Rebirthing Eternity: Finding Self Through Family

BY NJEMILE ALI

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Njemile Z. Ali is the Executive Editor of KIZA BlackLit and founder of Next Level Publications Group, Inc., the nonprofit publisher of KIZA. A lover of literature since childhood, Njemile set off to college with the notion of starting a Black literary magazine. She delights in collecting and amplifying the stories and voices of Black “literaticians,” which she sees as an essential part of Black liberation. As an editor and collaborating writer,  Njemile has worked with authors, businesses and nonprofit organizations since 2008 to elevate their communications to the next level.

She drills deep to help build solid foundations for her clients’ finished products, conducting targeted background research for speeches, articles and fictional content. She assists authors, academics, CEOs and public relations professionals to discover the essence of their message, and to deliver that message with clarity, grace and grammatical precision.

Writing in her own voice, Njemile explores self-awareness and global transformation, appreciating the power of individual choices to change the world.

Rebirthing Eternity: Finding Self Through Family

We are the untold stories

Yarns woven in darkness

Creating the fabric of time

The silence before the word

Prelude to the beginning

To the Reader

You were born deliberately. On purpose, in purpose and with purpose. The path to Earth is not always a straight one, but we made it here, you and I, and I’m glad to be sharing this space with you at this time. I hope I can speak to you frankly, because I have some things to say that you may at first find uncomfortable. Please bear with me, turn on your universal translator and hear me in your own language. I’m not likely to say anything that is too far from what you know.

Your Tribe

Is your family also your tribe? That is to say, are your blood and your spirit in the same place?  Sometimes it feels like, “There must be some mistake. These cannot be my people.” It’s tempting to say, if you feel truly connected to the people in your family, if you really feel at home among them, then you’re one of the lucky ones. And that’s true, to some extent. For sure, it cuts down on the need to go out on some sort of vision quest to find the people and places that set your soul to rest—not the final rest, mind you. The rest that means you can set down roots and commence to building, for now and for the future.

The other extent is the value of exploring. There are so many lessons along the way, so many people whose lives you touch, even if just for a moment. In searching for that tribal connection, you plant spiritual seeds far and wide. Each and every one of those encounters matters. Each one makes an impression in time and space, and changes the course of history. So, don’t despair if you have not yet found your tribe. You’re changing the world anyway. 

Who Are The 62?

One thing we all have in common is that each of us has at least one set of 62. People who are adopted have at least two sets of 62, and some have even more. The 62 are the spirits who conspired to bring each of us into the world. They consist of our biological parents (everybody has two, even if you don’t know or like them) and their parents, for five generations, back to your great-great-great grandparents. It’s fascinating to realize the simple truth that five generations of parents on both sides of your genetic make-up, equals 62 people.

62 is a significant number in several different systems that link together. Two very potent systems are numerology and genetics. In numerology, numbers with more than one digit are added together, or reduced, to arrive at a single digit. Each number from 0 thru 9 has a particular significance as a step or stage in the process of growth and development. In this case, we would add 6 +2, which equals 8. The number 8 represents infinity, and in mathematics the symbol for infinity, or numbers that repeat forever, is an eight lying on its side. In genetics, the number 8 looks very much like the DNA molecule, which scientists call a double helix:

It’s infinity again. DNA evokes the sense of an infinite heritage that allows us to draw from the past, live in the present and project toward an equally infinite future.

Traditional African religions tell us that there is a Beforelife, in addition to an Afterlife. In the Beforelife, spirits exist in a Netherworld, where they live a different kind of existence. There, they view planetary life and make decisions about what, where and with whom their next life will be. They set their purpose, and choose the parents that they believe will be most helpful in their development toward their purpose. 

In other words, you choose your parents. The notion, “I didn’t ask to be born,” doesn’t cut it in this way of thinking. In the African view, not only did you ask, but you independently CHOSE to be born to these particular parents, at this particular time, in this particular place. Why? To fulfill a mission or purpose. Generally, we tend to think of a mission or purpose in very grand, larger-than-life terms. Think of it this way:  it takes many individual trees to make a forest. Each tree is fulfilling a purpose that serves the community of trees, as well as the many lives that the tree community supports. As a collective life form, a forest helps to keep many, many life forms living and breathing. Very few individual trees achieve fame (at least not from a human perspective), yet each one serves greatly in its own right, and each one is a beautiful, unique individual in its community.

