Well, as my partner says, a hit dog will holler.

And here I am, hollering.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve found the time to write. Juggling 101 things, like parenting, and job uncertainty, and navigating different dynamics and terrains previously unexplored. I’ve told myself that there are other things more important. Other areas and avenues that need more tending. But I’ve come to realize that this is bullshit.

I think it’s important to call yourself on your bullshit.

I’m learning how to do that, and be comfortable in the discomfort that comes with that vulnerability, more and more everyday. Our interpersonal relationships require, and are deserving of that. They are deserving of honesty, transparency, accountability, and all our favorite words that come with doing the work. At bare minimum, understanding how you’re showing up and its impacts on those around you should be prerequisites for any ethical emotional exchange. Putting off the work that needs to be done because you’re busying yourself with other things, isn’t how life works.

This requires a profound commitment to doing the ongoing work, because your world, your people, your Self, are deserving of that.

This requires a radical reimagining of intimacy.

Intimacy as in, being a soft place to land.

Intimacy as in, choosing repair over a quick fix.

Intimacy as in, I can and will hold space for you and acknowledge where I’ve fallen short.

Intimacy as in, recommitting to being safe: emotionally, physically, psychologically, spiritually.

A descendant of lineages that either don’t talk about things (surprise, surprise), or stick to one-note narratives about said things, I’ve been increasingly invited to sit with these learned behaviors and acknowledge the ways in which they’ve become commonplace both in my family and in me.

Calling myself in, I see how these patterns have clouded my capacity for true intimacy in every aspect of my life, by opting for the binarism that comes with existing in either-or versus yes-and frameworks.

My therapist has told me to be gentle with myself. I think we are all deserving of being handled with more care. Especially as Black, Brown, Indigenous women, femmes, and queer folk who exist at varying intersections of policed identities in lands heavily impacted by the vestiges of colonialism and capitalist, racist, patriarchy. Especially as those navigating and healing from harm, C/PTSD, postpartum, parenting, grief, loss, and mental health challenges. But I think true healing requires more than just being gentle with yourself.

It requires ferocity.

Vulnerability.

Action.

It requires a recommitment every day to do better and be better.

Solely being gentle with yourself is a quick fix. Owning and acknowledging where we’ve presented subpar, how to move forward from a moment, and regrounding in the desire to shift toward and opt for healthier patterns, is where the real healing happens.

I’ve been thinking a lot about intimacy, and redefining what that means and looks like in this season of my life. Being in a healthy relationship, and becoming a parent, will do that. It’ll hold the mirror up and encourage you to tend to the pots that have been put on the back burner and left there for too long.

Intimacy

In to me I see

When we’re in toxic relationships with others, and in toxic relationship to and with ourself, we couldn’t be further away from intimacy.

When we aren’t safe places to land, we run the risk of alienating those who love us and our inner most selves.

When we shut down instead of take space to regroup, we choose distance and avoidance over accountability and repair.

When we stay too much in that Capricornian Earth sign immutable energy, we keep up walls that may not serve us any longer.

When we choose rigidity and righteousness, we stop practicing the skills of life.

So I light my candles and I pray. I refresh my glasses on my altars and convene with the departed. I thank the Spirits for their guidance, and for putting me on a path toward healing.

To choose curiosity over being right.

To choose water over fire.

Care over destruction.

Disruption over stagnation.

Rest over dysregulation.

If you haven’t pulled yourself out of the abyss, at least once?

If you’re not still processing the complexities of the multitude of loss and gain you’ve survived these past 12 months?

On the heels of our collective reset, I wish you love.

I wish you ease.

I wish you dry pillowcases and clear passageways.

Days filled with life, not only survival.

But most of all, I wish you freedom.

From relationships that cause you to shape-shift.

From cycles of harm whose patterns have become commonplace.

Freedom to choose life. Because it is your birthright: to be in pursuit of happiness.

It was the Year of the Snake when I too shed my skin.

I knew there would be no going back to how things were.

Because of how things were.

A ceremony of birth and rebirth. As beautiful as it is violent.

What does it mean to be cut open and sewn back together again?

I know the answers don’t lie at the bottom of the ocean.

I tend to look for answers at the bottom of the ocean… even though I cannot swim.

Omio Yemaya.
For your guidance and protection.

Yeyeo Iyalorde.
For mirrors and clarity of my reflection.

It was the Year of the Snake when I too shed my skin.

To the ancestors, watching me through it all.
Holding me, through it all.
Helping me, through it all.

We wash our homes with Florida Water and place camphor at the foot of the door.

Light candles and sing praises.

Refresh altars and make petitions.

For more love and more ease.

For dry pillowcases and clear passageways.

