The Process Of Defragmentation → Applying The Principles Of Sankofa
Now that we can clearly see some of the fallacies and biases that get trapped within our psyche, we understand why defragmentation is so important to our healing process. Sankofa is a process of activation that continuously runs in the background of our lives to defragg our minds and bring us back to our true selves. Social programming makes a big dramatic fuss over just about any new process, so we tend to automatically believe that doing something new or different is a big deal. It's not. Let's take a look at a few ways to get started.
☥ Spend more time learning our history and culture than eurocentric history and culture
and put eurocentric history in its proper + honest context. Keep in mind that colonizers
attempt to be the authority/control the source of information about our history so we
will need to study ourselves pluralistically.
☥ Encourage older family members to share their stories. Woven within their stories are
insights about life lessons, familial habits, personality traits, historical information, etc.
☥ Dr. Nobles brilliantly suggests that we ask “Why?” and “Who stands to gain from this
behavior?” questions such as:
☥ Who stands to gain from aggressive social programs that present Africa as having
no value to African people?
☥ Why do colonizers need to control the narrative of African history and culture?
☥ Why is there a push to not teach Black History in schools?
☥ Why does europe hold 90% of Africa’s art in its museums?
☥ Who stands to gain from Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People fighting each
other?
☥ Who stands to gain from stereotyping Black People as violent, Middle Eastern
people as terrorists, Mexican people as lazy, Indian people as nonexistent, white
people as the go-to standard?
☥ Practice Qigong regularly and periodically to revisit childhood traumas with our current
understanding. Old trauma doesn't go away because it happened so long ago. Think of
old trauma as a pipe with a very slow leak. If it is not addressed, it will eventually cause
systemic damage. Our Qigong practice will gently guide us through the process of
healing and releasing unresolved trauma. Self-hatred can prevent us from
recognizing hidden super powers. Our white ancestors have valuable information that
they cannot withhold from us because, like it or not, they are a part of us. As we learn to
love and accept all of who we are, we can use that information to identify and remove
the root causes of racism and oppression.
I once worked with a major educational publisher who published the most successful series of college level biology texts in the world. I had met the author many times during our sales meetings. He was a very personable, middle aged white man in excellent physical condition. However, four months after my conversation with him during our sales meeting, I was shocked to learn that he died suddenly of a heart attack. A month before he died (at the age of 48), he passed his physical and an intense series of stress tests, so his family was in utter disbelief. In retrospect, his death no longer surprises me. When I resigned from the organization, I was thoroughly burned out. The exhaustion that I felt lingered with me for a year. At the time of his death, he was working on three different versions of textbooks which is an enormous amount of work, even for revisions/new editions. He died because his understanding of biology did not translate into daily wellness practice. He certainly had an exercise routine and a relatively healthy diet, but his lifestyle priorities were way off balance and he had no Qigong, Yoga or meditative practice that would have helped him to process the stress, create more balance and enforce strong healthy work boundaries. His detailed, intricate and sophisticated knowledge of Human Biology could not save his life. I cannot stress the importance of daily Qigong practice enough. Getting started can be as simple as a consistent five minute daily practice. It may take a year of trial and error to train ourselves to commit to five minutes per day, but once we get through our rite of passage (commitment → defragmentation), our practice will no longer be something that we must remember to do. It will transform into how we do what we do.
'Spiritness' pertains to the condition of being a spirit. Being 'energy' or a power. When the person and/or community experiences congruity between the 'super, inter' and 'inner' realms of 'Spiritness,' then the sense of human integrity is achieved. It is only when one has a sense of their own 'human integrity' that one has the 'instinct' to resist dehumanization or oppression as well as the capability to even contemplate, let alone achieve, human liberation/freedom and believing in the certainty of victory. ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
Technically, the Black family is comprised of several individual households with the family definition and lines of authority transcending any one individual household unit that comprises the 'family.' Familial forms found in Black communities are many and varied. There is no singular, monolithic type or kind of Black family. However, a great deal of similarity exists among the many different Black family forms. Black families are more similar than they are different. There is more that unites Black families than there is that separates them. ☥ ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
☥ Participate in cultural exchanges with people throughout the diaspora. One of Dr.
Nobles' Sankofa processes is to have empowered dialogues with continental Africans.
His practice of working with continental Africans to create a word for the diasporans is
an essential part of our healing process. During these empowered dialogues, he asks
continentals, "What is the word in your language for a child who has been stolen?"