So it is with each of us. My philosophy is that every single life is valid. No mistakes. Every life contributes to the well of knowledge from which we all drink. Even the lives of those family members who sometimes challenge us to want to claim them. You know the ones: the uncle who gets drunk before arriving at Thanksgiving dinner, and the aunt who cries over everything. EVERY person holds an energy that calls others to a certain kind of attention, a certain quality of appreciation for the gifts of life.

By honoring our 62 or 62-plus, we tap into the special collection of knowledge, wisdom and understanding contributed by our own family lines. We tap into genius that is our birthright. Finding those 62 foreparents and bringing them, front-and-center into our homes, is a powerful step. Taking that step, we move toward becoming, healing and consciously preparing a legacy for those who come after us. Someday, many of us will be great-great-great grandparents. Today, we can speak power into the coming generations.

My experience with being in touch with my 62 is amazing. Just to think that I, once a child who was terrified of waking up to see all the dead people that I knew sitting in my room, would grow up to invite those same people into my room and into my energy field as I walk through this life. I was over 40 years old when the amazing transformation from terror to curiosity began. 

Those old feelings of terror began to rise up in me anew, after being quiet for a long time. I can now say that the ancestors must have been reaching out to me at that time. I chose to confront the terror, and in so doing, I came to the realization that the people that I was afraid of had loved me in life. “So why should it be different in death?” I asked myself. I remembered how I used to play with my grandfather. I remembered him as being so funny and loving. He would say, “How much do you love me?” and I would stretch my arms out to the side. “Is that all?” he teased. So I opened my arms further. “Is that all?” he would repeat, and I stretched my arms out so wide, they would almost touch in the back. Then he would laugh and hug me.

My grandmother and I used to pick up pecans and hang laundry on the line in the back yard together. She was a quiet, deliberate and practical woman. It felt so peaceful being with her during those crisp autumn days, enjoying the breezes that blew through gentle giant pecan trees that lined our very large back yard. One day, a bee stung my thumb while we were out there taking clothes off the line. She calmly took me inside to get some of her chewing tobacco for first aid. She quickly chewed a small break of the tobacco and placed it over the small wound. The stinger was still in my skin. I soon forgot about the sting and continued with taking clothes off the line. By the time a half hour passed, the tobacco was falling off my thumb while I went on about my chores. 

The Roots Phenomenon: Why It’s Important

Alex Haley’s family biography, Roots, and the television mini-series based on the story, had profound social impacts. Haley made the history of Africans in America personal. He made it possible in our collective mind to know our individual family histories. Before Roots, it had seemed impossible for most of us to know the names and glimpse the lives of our foreparents. Alex Haley and Roots also gave the genealogy profession in this country a tremendous boost, inviting Americans of all ethnicities and lineages to search their immigrant lines to discover more about themselves. 

My oldest brother is the one who chased down our family history. He’s our family historian. He didn't get all the way back to Africa, like Alex Haley did. There was no "star" ancestor like Kunta Kinte who held Africa so fiercely in his heart that it burned through the generations. Kunta's love for his home, life and freedom were so great that he inspired generations over a hundred years later. So powerful.

The people that my brother has discovered so far were more like the faithful trees in the forest. They gave in their present times—they lived, giving sustenance to others in their own time, and providing a channel through which others would be born. Based on the living patterns that we can see in our family, we can say that our foreparents held a vision for their descendants that called for integrity, creativity, education and community service. They were part of the many whose intense, unsung labors gave birth to the measure of freedom and self-determination that we enjoy today.

Not every life mission is beautiful. Human actions, from saintly to deeply depraved, are churned out in the powerful centrifuge of family. The family environment, our organization into family units, is divinely-inspired. It’s like a boutique laboratory, where we can test the many possibilities for the truest human unfoldment.

As painful as it sometimes is, family life is a place where we can look at ourselves and each other close-up, under the microscope, to learn something about what makes people tick. The ongoing-ness of family can be a big frustration at times, most likely when the deepest spiritual work is under way. It’s in families where we wage the fiercest battles with nature and nurture. My husband used to say, “You can’t quit your family.”  But, oh, how we sometimes wish we could. 