Days filled with life, not only survival.

But most of all, to remain free.

Those in their kitchens cooking through the tears
in disbelief that tomorrow’s tables will have
one less setting
one less voice cracking jokes
one less hand to hold when saying grace

Sending love
to all
who’ll cry as they dance
to songs that remind them
of bygone times
when things were just a bit
easier

Sending love
to all
who’ve lost this year

Those who can’t afford as many groceries
yet will still find a way
to throw down and make lasting memories

Sending love
to all
between jobs

To those who are wading through grief

To tired mothers
and tired eldest daughters
to those who serve as the glue

Sending love
to all
who have no place to go
to our houseless family
to hungry children
who hide that their holidays aren’t as bountiful
as some of their classmates

Sending love
to families separated by borders
and prison cells
and detention centers

To my Indigenous relatives across Turtle Island
observing a day of mourning
never forgetting the countless Native futures cut short

To parents healing from miscarriages
To babies who were born asleep

To the crossing guards and cab drivers

To the cashier at the supermarket
who can’t afford the plane ticket home this time around

Sending love
to all deconstructing and constructing
creating new memories
new traditions
new family structures

To those
going where
the love is

Where loss has been at the forefront.
Where gratitude for everything gained is almost too great for words.

Nine months in, nine months out.

Six months since Iku called my dad home. Since having held his hand while waiting for a coroner in a living room where, many moons ago, he and my mother vowed to ride for one another, as long as they both shall live.

Five months since we gathered to send him off, and two months since we rocked out in his name.

Nine months in, nine months out.

Little feet take their first steps as teeth break through gums. Palettes are developed as preferences take shape. I look at the scar traversing my womb, in awe and in reverence of my body.

A reminder that I am capable.
Expansive. Expansion. Ever growing.

As caterpillar becomes butterfly, I too am held by the medicine as I outgrow spaces that no longer serve me. Semblances of home that once were, but are no longer.

One day, my Sun will ask me about becoming mother while navigating unfamiliar territories of mourning and grief. One day, I’ll explain how I was able to hold the joy of becoming a parent, and the pain of losing one.

But not today.

Nine months in, nine months out.

With the chance to start over.

New beginnings are ceremony.

Of transformation and transmutation.

Invitations to choose life, always. Love, always. Growth, always.

This nine year, we are all initiates.

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those who
hold doors open
on muggy subway platforms
train conductors roll their eyes
as if to say
this new life
is an inconvenience

to the motherlovers
who offer their seat to
mamas whose feet ache
from chasing our dreams
all day

to motherlovers
who help carry strollers
left and right
up and down stairs
you are not alone

to the motherlover
who asks if i’ve eaten
or tended to my soil today
before tending to my Sun’s

motherlover reminds me
your body needs rest
care for yourself
you cannot pour from an empty cup
your scars are a most beautiful thing

to motherlovers
who hold me in a season of
unbecoming and
becoming

who smile at my baby
while on line
at the grocery store
who phone in
to sing us a little prayer

motherlover who
greases my scalp
whose love is love as action
a love centered in our
response(ability)
as in our
ability to respond to
call ins for accountability
and
invitations to radical care

love
that feels like
neo-sol on a rainy morning

to motherlover
whose presence feels like
church
a holy communion
this ethos of love

motherlovers who
hold it down
hold you down
with open arms
and open hearts

who be
by your side
through it all

for motherlovers
who are
a soft place
to land

finding the sacred in the mundane
like
waking up to a clean kitchen
an uninterrupted cup of coffee in the morning
warms toes wiggling in slippers waiting
just at the foot of
your bed

reaching for the cup of water
on your nightstand
ready to quench
your thirst
in between a recounting of
brown sugar* dreams
whispered in the
sweetest of morning breaths

[*rest in paradise to a soulquarian
whose loss this
nine year
is incomprehensible]

joy looks like
your baby taking a bottle from you
as a breastfeeding mama

like
a reclamation of your body
like
cracked nipples healing from
being the Black gold of the Sun

the sanctity of a slow morning
where the silence is
broken
by
birds chirping outside my window
children’s laughter on their way to school
the knocking of a radiator
waking up from hibernation

like oil rubbed between my palms
preparing for a journey across newfound lands
stretch marks
remind you that
you
are
expansion

a rediscovery of time to
tend to myself
to
love myself
to
pour into myself in this
time of unhurting

my joy looks like
lighting candles for Eggun
while
listening to my granddaddy’s
Geechee Recollections

a meditative bass line
a recollection of bygone times where
toads croak and
trees dance in the breeze
where
the quiet is the loudest

like
the smell of a match that’s
just burnt out
its smoke reaching toward heaven
maferefún Elegguá
for delivering my prayers to
Olofi

joy looks like
choosing to use a nipper
a promise against picking at cuticles
with teeth
so accustomed to
drawing blood

a commitment against self harm

i am working actively on this

a work in progress
i am
we are
always
works
in
progress

god/dess bless
slow mo(u)rnings

My Piscean Sun by my side, chewing on his toy.
His bottom two teeth have broken through the surface.
A rite of passage.

