To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, region, and people.
This principle is often our daily struggle. It requires us to move. To take action with our lives. To sometimes stand. Or kneel ( Kapernick ✊🏿). To take dominion over self. It wakes any Yoruba tale of Obara telling us, yes we are King, but gosh darn it, we must do the work to achieve success. While I grew up learning the Nguzu Saba (the seven principles of Kwanzaa), I often interpreted it as what we, Black people, the African race must do as a unit. As an adult, I have had to come into my own understanding of what each of the principles means.
FOR YOUR REFLECTION
In the spirit of walking with Kujichagulia, I say dig deeper within:
1. In what areas of your life have you already been self-determined to achieve amazing things? Remember them. They are your stepping stones.
2. What are the things that still have not come to fruition because you have deferred those dreams to dry up like a raisin in the sun? Soak them, they will grow again.
3. Who or what lays tracks in your fear zone? Start with your head-then erase the negative chatter. Meditation, therapy, and a good spiritual bath all serve as healthy elixirs.
4. Are you more caught up with the Have and Have Nots (etcetera) than with your own haves and haves nots? Get out of other people’s lives; get in yours. It may require unplugging from this virtual world on occasions too.
5. How can you make small steps towards your thing today? I don’t know how to tell you this. I saw the abominable snowman do it when I was a kid. Why can’t I? Why can’t you? Everything begins.
So today Kujichagulia is an action verb; time to move our assets. And may we all be self-determined to do that thing that we’re doing, or do that thing that we came to do.
Thanks to Kemba Watson for this FaceBook post, Kujichagulia 2019
To experience self-determination or a sense of self-empowerment, start small. Cut some tags off your pillows and lamps. If you are one of the many who do not systematically remove the ugly useless huge tags on your pillows and light fixtures, have you ever asked yourself why? They’re your damn pillows! Sure you can say it doesn’t matter. They’re mostly out of sight. And…their removal provides a silly yet symbolic moment of empowerment.
You know that feeling. When you do something just for you or for someone for which you advocate. No matter how many people told you you shouldn’t or even that you can’t!
Try it. Pick a prickly space in your life and shake it up by asking for what you need…and want! What do I want? I told my hubby that I like to be rubbed down with oil and have him take his time. I repeat, take your time! After 26 years of marriage, I could not think of a time I had been that explicit about my oil-rubbing sensual preferences. Hmmm…. It’s never too late.