Elevating the Families of Africans in America

There’s no place like home. Under great duress, Africans in America made this new world their home. After a time of mourning the loss of their families and lives on the Continent, mostly in West Africa, Africans in captivity turned their gazes toward the future. While fighting to survive each day, they surrendered to a higher purpose, which their faith told them must be the reason for their pain. Two incredible examples of this faith and forward-looking are Kunta Kinte and Abdul Rahman Sori, known as the Prince Among Slaves.

Kunta Kinte repeatedly attempted to escape bondage three times, and was maimed by the slave owner’s henchman before he gave up his intention to return home. His foot was brutally chopped In half, to serve two oppressive purposes: to severely reduce his chances of escaping successfully, since he would have to travel on foot most of the way; and through routine intimidation, to convince other slaves that attempting to escape was futile, dangerous and often fatal. Kunta’s indomitable spirit recovered, and he poured his love for home and freedom into his daughter, who ultimately forged it through their generations.

Abdul Sori was a Prince from Guinea, who had been raised as a warrior, commander and steward of his father’s vast agricultural holdings. He, too, escaped from bondage. Unlike Kunta, he was not found and brought back in chains. He remained undiscovered for months. A Muslim, Abdul’s prayers led him to believe that his presence in this land had a greater purpose, and that he was to go through the experience to enable the fulfillment of that intended purpose. He returned to the plantation on his own. 

His knowledge of growing cotton and commanding men had been such an asset to the operations and profitability of the plantation that the owner was grateful to see him back. So Abdul escaped the wanton brutality that Kunta suffered after his attempted escape. Nevertheless, the young prince was determined to return home, and spent his life in that effort. Meanwhile, he taught his nine children the knowledge of themselves and their history, infusing in them the spirit of love for home and freedom that Kunta sent through his generations.

The love that Kunta poured into his daughter Kizzy became the thread that bound the family to the past and future. He had to suffer the heartbreak of having his daughter snatched from his arms by their captors, as punishment for her assisting another African captive to escape. Enduring injury upon injury, Kizzy was forced into a life as a sex slave to a selfish and self-absorbed tyrant. 

Her father’s voice in her heart quieted the impulse to take her own life and the life of her firstborn son. Kizzy realized that she could never be a murderer, and she loved all her children, in spite of the fact that they were born of rape. She fed them from the drinking gourd of love and freedom that her parents had bequeathed to her. Through her children, the legend of Bell and Kunta Kinte, and his parents Omoro and Binta Kinte, endured through the generations. 

Tearing families asunder was a weapon of terrorism that the tyrants wielded to break the hearts and defeat the will of the people. It was the ultimate tool to divide and conquer. Their hope was that the Africans, stripped of all connections with home, language and culture, would never regain a sense of self and the stability to amass a strong resistance to the institution of slavery and everything it represented. However, Africans in America had been prepared through the extended family and village life of traditional African society, a pattern of family networks that became a source of resilience for Africans held captive in America. Africans in America family patterns are now a hybrid of African and European family models. 

We’re now in a “betwixt and between” state of family organization. We’ve been damaged, yet our resilience gives us reason to be extraordinarily hopeful. It’s now time to elevate the value of family for Africans in America, first in our minds, and in the next half-second, in our interactions with each other and conversations about who and how we are.

The damage that was done to our family environments is like the damage done to the natural environment. When the air that we breathe, the water that we drink and the food that we eat have all been polluted, how do we protect ourselves from chronic diseases?  Diabetes, heart disease, strokes, cancer—all of these are strongly influenced by environmental and emotional stresses. The effects are long-lasting, and sometimes slow to show themselves.

Yet, Nature has ways to return Herself and our families to vibrant health and sustainable abundance. That’s resilience—the ability to bounce back, and Africans in Americas have demonstrated superhero powers in that area. We can speed our full healing with a conscious practice of elevating the memories of those who came before us. That elevation includes honoring all those unsung heroes and heroines, drawing on the patterns and lessons of their lives to propel ourselves forward and envisioning a bright and wholesome future for our great, great, great grandchildren.