Because Africans didn't steal children before colonization, African languages don't have
a word to describe diasporans which contributes to socialized divisions between us.
What can we do to dismantle these socialized divisions?
The diasporans are not foreigners/visitors to Africa. We are African children who were stolen from our homeland, and we need to know the African word that describes our experience in every African language. The creation or co-creation of that word from/with the continentals is like finding the roots of our tree that was pulled and putting it back in the ground.
Empowered dialogues help us to decolonize and cleanse our mind so that we can see
ourselves as we truly are. The Sankofa activation/practices help us to defragg the
colonization process by learning about and accepting our multidimensional nature. As
we learn about East Indians, Africans, Caribbeans, Asians, Aborigines, Indigenous
People, etc., we begin to recognize and accept parts of ourselves that were separated
from us through the process of colonization and social programming. I may not agree
with all of the philosophies/lifestyle choices of many of the people that I quote in my
blogs, but I don't allow those differences to keep me from expanding my perceptions by
exploring the world through their experiences. Instead, I take the "stone" out of the "rice
pudding" and periodically revisit it after I've had more time to grow and learn to see
where I am in the process/track my perceptions over time. Multiple perspectives
protect us from blindspots caused by our unresolved trauma. As we contemplate the
multiple perspectives in this blog, we'll begin to see a pattern. Even if I, as the author,
am blinded by my personal beliefs, the different vantage points will bring the truth to
life. It is an essential part of my work as a healer because of our world's deep immersion
in traumatic experiences, and it is a strategy to hold myself accountable to the pursuit
of healing truths that may push me beyond my comfort zone. Cultural dynamics such
as cancel culture and character assassinations can cause us to discard the "rice
pudding," and there may be a nugget of wisdom in that pudding that could assist us in
solving a challenge. I include an array of quotes to encourage us to engage in pluralistic
explorations of a concept ☥ transcend monolithic thinking in order to make decisions
that serve our highest good.
Africa Never Stand Still is a compilation of music from around the continent. I'm still
searching for a Black African distributor of the music, but I mention this work because it
provides an excellent example of multidimensional talent that has been mostly hidden
from Black People of the diaspora. I am in the middle of a year-long experiment where I
have this, and other African music that I've collected, playing in the background, all day
and every day. Sometimes I blast the music, and sometimes it plays low in the
background. Even though I do not understand the lyrics, the music has already
dismantled embedded fallacies, biases, stereotypes and programmed ignorance within
my subconscious mind.
The Nganga (Healer) is one capable of activating the process by which the body (persons or community) repairs, cures or restores itself to health and well-being. [They are] one who restores the physical, psychic, social and cosmic balance and harmony in and between persons, people (community), nature and the Divine. The Nganga (Healer) serves as a powerful mediator between the visible world and the realm of spirit and ancestors. ☥ ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
The African mind has a lot to contribute, not only to world understanding of the arts but to an understanding of spiritualism. That is the contribution Africa will make to the world of the future—an injection of sanity into the environment of the universe itself. ☥ ☥ Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì ☥
Some of the African tribal songs that I've been listening to bear striking resemblances
to or is indistinguishable from Indigenous chant patterns that I've heard at Pow Wows.
One day, a family member who stopped by thought I was listening to "Spanish" music
and was surprised (almost to disbelief) to learn that it was African.
First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black People need to get the credit for that. ☥ ☥ ☥ Carlos Santana ☥
You know there is no such thing as a ‘Latino.’ The annoyance on the Indigenous
leader’s face was an indication of extreme racial fatigue. We are Indian, African and
have as much ’spanish’ blood as you have ‘white’ blood. As he spoke his truth, I was
both astonished at how the obvious was elusive to me and honored that I created a
safe environment for him to speak freely. You know that the Declaration Of
Independence (DOI) refers to us as ‘merciless Indian savages.’ I knew that this leader
would not lie to me, but I found his statement so hard to believe. Didn’t I read the DOI in
school? Why don’t I know this? After my conversation with the Indigenous leader, I read
the DOI, and I realized that only one sentence was taught to me in school: “We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
After reading the DOI aloud, I realized that this one sentence was the only part of the
document that wasn’t utterly ridiculous to me. I cannot explain what it feels like to be a
Black person reading a letter of complaint written by white people who are committing
the humanitarian crimes against Black People that they claim England is committing
against them. I had to sit with it for a while, because I needed to process the anger of
the sneaky way that the document was presented to me in school. A few months after
my conversation with the Indigenous leader, I was in an Uber with a “Latino” driver. I
said something about “Black and Brown communities.” He asked, Who is Brown? And in
that moment, I realized that my use of the term “Brown” didn’t come from Indigenous
People, it came from white people. I was so annoyed, because I felt manipulated and
became determined to take out the trash that is embedded within concepts in my mind
until I am squeaky clean. Over the years, I have experimented with different ways to
acknowledge and process our history. I eventually created an annual July 4th ritual
which I write about in Owning And Healing Our Ugly.