We had to pack light, as Mama Erykah says.

So, on this brisk October morning, I sit in an apartment that isn’t mine,

but is home

For now.

Sitting with legs crossed, my back at ease against the powder blue couch.

My things are in bags, but my altars, erected.

While I eye my dad’s urn, I give thanks to Creator that

I

Am

A

Black

Woman

This year, this fall equinox, these winds of change.

Winds of change and rippling waters forcing me to figure it the fuck out.

A blessing.

Nikki invites us to have A Good Cry. But ain’t no more tears to shed.

Trust.

Light and liberation for my past, present, future.

Aché.

For the women in my line who couldn’t leave.

For those who chose to stay.

Luz.

For my grandmother, who conformed and shape shifted.

For my grandmother, who found liberation in transition from this earthly plane.

Ibae.

The birth of a rising Sun, a reclamation of Self.

That refuses to be made small.

Who will no longer be the punching bag of patriarchy.

Ain’t no way.

Developing new muscles, I call on my ancestral matriarchs.

Who too, have been here before.

Who clap and rejoice as they see me, be me.

Finally.

Deeply, an Eldest Daughter reminds me that we are

Matriarchs-in-Training

What kind of matriarch will I be?

A word.

We tend to our hearts in most tender season.

These are “Tryin’ Times”

Gratitude for my Orí.

Maferefún Yemayá.

For alchemy.

For the breaking of cycles that no longer serve.

Past, present, future.

Black, Brown, and Free.

How beautiful is She.

5 months breastfeeding. Of little hands tugging at parts of my body previously unknown. Of milky breath, becoming, and late-night “is ___ normal” searches online.

5 months navigating the waters of first-time parenthood. Of constantly trying my best to move with the ocean, rather than against Her.

Of learning my baby, and unlearning what I thought to be true about my Self.

Of watching my Sun, and growing together.

It’s 91 degrees, baby has his first fever, and I’m typing with one hand in this July heat as he sleeps on my bosom, still latched. Reflecting on the nearly half a year we’ve been doing this thing called life together.

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Two months out of the fourth trimester—the first three months of baby being earthside; the first three months of parenting—I think about the childbearing continuum as a microcosm of life, and postpartum care as integral to the restructuring of, and pathway to a healthier, society. (Postpartum, as in the immediate days, weeks, and months following baby’s arrival; postpartum, as in a life-long state of learning, growth, surrender.)

Some questions I’ve recently been sitting with:

• What do postpartum networks of care look like?

• Since postpartum is forever, what do these networks look like beyond infancy?

• Who will be part of my support systems?

• How will my interpersonal relationships shift as I continue to blossom into Mother?

• How can we exist in true relationship with one another in a time of collective apathy?

Identifying, existing within, and calling upon my community and systems of care have been crucial tools in my approach to parenting. As anyone with a child knows—or, any eldest child who’s become caretaker or second/third parent—this ain’t easy. Sometimes (oftentimes), you need to phone a friend. You need advice, reassurance. You need someone to hold baby so you can shower alone, or use the bathroom without them sitting on your lap. (Or wash your face, brush your teeth, make a cup of coffee, fix the bed, clean out your fridge, and and and…)

Pregnancy and (immediate) postpartum have revealed many of my relationships had been fodder. Filler. Fleeting. Fickle. Not all friends are family, not all friends are friends. Some folks are just people you know. Parenting as ceremony lifts the veil off many relationships, removes rose-colored glasses. You learn who you can call upon, what reciprocity looks like, and that quality, not quantity, is king (or queen).

In this season of my life, sitting at the intersections of motherhood and mourning, I’m continuously reminded to take stock of my relationships. To address where I may be falling short and need to do better. To weed out the dynamics I exist in where I’m not met with the same level of care or consideration I pour in.

Through the corrective experiences of love and care that I’m being afforded, I’m shown what wealth and abundance are. Abundance is the village you can count on, who can also count on you. It’s thriving connections where a commitment to care is at the forefront. It’s your people reminding you that you need to tend to yourself, too.

When postpartum care happens within this context of the village, where reciprocity is currency and radical love is the language, unshakeable community is naturally stewarded.