We are the new conspirators. Our foreparents conspired with us in the Beforelife to ensure that our people would live through captivity. We are now in conspiracy with our future generations to create progress beyond anything ever seen on this planet. The Great Pyramid in Egypt reminds us of abilities that Africans once demonstrated. Let no one fool you, those pyramid builders were Black Africans, many of them jet-black Nubians, with wide noses, big lips and hair in locs. The mixture of races that now inhabits Egypt came much later in the history. Earth is dotted with other pyramids and stone structures that bear witness to people of color with advanced technologies who lived long ago.

They were wise enough to leave their signs built in stone. Those signs let us know to keep on pushing, keep on believing, keep on knowing the amazing things that we can do. A nation’s history is born in families. As we elevate our families in our minds, hearts, words and deeds, we are building a nation whose accomplishments are rooted in exceptional love, unbreakable bonds and brilliance that cannot be extinguished. 

When each of us connects with our 62 parents, we connect more firmly with the roots of life itself. Those of us who have been adopted have a spiritual legacy that spans more than that fundamental 62. You are blessed with a foundation that runs even wider and deeper in the Earth. You draw closer to traditional African villages, where the definition of family extended beyond one’s direct line of parents.

Every year, many Africans in Americas travel to West Africa to get a feel for both traditional village life and urban living there. It has to be an incredible feeling to be able to go to the actual village, or region where your foreparents lived. What a family reunion, and what an education!  There is some work to do for us to really get to know each other again. We had our trauma in being brought over here against our will, and Africa endured great trauma during and after colonialism. 

African families had to live on without cherished children and parents. Villages had to recover from the devastating absence of generations of youth and strength. The descendants of tribes and individuals who helped to deliver their fellow countrymen and women up to the invaders have to heal as well. To help with that healing process, in 1999 Benin President Matthieu Kerekou apologized to a group of African American ministers in Washington, DC for Africans’ role in selling rival tribespeople into enslavement. Some of the connections that they made have begun to blossom, inspiring groups on both sides of the water who have built ongoing connections with family, society and business.   

Know Thyself: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It’s a tall order to know thyself. Most of us have been given this prescription for a happy and productive life at some point in our journeys. Where does this knowing come from?  Who is myself?  How do I get to know who my true self is, while at the same time receiving influences from so many people and places? Practice, practice, practice, and someday I’ll feel like I actually fit into the skin that houses me.

We can start to discover who we really are by looking into the stewpot of family. All the ingredients in that pot of stew flavor each other, while holding on to their own shape and identity (provided it’s not overcooked or pureed). It’s really good to talk about family as a stew, since food and cooking are so central to our memories of family life. One of the best things about family reunions is that you get to look at and clearly identify some of the ingredients that helped to make you who you are. You get to see the lines of connection, the traits that were passed around and reimagined throughout this group of people.

The family mix is a gold mine for purpose and power. Whatever is in that mix—the good, the bad and the ugly—all of it can be fuel that gets us moving toward our purpose. Some folks say, “you are what you do.”  We all understand that we are what we eat. We’re also the people in whose images we are made, and the experiences that we have had. The more we know about the personalities, stories, beliefs and customs of our families, the more ready we can be to carve out our own special place in the world. 

Your 62: How to Find Five Generations of Parents (And Your Link to Eternity)

Gathering Your Vital Data

Gathering the actual names of your Base 62 Power Center is where the rubber meets the road. Depending on your age, the closeness of your family and how much information they held onto over the years, this part could be a breeze or an archaeological dig. Getting to the fourth and fifth generations is harder for Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 , and their parents, the Greatest Generation. Millennials are special. They’re the first to move out of the misty past of enslavement and “ancient” technology, to routinely assemble a more complete family portrait. 

Counting a generation as  22-25 years, the birth of your fifth generation ancestors takes you back from 110 to 125 years. By far, the biggest information blockage is the enslavement period. Other blocks include family moves, lack of attention to documents and photos, sketchy public records and family secrets. The explosion of genealogical services helps to get around many of these blocks. Those services put together data from the National and State Archives, Census and military records, State records of marriages, births and deaths, graveyards and so on. 

Without the services that put much of those records together for you, you could do a lot of the legwork on your own. Many archives are available to the public. You can also use local property records, newspaper archives and church records. Funeral home records are very rich resources. They are an institution that Africans in Americas built and maintained for many years. They can provide information like the dates of burial, who paid for the funeral and their relationship to the deceased.