I am also learning about people who live and work in the United States ☥ throughout
the diaspora, but whose work is not promoted to Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant
People, such as Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng (KKO), who performed on the "Africa Never Stand
Still" compilation and teaches African Drumming at Brown University. I also search for
music reviews that provide broader perspectives of African music. As mentioned in
"Journey To The Dream," it is very difficult for Africans to get their work promoted in
other countries which presents a major challenge in learning from/about continental
Africans because it allows for white people to appropriate, reframe and present our
history and culture before we can discover the truth for ourselves. In "What Is
Ayurveda?," I share an example of how white people attempt to drive and control
the information by being the only sources of access or as translators of African lyrics
(which they infuse with their prejudices). It is imperative that continental Africans
control the process of translating their languages so that we can learn who we are
from an authentic and accurate source. When I was a child, some Jamaicans were
ashamed of the Rastafarans and stereotyped them as being ganja smoking hippies,
while at same time, we see Bob Marley playing to crowds of thousands of white people
in Santa Barbara, CA, London, England, etc. We have to question why we are
programmed to turn away from ourselves while colonizers get first access to our
culture so that they can define it and find ways to appropriate/sell it back to us. These
challenges caused me to make learning about Africa a fun detective game that I call
"Finding Kunta Kinte." Whether it is science, mathematics, history, music, art, dance,
etc., as we begin our process of discovery based on our personal interests, our innate
wisdom will kick in and our path will become clear. There are no rules to follow or finish
lines to cross, so we can take our time and enjoy our journey.
Our children are and will be, in ways that we cannot imagine, citizens of the whole world. To distort their socialization and continue to mis-educate is to cripple them as participants of a just world order. So what does Tut have to do with it? It has to do with our ability to correctly portray the image and identity of King Tutankhamun and in so doing teach the truth regarding the human past as a measure of our ability to give an honest account of Black people’s history and contributions. It is one small and great gift we can give to all children. ☥ ☥ ☥ From The Research Article, ‘The Whitening Of Black King Tut: Implications For Educating All Children' ☥ Wade W. Nobles, Ph.D. ☥ Vera L. Nobles, Ph.D.’ ☥
☥ Learn the lessons from our past, and combine those lessons with our current reality to
develop ☥ implement ☥ continuously refine effective strategies to heal our
communities. We cannot rely solely on legislation to protect us. Legislation
doesn't work without inner transformation because colonizers will continue their
behavior in other ways. Imagine that coffee, your favorite beverage, just got outlawed.
What would you do if you knew that you would not be punished for your actions/you
could easily hide your behaviors? How would you behave in the kitchen if you knew that
you would never have to clean it?
Now, let us travel back to December 6, 1865
when the 13th Amendment was passed to abolish slavery in the United States. What do
you think colonizers did on December 7, 1865? Did they say, Well, now that it is against
the law to enslave Black People, rape anyone that we want and sell our biracial children
for profit, we’ll drop our competition with Europe and our emotional addictions to
terrorizing people so that we can feel powerful. We don't need economic suppression
any more. We'll collaborate with the Blacks and Indians because they seem to know
how to provide for themselves without harming the earth and causing climate change.
