own opportunities. That being said, all we need is an inch! All’s we need is that little light of freedom to make mountains move. The Brotha yesterday spoke of Mumia Abu-Jamal— he’s a political prisoner — he has created his own healing space while incarcerated and therefore has created his inch of freedom and with it he has gone a mile.

Freedom is one of the most powerful aspects of life here on this planet, as I have found. Next to spirituality. Animals need freedom, all living things require a bit of freedom to ensure that their soul stays in tact. And when that freedom is taken away, one must reach into the depths of their soul to survive. We have our freedom, even if you consider it an inch — let’s run with it. Let’s run a mile. Let’s give it all that we’ve got, being grateful that we’re in the race all the while, and I can say with authority, experience and knowledge that it will pay off. Let freedom ring.

“…when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and White men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!” — the late, honorable Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I have had my own bout with freedom this year, I have experienced the horror of having my freedom taken away. And it is only because of my old negro spirituals that I was able to sing my way through it.

And now I’d like to share a little portion of the spiritual that got me thru when my freedom was taken and threatened.

I sing because… I’m free.

Thank you (Asante)

UHURU SASA — FREEDOM NOW

by Aprili