My upbringing was very rooted in the concept of “the village”. That I was reared intergenerationally by three parents, three grandparents, a slew of aunties, and chosen family, is a privilege. Coming together to collectively raise the next generation is inherent to who we are as humans. Interconnected networks of relations are Indigenous ways of being; ways that have been both distorted and disrupted due to colonialism. Colonialism villainized our customs and taught us that the nuclear family was the only model.

Community-building is foundational to our survival and preservation. As BIPOC, the intentionality of co-existing with those committed to building a world rooted in equity, reciprocity, and care, reveals all that is possible when we restructure our villages with deep support as the model.

Despite what we’ve been indoctrinated into believing, community is the natural design. Hyper individualism ain’t it. Consciously parenting with networks of support, in conjunction with biological family, is an opportunity to heal our lineages from the Christian-European values colonialism thrust upon them. By expanding our worlds and widening our webs, we’re able to provide our children with all the love and support imaginable.

With such a focus on the “I”, our capitalist society has led us to forget that we, in fact, need community. Parenting reminds you that social connections are some of the most important tenants of our health and wellbeing. As parents, we thrive when we’re also being held. We are our best when we’re also being cared for. Even the physiological design of the amniotic sac mirrors this; with its two layers (the amnion and the chorion), the amniotic sac, the design of life, provides baby with two layers of support, so if one layer is damaged, or not performing its function, the second layer can come to its aid.

Through the amniotic sac, the placenta, the womb, the vitamins and minerals extracted from our mothers’ blood and bones in the creation of We, we are wired to have support. From the jump. If we view the childbearing continuum as the foundation of society, and the amniotic sac as the cradle of life, then we see that networks of mutual care are vital to our existence. Neither we nor any other part of the natural world are meant to exist in isolation.

It’s a radical act: being in community with a new parent/s and baby. It’s raw and vulnerable. Rewarding and challenging. A transformative time riddled with nuance and complexity. There’s a reason why cultures the world over hold postpartum traditions so sacred.

Truly existing in community is a collective, transformative process that calls on all of us to align with our truths by confronting the ways that colonialism and patriarchy have taught us to show (or not) up for one another.

With radical love and an understanding of our personal autonomy at the forefront, we can begin to make space for, and redefine, a new community. We can start by being committed to reshaping our immediate worlds at home, and by proxy affecting our larger communities and networks.

Colonization has thrived off of separation and division, making us forget how to be in a loving way with ourselves and that which lays outside of our corporal realities. Thriving in our human relationships—romantic, platonic, and all that exists in the in-between—is the biggest challenge.

We must actively remember how to human—together.

How to be our true selves—together.

The postpartum period is an opportunity to create and sustain life—together.

An invitation to exist in reciprocity, wholly—together.

Reciprocity is Nature’s Law. We see this when we water plants: too little water, it dies; too much water; it dies.

In this page of this chapter of my life, I ask myself, and invite all postpartum mothers, families, and their communities to sit with this: what kind of watering do we need without drying up or rotting?

5 months postpartum and I thank the ancestors every day for bestowing unto me the greatest blessing in life. For revealing my razón de ser. For granting me the opportunity to carve out a future full of love and tenderness and possibility for my Sun.

The Sun is setting, and mine is on my chest, still asleep fighting off his fever. Holding him close, I hear the baseline of “Be”, and Common’s words ring truer than ever,

Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my [Sun’s] eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through [him]
The Messiah, might even return through [him]
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through [him]

To my beautiful Sun.

We got this.

On Monday, I picked up my father’s ashes and death certificates. The week prior, we held his wake. And two weeks before that, on a Friday morning, we said goodbye to one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known.

My dad — Sacha Sebastian Jenkins.

I’m blessed to have had two fathers: my biological father Djinji, and my dad Sacha, who entered my life when I was a little one. I never differentiated between the two. Having two dads was always the greatest joy. Two amazing Black men to guide me. To love me. To hold me. To offer their support. Two beautiful Black men who waved their red, black, and green flags high. Who fostered my creativity. Who would move mountains to ensure my dreams became reality.

Last year, for the first time ever, we celebrated Father’s Day together. Though he was already sick, we ventured out to City Island to our favorite spot. Sat outside, listened to music. Cracked jokes, and crab legs. It was a scene I never thought I’d see, but how beautiful for it to live in my everlasting memory.

On days like these, I think about my dad, and all the dads who are no longer here. I sit with a pain so indescribable as I wade between gratitude and grief.

Gratitude for all he’s bestowed.

For being a firm shaper in my tastes, from film to music. For always making sure I had outlets to express myself as an artist. For reminding me it was cool to be the awkward, alternative, different Black kid from the ‘hood. For buying me my first skateboard, Avril Lavigne and Green Day CDs, and arm warmers.

Gratitude for all the sacrifices he made for me.