We will learn how to earn wealth without the forced use of free labor, lying, cheating,
stealing and forcing Indians to attend boarding schools so that we can convert them
into white people to increase our population numbers. We will learn how to respect
and have healthy romantic relationships so that we'll no longer feel the need to
rape/sex traffick Black☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People. We'll stop stalking and
threatening unknown Indigenous tribes in order to tag/research them, medical
experimentation, creating circus/other medical 'freaks' and figure out how to have fun and earn money without taking our family to human zoos or appropriating Black ☥
Indigenous ☥ Immigrant culture. We admit that our behavior is psychotic so that we can
heal, release our addictions to hoarding and inflicting pain. We'll learn how to tap into
and value the human in us and collaborate with nature instead of attempting to
conquer and compete with it. Instead of disenfranchising and sabotaging Black☥
Indigenous ☥ Immigrant businesses to ensure our success, we'll focus our efforts on
creating high quality products and serving our community. We'll engage in win-win
honest trades with Africa, making sure that we do not extract resources from any
community until that community has confirmed that they have the resources that they
need to flourish and thrive. Our healing allows us to feel fulfilled so that we can
recapture our humanity, clean up the messes that we made, change our lives, become
better people and work together to create a healthy, free and open society ... Is that
what happened? Nope:
The 1889 Parisian World's Fair presented a 'Negro Village' and was visited by 28 million people. The 1889 World's Fair displayed 400 Indigenous People as the major attraction [construction of The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889] ... The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 million (equivalent to $489,000,000 in 2022) were used to finance the event ... A group of Igorot (Indigenous People of the Cordillera in northern Luzon, Philippines), Ota Benga, a Congolese 'pygmy' [and many others] were on display at the human zoo during the fair. Some of the people to be exhibited died en route or at the fair; bodies were immediately removed, and funeral rites had to be conducted without the bodies, in front of an oblivious public audience of fair attendees. Ota Benga was later given the run of the grounds at the Bronx Zoo in New York, then was featured in an exhibit on evolution alongside an orangutan in 1906. Ota committed suicide in 1916. ☥ ☥ Wikipedia ☥
After the 13th Amendment was passed, colonizers aggressively pressed forward with
their agendas which included Jim Crow laws, prison chain gangs, sex trafficking, the
largest mass lynching in United States history and many other forms of oppression
and economic suppression. Legislation is a first step, but we behave as if it is the
solution. Learning from our past means that once we get the law on the books, we
realize that our work has just begun. Inner transformation begins with us being rooted
in and taking actions that are driven by our innate intelligence. It also includes
increasing self-awareness, protecting ourselves and cultivating ☥ enforcing
benchmarks for trust ☥ strong healthy boundaries that hold us and all citizens of the
earth accountable to exemplary behaviors that serve the highest good.
There are many social programs designed to shift public narratives and perceptions.
What Is Qigong? explores the challenges of using pets for emotional support, because
this trend trains people to distract themselves away from pain instead of learning how
to process ☥ heal trauma and cultivate healthy relationships (which includes continual
personal development and the emotional maturity to resolve conflicts). So many of our
problems could be easily solved if we learned how to heal during the Page stage of
development. Instead of making the self-correction (which is temporarily
uncomfortable, and can feel unbearable to people who have not learned how to
demystify ☥ heal emotions), our society continually develops new ways to run from
pain and promotes/excuses a lack of self-mastery as being uncontrollable so that we
avoid taking responsibility for our actions. Consider this plot description from the TV
show Dexter:
Orphaned at age three, when he witnessed his mother's brutal murder with a chainsaw, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) was adopted by Miami police officer Harry Morgan (James Remar). Recognizing the boy's trauma and the subsequent development of his sociopathic tendencies, Harry trained Dexter to channel his gruesome bloodlust into vigilantism, killing only heinous criminals who slip through the criminal justice system. To cover his prolific trail of homicides, Dexter gains employment as a forensic analyst, specializing in blood spatter pattern analysis, with the Miami Metro Police Department. ☥ ☥ Wikipedia ☥
If Dexter learned how to heal as a child, he would not have developed sociopathic tendencies. However, the police officer who adopted him did not know how to heal, so instead, he distracted the child away from processing the pain of the trauma which leads to a life long compulsion to kill (an emotional addiction), and is justified through vigilantism. The show strongly suggests that it is impossible to reform a sociopath, which creates a social idea that is untrue. The cultivation of self-mastery and self-control requires emotional maturity and discipline, but similarly to the use of psychedelics, we are sold a quick fix trip to the finish line (avoiding processing/healing the pain of the trauma) which creates and endless loop of jumping from feel-good sensation to feel-good sensation. The social program justifies:
☥ Feeding into the emotional impulses of a traumatized person (which is tantamount to
giving heroin to an addict) instead of teaching the person how to heal and cultivate self-
control
☥ The use of torture on criminals instead of working to fix the many problems within the
justice system
☥ The cultivation of professional development through criminal activity
So, we have a child who grows up to be a sociopath with a salary, and a justice system that continues to perpetuate harm. Episode after episode, we watch Dexter sawing bodies into pieces (feeding his emotional addiction) until we become desensitized to the graphic violence, which we are programmed to accept, even though his actions do not address or remove the root causes of any of these problems, because he is "taking criminals off the street." Instead of healing addictions, the public is programmed to believe that addictions cannot be healed. We are sold the idea that we should search for creative ways to distract ourselves from pain (even if the distraction causes more pain) instead of healing and removing its root causes. What would happen if the police officers, Dexter and the criminals learned how to heal and process their emotions as children? Even as adults, we can learn and must be held accountable to the cultivation of self-control. Because our society would rather be driven to the finish line, than do the work of training, it attempts to promote the idea that we cannot control ourselves. We may think that we cannot be influenced by television, but if we look at the spamming of "Tarzan," first published in 1912, there can be no doubt that its effects still linger within our culture. Tarzan was created by a man who had never traveled to Africa. The description within Wikipedia states that, "Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is a cultural icon ... Tarzana is a suburban neighborhood named after Tarzan in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, where the author purchased a ranch [with the millions of dollars that he made off of creating fallacies that traumatize Black People]. The author of Tarzan was an explicit supporter of eugenics and scientific racism in both his fiction and nonfiction; Tarzan was meant to reflect these concepts."