Tools & Resources

Local genealogical clubs and historical societies are good places to look. You can usually find them in the genealogical section of your public library. Like librarians, they are generally very eager to help and to talk about how they approach their work, and to share stories about their journeys. These friendly folk can help avoid some of the many dead ends on the road to family discovery. 

Old newspapers contain not only obituaries that may be helpful, but they can also provide a sense of what it was like to live in the times of your family ancestors. You’ll see what was going on politically, classified ads and other advertisements, not to mention the price of a loaf of bread and gallon of milk. Seeing advertisements for slave sales is not pleasant to read, but one of those ads just may contain a clue that can be chased down. In my search, I discovered that the main local newspaper in my hometown, The Albany Herald, was once called The Patriot, published by the founder of the City. I looked at an edition published in 1855, the earliest year available at our local heritage center. 

The paper was very dense, with a lot of narrow columns and very few pictures. The amazing thing is that it was like reading a current newspaper, in terms of the subjects they discussed. Republicans and Democrats battled it out, there was news from Russia, and even a debate about climate change. Some of the companies that advertised were the same ones that I had seen my mother do business with as a child. I scanned the paper looking for family names, hoping to find a precious clue. 

Beyond DNA & Online Searches

DNA tests can allegedly tell us a lot about who we are, who our parents are and even who our long lost ancestors are and where they lived. At least, the tests can estimate within about 30,000 square miles. I hate to have to follow that DNA test up with an on-the ground search in West Africa. It’s pretty clear that most of the Africans who were brought to this country in chains came from West Africa. We really don’t need a DNA test to tell us that. The Africans who came of their own free will, from the 1500s on through today, also came from areas that can be verified.

Recently, companies have initiated databases of DNA from individuals and groups in Africa. This data can lead to direct connections with actual families on the continent.

Online searches are extremely helpful in gathering names, dates and vital statistics. This type of search can eliminate a lot of hours at the library or on the road, tracking down clues. If the DNA tests and online searches can back each other up, then of course, they’re even more useful. This information can be a balm to our hearts, and help us feel more grounded on the planet.

When peering into history, it’s also important not to overlook actual people, who are often our greatest resource. Our families are the reason for searching in the first place. Having real conversations with elders, letting them know that we value their lives and histories, is a big part of the healing that comes from bringing our family histories into our daily lives. What were our elders’ lives really like?  When did they fall In love, or have their first kiss? Who were their best friends along the way, and what was the weather like on their wedding day? What was their greatest adventure, success, failure, hardship or victory? There are so many lessons and just pure sharing in their experiences that can go far in helping to understand the people that they are, as well as the march of history. 

Gathering Stories

The saddest stories are the ones that went to the grave without being told. For me, the best stories are the ones that helped bring me into the world. Imagine your daddy as a newborn baby, full of hope and promise. What did that little baby see and feel that made him grow up to meet your mama?  Did they know the moment they met that their lives were going to be forever connected?

What hopscotch games did Mom play when she was seven years old? What was she thinking about when she walked to school, got her hair done or learned how to ride a bike? Who was her favorite teacher, her best girlfriend or favorite coworker on her first job? What dreams did she fulfill, and which ones died on the vine? If she passed away already, what would she want to tell you that she did not say? What would you like to tell her? What would you ask if you had another chance?

Having those stories of our foreparents makes us rich. Think how excited you would be to find a letter that you knew for sure your great, great, great grandmother wrote. What if you wrote a letter to your great, great, great grandchildren? What would you say? What life lessons, jokes, or just reports about daily life would you share with them?

As I said, nations are born in families. So are saints, sinners, cops and robbers. I suppose you could say that some of the greatest crimes are committed right at home. Children are molested and raped, women and men are assaulted and patents are robbed. Rarely do we want to remember or tell the stories of the sinners and robbers that have lived and died in our homes, and this is the stuff that makes juicy family secrets. These are some of the things that keep families in need of healing.

It takes a lot of courage for families to face those things about themselves that bring up feelings of embarrassment and shame. Some families do face those issues. Those are the strong ones, who learn from an honest assessment of what has happened in their personal and family lives, and develop the resilience to face challenges with integrity. The parts of our truths that we keep hidden and unaddressed are often the parts that hold the most potential in guiding us to our life missions or heal generational traumas.