For all the morning school rides, where we’d listen to Michael Jackson or Paul McCartney, The White Stripes or Eric B. and Rakim. For trekking to Syracuse and Boston for college tours in the middle of winter. For sitting through my piano and voice recitals, and children’s theater shows.

Gratitude for all the times he’s made my belly ache from laughter, like when we’d play Wii tennis against each other, or hit choreography in Just Dance.

Gratitude for his radical acceptance of me. For raising me as his own. For being there, for all of it. For my ugly and my beautiful. For my raggedy parts.

Grief, that I’ll never see him in the physical again.

That he won’t get to walk me down the aisle, or celebrate another birthday or holiday. Grief over knowing he won’t be there to clap while his son graduates eight grade or high school. In disbelief that he won’t see his grandson get older.

Grief, because I know his transition was the most merciful end to a most merciless disease. Multiple Systems Atrophy, or MSA, a rare, aggressive, and unforgiving disease that affects about 15,000-75,000 in the United States.

Grief, at the realization that wanting him to have lived just one more day in the agony he was suffering, would have been selfish.

Grief, that I’ll never see him laugh again. Or eat ice cream together. Or watch him perform. Or make art together.

The pain of losing a parent is the deepest heartbreak I’ve ever experienced.

This has been a season making Death’s acquaintance. Within one calendar year, I’ve lost my grandmother and my father. With the transition of my dad, a part of me has died, too. A part I’ll never get back. Coupled with the death that accompanies the transition into motherhood, a lot is being compounded.

I don’t know what to do with this.

I am sorting, and will be for the near future. And certainly, for the rest of my life.

Light, peace, and progress to Sacha Sebastian Jenkins—my dad, my forever mentor, my forever friend.

May all the daddies, granddaddies, and father figures Above continue watching over all of us down here—guiding our paths, drying our tears, holding our hearts.

I have been cut open and sewn back together again. I have stretched to levels beyond my comprehension. I have shed a version of myself I did not know needed shedding, in order to bring forth that which has always existed. Celebrating the beauty of an expansiveness I have never known, yet which without, I could not continue becoming anew.

Blessed to have been chosen to be a vessel of God’s magic and God’s love. To be fertile soil suitable for the bearing and creation of life. To be a conduit of transformation and liberation.

Birthing, as in sowing my seed and watching it grow.

Birthing as in, sowing my seed and watching me grow.

Birthing as in, birthing a community.

Birthing as in, birthing myself into a newfound womanhood: one rooted in assertiveness and radical honesty and boundless love and the erotics of possibility.

Sacred is the seed whose presence earthside ushers in the unbridled power to heal and to hold. Sacred are those doing the work navigating the rough waters of breaking the generational curses. Sacred are the eldest daughters, whose pain so often goes ignored. And the aunties and older sisters, who love on their kin as if they were their own.

Sacred is the mama who falls asleep on the bus ride home from work. Who finds refuge in those three minutes of quietude in the bathroom, and makes a feast out of the few ingredients in her fridge. The mama living at the borderlands of delirium and exhaustion, yet still shows up and shows out. Whose feet ache from chasing her babies and chasing her dreams.

The mamas committed to the thankless work that is motherhood: ensuring households everywhere run efficiently, pots of coffee brew each morning, knee scrapes are cleaned and kissed, and broken hearts are mended.

We deserve the world, and all its beauty. We are the legacy, the ones upon which societies are created and cultures are preserved.

Through the crops we cultivate and the customs we pass down, we are the stewards of remembrance.

Sacred is the mother: our first country.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NIV)

Across the Western world, we have been conditioned to see love as one thing, that looks one way, that’s to be celebrated on one day. In a capitalist system that monetizes emotion, we’ve been encouraged to go broke for it in well-orchestrated outward displays of said love.

Love, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

a) strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties;

b) attraction based on sexual desire;

c) affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

As in,

d) an assurance of affection

e) a warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion

Or,

f) unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another

A sacred contract. A testimony to our capacities to care for ourselves, and our propensity to show up for others. A matter of how we feel and of what we do. An opportunity to do: to be in and of service, in and of action. A practice of sacrifice and of truth; of utter vulnerability and surrender. Of centering conditions of absolute value. A battle, as Baldwin put it. An eternal search for the missing pieces of oneself, as written by Murakami.

For all of our days existing on the back of this Earth Mother lies an invitation to define and redefine love. A word so short in length, and so full of meaning. A source of timeless (re)interpretation. Recent ruminations have led to a desire to share the correlations between love and faith, and the lessons ancestral tools have anchored in the Mind-Body-Soul for us to remember and call on when thinking about the multifaceted nature that is love.

