❝ ​I am the Black girl that crossed the dark sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the Free
Now home on Native land
I am the woman who worked on the field
Bringing the cotton and the cane to yield 
I am the one who laboured as a slave
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave
Children sold away from me, husband auctioned off, mamas voided too
No safety, no love, no respect was I due
A prey to white violence, a slave to white lust
No value, low-priced
Back then I sucked salt and bit the dust
Four hundred years deep in the South
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth 
God put a dream like a steel drum in my soul
Freedom gave fire to this body turned cold
Now, through my children, I'm watching the seed grow,
Post up like the Fruit,
Now, through my children, I'm hitting the goal.
Realize child the blessings denied to me
I couldn't read then, I couldn't write 
I had nothing back then, not even the night
Some days the road was hot with sun
But I had to keep on till my work was done
I had to keep on! No stopping for me--
I was the seed of the coming Free
I nourished and nursed the dream, the struggle 
That nothing can smother 
Deep in my breast-- 
The Black mother 
I had only one hope then, but now through you,
Black children of today, my wildest dreams must come true
All you dark children in the world today out there,
Remember my blood, my sweat, my tears 
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow-
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my past a road to the light,
A revolutionary path
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night. ❞

*

​Dreams are often indications from beyond this place
Where life plays out confined in time n space
Intersecting with the mind yet flourishing from beyond thought
A tale told without restraint meanings found yet at times lost
Ever consider the entirety of That where they're from
Just look at The Eternal Energy pouring forth from the sun
This Fountain never falters and will never dry
It's the What for all to notice - not the How or Why
Dreams. Peaceful realities amongst this here show and prop
Have you ever absorbed the Ultimate Reality of the thought
Absolute is only One Source - Grand above all you hold dear
Open yourself to This warmth and absorb truly without fear

*

Would you like to publish your work with us? 
​Submit your work for consideration - we are accepting all forms of creative expression!

​'Our story didn't begin in chains'
Brother Malcolm reminded.
Remember when we were free to just be?
Be comfortable in the skin we're in? 
Where our chests were just as expansive as baobab trees?
Where free traders and dusty foot philosophers
threaded red earth paths of knowledge 
Seeking the truths we hold?
Even held on to across the Seas?
Where village aunties kept up tradition
In colorful head scarves made educated guesses
That healing was never done in isolation
and understood that womanhood was the best hood to live in?
Where children's classrooms were filled with wooden writing boards 
Not only blackboards 
To illustrate the long history of Islam and literacy in Africa?
As lessons completed, boards were washed clean for reuse
And the ink of young scholars flowed through the Savannah?
Where the Sheikh and the mureed convened
under the shade of palms from the heated sun beams
sitting knees bent dripped in clothes without seams?

Knowledge is a garden, if it isn't cultivated, you can't harvest it, 
the proverb says.
Remember when they had us cultivating and harvesting everything else but
 in foreign, unwelcoming places and in cruel and unusual ways?
'But my hand was made strong by the hand of the Almighty'
Brother Bob put forward 
​And as we forward in this generation triumphantly 
'We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery
because while others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind '
A lion name Marcus Mosiah authored
 So free your mind and be unconfined.

Go ahead and tell your story
Freely, in all your strength and glory
The mind is a terrible thing to waste they said
so don't waste time with those unworthy. 
Know your worth and charge taxes on every gem you drop
Pick up where the ancestors left off and don't you stop.
You are Black history and future in the making 
Through the joy and the pain 
Your spirit is steady manifesting 
The plant that God favours grows even without rain
​
Resilience is a blessing