One of the more beautiful family stories that I’ve heard was told to me by one of my current friends, Julie Rainbow, is a tall, beautiful and gregarious Black woman from North Carolina. We met through a mutual friend who recommended me as an editor for a companion volume to her first book. Julie describes her North Carolina upbringing in such wonderful terms, it’s like a village was plucked whole from West Africa and placed gently among the North Carolina lowlands. In Julie’s childhood, she sat at the feet of elders in her neighborhood, where she listened, entranced by what they shared with her.

In the loving embrace of these elders, Julie was fully affirmed, and she learned to love herself, her family and her community. Those experiences were seeds planted deep in the psyche of that little Black girl, and they took root in her heart. The seeds flowered into a continuous love for hearing the stories of elders, and Julie grew up to become an oral historian, collecting incredible untold stories of love, friendship and adventure from unassuming men and women whose greatness went unrecognized by many, if not most people.

Julie told me that one day, in her practice as a family counselor, she found herself helping a young couple get through some of the same difficulties that she was going through in her own marriage. After the session, she escorted them to the door. Dazed, she walked back to her chair and slowly lowered her head to the desk, atop her crossed arms. “Ancestors!” she cried out, “What am I doing?!  Do I really know what to tell anyone about love and marriage, about relationships?  I need the same thing that I’m trying to give to them.”

In that moment, she knew what to do. She would return to the feet of the elders who had nurtured her so fully in her childhood, and learn from them how to navigate the choppy waters of love. She began work on a lovely volume entitled, Standing the Test of Time:  Love Stories of Africans in America Elders. She sought out couples who had remained in their marriages for a minimum of 30 years, and talked to them about how they did it. In Standing the Test of Time, Julie gathers together the wisdom gleaned from her talks with the elders. She weaves together the fibers of relationship that they shared into a manual that guides the flow of any union—husband/wife, parent/child, siblings or friends.

Becoming One of the 62: Planning for Your Great-Great-Great Grandchildren

What will life be like for our great, great, great grandchildren?  There will come a time when our 5th generation grandchildren will walk this planet. We may not be able to imagine the technology and surroundings that they will create, but we can imagine the type of atmosphere that we want them to breathe, the principles and ideals that we want them to hold and the gifts of spirit that we want them to inherit. We are living the dreams of our ancestors. For Africans in Americas, part of that means being free to walk the streets without being terrorized, relative freedom to choose where and for whom we will work and freedom to learn all that we choose.

Connecting the historical dots for our grandchildren is one of the greatest gifts that we can give them. Telling our own stories, owning our own narratives, sets the stage for us to then write our own histories and bequeath them to our children. 

Imagine us living in full knowledge, awareness and manifestation of our equality. Imagine us living such that justice flows from our own grand spirits to each other. Imagine a full and complete freedom. Imagine brilliant artistic and scientific creations shared on a cosmopolitan global stage. Imagine no poverty, shared abundance and dynamic exchange. Imagine physical and emotional vitality, health and wellness. These may seem like pipe dreams to us today, but the lives that we live must have seemed like pipe dreams to our ancestors who labored in the hot sun under the captors’ whips, picking cotton, eating the castoff foods, wearing the castoff clothing and preparing the fruits of our labor for tyrants.

Family Culture, Secrets & Outsiders

When I first started to talking with Brother Michael Harper about helping families gather, preserve and present their family histories, he gave me a heads up that saved me a lot of disappointments and broken relationships. Brother Michael is a big, burly teddy bear of a Black man. He’s a gruff-and-tumble construction professional with decades of experience. And his favorite subject is history. Just for the love of it, he participated in reenactments of the Civil War at the memorial in Arlington, Georgia. He’s been helping families with their genealogies for years.

In that work, he learned that many people shut down when they get to a point in the history that they want to keep under wraps. Family secrets are one of the hardest barriers to get around. Whether it’s about a child born of an extramarital affair, or a husband who didn’t find his way back home after going to pick up a loaf of bread from the grocery store or the dates on a marriage license that were changed to match the dates on a birth certificate, people are willing to go to war to keep those secrets. 