Lessons on Love from a Lucumí Perspective

Elegguá teaches us hold onto the joyous side of love. To remain committed to the fun born from life’s experiences. To never miss an opportunity to live and let live. To smile when we see something that touches our hearts, and release the heartiest of laughs. The love that leads us to open new doors, and close ones that no longer serve us. To welcome, with open arms, all that is fresh and untapped.

Oggún reveals the love that comes from completing a task, from mastering a skill, from being wholly immersed in one’s craft. The love of the trade, and of unmasking one’s abilities to use our gifts to sustain oneself, and community. Oggún is the love of self that lets us know when we need to retreat, to turn inward. The love that makes necessary reflection, so that one we can reemerge as better versions of our self.

Ochossi is the love that drives us to ensure justice for all. The love that’s present at every protest, that’s behind every motion to pass policy rooted in equity, and the love that lets us never lose sight of the prize. Love that drives us to seek out love that’s meaningful and true. Love that shows up, regardless of any external force at play. Love that makes you work for it, and through that work, ensures its not taken for granted.

Ibeyi is the love that only children can bring. The love that’s loud, that pushes us to our limits. Love that allows us to love unconditionally for our young, and the love that leads us to heal ourselves. The love that makes us cherish that our childrens’ childhoods as ones to be cared for. A love that makes babies coo and cry when we’re not in their presence. Love that births tears that wet our eyes when we re-watch our favorite childhood classics. Love that points out that we are forever children, and forever students — of life and its Earthly lessons.

Osain, a love found at every flower that blossoms, every tree that blooms. The love the rain has for the Earth, that algae has for the ocean. The reason why birds nest and peacocks show their feathers. The love present in the countless mating rituals of our animal relatives. Love that ensures the survival of species, and sustains life on Earth Mother in the most literal of senses. A love that we must protect for our flora and fauna kin, and for the next seven generations. Love whose reciprocity teaches us selfness and symbiosis. A love that can’t exist on its own.

Babalú Ayé is the love that presents itself in the form of care, in all its manifestations. The care we show our bodies when we nourish our corporal temples with proper diets, limit our sugar and salt intake, and keep up with our health. The care we show our future selves by engaging in preventive healthcare and choosing healthier lifestyle habits, like going to sleep earlier and getting screened for illness. And the care we show others, when we step into our roles are caretakers for our ailing parents and elders. The love that’s housed in every spoon we feed our bedridden loved ones, in every brush of their hair. The selflessness in every sponge bath, and every time we help change their soiled pants. Babalú’s love is palpable when we hold their hands as they take their last breaths, letting them know that someone is there with them, every step of the way.

Oyá is the love accompanied by the thrills of change. The love that encompasses us as we find ourselves at every transitory moment and phase of this corporal reality we call life. The love that’s present every time we clean our loved one’s headstones and leave fresh flowers at their graves. Love that shows up in battle, that inspires us to go hard for those we love. To ride for our loved ones, and prioritize loyalty and ferocity above all else. That, I will ride for you until the sunset type love. That love you only find in the ‘hood—that I’ma be by your side for foreva and a day type love. That real love Mary J sang about in the ‘90s. Love that makes us shout from mountaintops, “that’s mine.”

Ochún, a love that’s equally so passionate, so ethereal that is feels unreal. A love that breaks necks and leaves many jealous; a love that inspires us to luxuriate in the beautiful things. A love that’s playful and can, at times, teeter on dangerous if we choose to play the fool. The love of Self that allows us to love on others. It’s the honeymoon phase, the sweetness, the romantics. That which makes us remember that we can achieve more with honey than vinegar. And that sometimes, bitterness, too, is natural. The love for all that lives in our creative centers, allowing the possibility for gestation and creation.

Aggayú, whose love grounds us in the real. It’s foundational love: the love that we get to by working things out, abiding by trust, and moving in steadiness. Not a rushed love, but one that’s watered over time, providing the basis to longevity. Aggayú’s love is the one that’s level-headed, strong, and steady. The immense forces of nature, whose energies rock us like earthquakes and tidal waves. The love that makes the world go ‘round, and moves us to our core. Love so powerful that it feels, and is, as transformative as it is volcanic. A love that moves mountains.

Changó, a love rooted in living. In immersing yourself in the fullness of the five senses. An embodied love. A love for self expression, existing unabashedly and without shame. Love that reignites the flames of desire that we must never let falter. That which drives us to achieve our destinies and wildest dreams. It’s the self love that ensures we always present our best, and that thrives off attention. The love present every time we oil up our bodies, steam our clothes, wash our hair, and adorn ourselves with our finest of selections. In a word, love that’s magnetic.

Yemayá — ain’t no greater love. A love that’s all-encompassing. One that inspires us to open our hearts to all of love’s possibilities. A love for the world, and all the life within it’s domain. A divine love — a love present at the birth of every child, of every initiation, of every rite of passage. Love that we arrive at as we thank our bodies for their ability to conceive and birth; for their capacity to stretch us beyond our wildest imagination. Love that flows through our bodies as lands of milk and honey, nourishing our babies through colostrum and breastmilk. Love that runs through our channels of oxytocin. The love thats the personification of the strength of women, whose bodies are territories to be respected and revered. A love so pure, so giving. The Divine Mother that never abandons, whose love never ceases to hold us.

Obatalá, love that is tranquil. Love that is kind. A peaceful love. Love that makes us strive for harmony. Love that lingers in the silence shared between loved ones, because there’s no longer a need to fill every moment with noise. Love that isn’t chaotic. A love that is stable. Love that doesn’t need constant affirmation or reassurance. Love for thy neighbor, and love for thy partner. Love not tainted, but for love’s sake. Love that is gentle. A love that makes you feel seen. Safety and serenity. The Divine Father whose white cloth covers us, protecting us from sickness and malady. Love that is ease. Love grounded in humility.

Olodumare, love for humanity. One that makes us respect and honor all. That allows us to understand that God lives inside of me, and you. A love that brings us all closer, for we are all God’s children and should be treated, and treat one another, as such.

Eggún, love for all those who came before so we can be. A love supported by veneration, care, and tenderness. Love, as in the transference of energy from one generation to the next, for energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Love that manifests in each family recipe we prepare, and every ceremony (big and small) we engage in because our matrilineage did so. Love that comes with reacquainting ourselves with our ancestral customs, for that which was preserved for so long deserves to be honored and respected. A love for tradition, code, honor, and ethics. Love that shows up through the wisdom of our spiritual guides and protectors. Or through the warmth we feel when watching old family videos of loved ones long lost. The love that’s awaiting in the embraces we’ll feel when our time is up on this plane and we meet our departed once more.

Love is an invitation to communion. Comm(union), as in the coming together amongst ourselves and our greater networks. As in, falling deeper into love and commitment with one another; as in, getting to know ourselves in ways more meaningful than imaginable. When thinking about love within the context of Orisha, we can see that love is a tool given to us by GUS (God-Universe-Spirit) that aids us through the trials and tribulations of life. It’s our guiding light. One whose illumination illuminates all that we’re meant to be and all that we’re meant to do on this Earth. Love is a compass and tool of transmutation, transformation, and transmission. A passageway toward the highest version of Self.

Eleguá, one of the most powerful deities in the Lucumí pantheon, is the Orisha who lives at the crossroads and street corners. He opens doors of opportunity, and closes those that no longer serve us. Synchronized with El Niño de Atocha in Catho…

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They say he was a curious child who would roam around his hometown of Buttermilk Bottom in Atlanta, Georgia, BB gun and German shepherd in tow. A boy who traversed unpaved roads through Beaver Slide, collecting pecan shells on the way to school.

They say.

They say his granddaddy was a healer who cared for his community through his relationship with bark and plants and roots and twigs. From the Congo, he arrived to the eastern shores of Turtle Island on the Wanderer, a slaveship that docked off the coast of Georgia at Jekyll Island in November 1858. At any given moment, my great-great granddaddy’s stovetops were busy conjuring up herbal remedies, keeping alive traditions passed down from his granddaddy, and all those before him.

A teen, he lived in many a place, they say. Like, in the woods, and with his uncle in rural Georgia. His Sunday mornings were filled with hymns sang at Flipper Temple A.M.E. Church.

Survivor of the Great Depression and Jim Crow. Member of the 1st Cavalry Army Band during the Korean War. Clark Atlanta and Howard-educated. Ethnomusicologist. Friend and confidante to Amiri Baraka and Coltrane. A man of idea and improvisation and imagination, they say.

Third-generation Gullah Geechee.

He’d find his way to New York City by 31.

Through his music, my granddaddy was a bridge to his past. And to my daddy’s past. And to mine. To ancestral realms whose doors would welcome him later in my childhood. Most of his songs––or, sonic odes to bygone times––dubbed “avant-garde”. As to say, these sounds are so foreign, they cannot exist within the confines of my western framework-trained ears. As to say, I cannot understand because these sounds have not yet been colonized.

By the time I was born, he was already sick. And by the time I was a school-aged child, he had embarked on his journey back home. Yet, I remained steadfast in my pride, telling any who would listen that yes, I was, I am, Marion’s granddaughter.