One such secret recently came to light in our family. When my siblings and I learned about it, the first thing we thought was, “How lame!  He couldn’t even have enough imagination to think of a different name?!” Perhaps. On her death bed, the mother of two siblings that we did not know about told her sons that our father was also their true father. Which means that our father was having an affair with a woman who lived practically in our back yard.

He named at least one of the boys the same name as one of my mother’s children. Wow. I suppose there was method in that madness. He could never slip and say the wrong name!

Gathering Partners

Having someone go with you on your journey through time is priceless. The most compelling reason for studying the past is to impact the present and future. Putting together the puzzle of family can involve digging through attics and basements, boxes and people’s faded memories, plus hours of online searches. The golden reward for all that work is a priceless sense of connection and knowing. Sharing that feeling is what it’s all about.

World Peace Begins at Home

Family Healing: Finding the Right Guide, Counselor or Practice

Let’s face it: there’s a lot of hurt and dysfunction in families. After all, they are the entrance points and testing grounds for our spirits. They’re where we land in this world, to find out if our families will be our guideposts for where to go or what to escape. War and peace are born in families, and move out into the world from there. Parents with the greatest intentions pour their hearts into their children, only to find that those very loved children spend the rest of their lives trying to recover from their upbringing.

Parents wish we had the perfect formula for raising well-adjusted children who find their places in the world and fulfill their heart’s desires. Yet, we know that every life has purpose, no matter how seemingly confused and unhappy it may seem to us. No matter what, each life leaves little ribbons tied to twigs, signs for ourselves and others to find a path through our humanness. When we can work together with family to find those paths, we can harness the power in our family lines and set the stage for healing on a global scale. 

Put family healing on the agenda for your next family reunion. Bring in family counselors, ministers or relationship and self-help gurus to make special presentations. Give out books on family healing as reunion souvenirs, and keep the conversation going by asking members to write about their experiences, feelings and issues. If they don’t like to write, have them make videos and post them to a private room on FB or store on a flash drive.

Activate Your Power Center

Up Front: Making Your Family History Beautiful and Easy to Reach

My core message is to bring our family memorabilia out of boxes and bins, and make it very visible to the young ones. It felt so good to see my grandchildren stopping to ask questions about their great-great-great-grandparents, and some great aunts and uncles. My aunt named Cora did not like to be called “Auntie,” because it made her feel old. She always wanted to stay young, hip and fly. Her picture is among those displayed on what I call my Power Center. Some call it an altar or shrine. That’s where I keep a special set of photos of family members who have passed on.

When my daughter’s three children came into my room and saw the arrangement one day, they immediately began asking about the people in the photos. My daughter looks a lot like my Aunt Cora, and my ten-year-old grandson immediately noticed the resemblance. He was especially impressed when he learned her name, because he enjoys a program called “The Legend of Korra.”  That stuck in his mind, because he could relate the name to a current experience of.

As we talked, I was inspired to tell them several stories about those family members, and they listened very closely. All three asked questions until they were satisfied for the time being. Having those pictures right there, displayed in a special arrangement, sparked their interest and curiosity, which is just what I wanted to happen. It helped that the photos were on the children’s eye level. That made the experience that much more up close and personal.

My Power Center arrangement is patterned after the Dagara tradition of West Africa. I learned the basic set-up from a book by a Dagara sangoma (wise man and healer) named Dr. Malidoma Patrice Some. You can read about it in his book, The Healing Wisdom of Africa. Another excellent resource is Odwirafo Kwesi Ra Akhan, who has written a host of books on the history and connections between the Akan people of West Africa, Ancient Kamitians (Egyptians) and African Americans. Check him out at https://odwirafo.com/. 

The museum approach can also be useful. Museums work to collect, select and display historical information in artistic and accessible formats. Artifacts, like objects and utensils used in homes and at work, provide glimpses into the daily lives of individuals and communities. All of these things reinforce our connections with what it means to be human, to face and overcome or be overcome by challenges. They give us permission to be our humble selves, in the knowing that whatever our lives are, they are gifts to the whole of life on this planet and in this Universe.

Whatever ways you choose or invent, just make sure you don’t let another generation live without knowledge of their personal and historical past. We can do this now. Let’s do it.