While I knew the importance of his legacy as a concept, the majority of my life bore frustration whenever listening to his albums. I was mad at myself for my inability to process the very work my kinfolk had poured so much of himself into. At first, it was pure cacophony. Or, depending on the record, all I heard were water drops and clicks and pops. Whistles and echoes and Nature conversing amongst Herself.

And then one day, my granddaddy called unto me to dive into his memory. See what I could find. What I could listen to. There were messages waiting for me to uncover. Questions and answers about my heritage, about what it means to be a fifth-generation (diasporic) descendant of the Gullah Geechee corridor.

Beauty. Majesty. Wonder. Alchemy.

Why Not? (1968) resets my nervous system, while Vista (1975) makes my heart ache. Three For Shepp (1967) is gangsta, and Porto Novo (1967) is afro-futurist. Sweet Earth Flying (1974) is a precious honeysuckle kiss. Geechee Recollections (1973)––whose album cover was photographed by Mima, my Afro-Native [Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape, Comanche, and Powhatan-descent] grandmother––is an ancestral case study and vital moment in my daddy’s origin story. Afternoon of a Georgia Faun (1971) is a invitation to be still and sit beside my granddaddy as he listens to all things, big and small, on a hot summer day.

Both Geechee Recollections and Afternoon of a Georgia Faun have been instrumental in the active re-membering of parts of my Self I didn’t know I had forgotten. My matrilineal Caribbean-Taíno-Arawakan heritage and paternal grandmother’s Afro-Native lineages are deeply rooted in me. But, connections to parts of my paternal granddaddy’s heritage have been lost. By engaging with his music, he and I create new memories. Memories that pull me so close, I feel the faintness of a Southern breeze graze my cheek as sweat collects at the brow.

I’ve learned that, similar to the Caribbean communities and Turtle Island Afro-Native ancestors whose legacies I carry, for Gullah Geechee, everything is Spirit. As an Olorisha Yemayá––initiated priestess of Yemayá within the Regla de Lucumí faith––a key pillar of my faith is rooted in honoring the ancestors. Speaking their names. Building them altars. Leaving them offerings of food and flowers, coffee and cigarettes. In all aspects of my being, everything I do is for and of Spirit.

From the melodic to the experimental, Marion Brown is a musical study of tenderness. Through the progression of each note uttered by his saxophone, I feel the warmth of his embrace. Hearing his breath between notes and his fingers clicking on the keys, I’m reminded of his presence. He is very much alive.

Reconnecting, sonically, with my granddaddy has been a reawakening of, Spirit. His, which is given strength every time his name is spoken, or when a record is played, or, when I think about him and am moved to tears. And mine; the part of me that has only travelled to Georgia once, but was rendered speechless by contemplating the beauty of sunsets in the land my ancestors once toiled.

I play a song, and think of Marion, the innovator. I look at videos of live performances, and think of Marion, the artist. I look at images of him with my daddy and Mima and see Marion, the flawed. I see him immortalized on the college campuses of New England that he both attended and taught at, and see Marion, the forever-student.

I think of Marion, and I think of many of history’s unsung Black artists who gave more than he got. I try not to think about the last years of his life, marked by illness and a partial leg amputation. Or about the sadness I felt visiting him at nursing homes, watching him deteriorate along with other elders unable to (for varying reasons) spend the rest of their days surrounded by family.

More often, whenever his memory is activated, I think about Marion, the boy. Who would lose his mother, my great-grandmama Marie, while he was still young. I think about the music they would dance to together, and of his favorite family meal. I think about the soil that once buried itself deep beneath his nails as he played in the dirt, and hardened mud on elbows and kneecaps. I think about him seeking the comfort of relatives during a thunderstorm, and the lullabies that once rocked him to sleep. What he thought while watching his granddaddy conjure up ancient medicines, and how he made sense of the world with those big eyes. I wonder what kind of student he was in class, and which subject he struggled with the most.

Whether music or academia, Marion’s artistry was the site that allowed him to wrestle with, deconstruct, and reimagine identity. A Black man from the South first, my granddaddy remained committed to using his gifts as pathways to document his experiences, and those of his parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, ensuring the soul of his people would forever be immortalized.

The story of my reconnection to my granddaddy and our heritage is a call for all of us to step into the role of our family’s memory keepers, and an opportunity to investigate the parts of our being that may feel farthest away. As Black, Brown, Indigenous peoples of any lands, we must do the spiritual-emotional-psychological work of realigning ourselves to all we encompass. Ask your relatives questions, and scan photographs and important documents. Build oral histories, beginning with your elders. Collect family recipes in tangible form, so they can be kept for generations. The ability to preserve is at our fingertips.

To the keepers of history | Remain curious about all that makes you who you are. Do so in and for love: of your Self, and for all those who were, so you could be.