It's easier to see how sociopathic behavior, fueled by emotional addictions, manifests in a TV character like Dexter, but it is much more difficult to accept that emotional addictions also drive behaviors that we've been programmed to believe are uncontrollable within us.
Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat? Nothin' but the dog in me. ☥ ☥ From 'Atomic Dog' By ☥ George Clinton Of Parliament Funkadelic ☥
The “Atomic Dog” Metaphor: How Social Programming Promotes Fallacies To Drive Subconscious Perceptions → Behavior
Atomic Dog is a great example of a song that reflects some of the fallacies we have adopted because of social programming through spammed multimedia that inundated our early childhood experiences. The lyrics reveal what happens when men are not taught how to heal or master their emotions during the Page stage of development which traps them in the Knight stage of development (a problem that is not limited to a specific gender). The single was released in 1982, and just like so many other bands at the time, its music video included predominantly white women for “mass market appeal.” However, in this case, we see a true reflection of social behavior where a Black man is playing one computer game, but then is lured by a white woman to play a different game on a lower level (first down the steps and then tricked into a secret elevator that travels towards the bottom floor). The “dog” in him (lack of self mastery) is then justified as an uncontrollable compulsion. The Dexter character's compulsion to kill is also justified as an uncontrollable impulse. The "dog" in the Black man is a "character" whose behaviors are justified as "just the way men are" (a fallacy based on a cleverly distorted truth) and the "dog" in Dexter is justified as "just the way a person behaves who experienced a trauma" (a fallacy based on a cleverly distorted truth).
The behavior of both 'character types' reflect what happens when a person doesn't know how to heal → lack of self-awareness → lack of self-mastery/control → succumbing to impulsive behavior that is driven by subconscious trauma.
In the case of the Black man, instead of mastering his body, mind and emotions so that his innate wisdom guides him to choose a mate at his level of consciousness/who forces him to grow/level up, he allows the "dog" in him to drive his behaviors and chases after the first "cat" that strokes his ego. We also see how white women use sexual manipulation which enables them to easily "do the dog-catcher" because the Black man is acting on default/impulse. Impulsive behavior is a social program that is heavily marketed, subsidized and celebrated in our culture because it helps to sell products/ideas and dumbs down our culture so that we can be controlled through herd mentality. But it only works as an effective tool of manipulation if we lack self-awareness ☥ mastery ☥ control.
Energy can be positive or negative. Because the energy signature is similar in intensity when it drives our emotions, we may not be able to distinguish between the impulsive 'dog' (which is celebrated and spammed via multimedia) and the 'empowered dog' (which we don't recognize because we haven't learned how to heal).
One day, I noticed that I could bend my thumb on my left hand by itself, but when I bend my right thumb, my right pointer finger wants to bend as well. I couldn't isolate the muscles of my thumb in order to bend it independent of my pointer finger. Energy like a muscle, and when we practice Qigong, we learn how to isolate energy in a similar way to isolating muscles. Isolating and identifying different types of energy is a vitally important skill for us to develop because it helps us to distinguish between energy that evolves us and energy that sabotages our efforts.
Because the man in the "Atomic Dog" video hasn't learned how to isolate and identify subtle energy signatures, it was easy for the white woman to use manipulation to "catch" the "dog" in him by taking advantage of a subconscious weakness caused by social programming (which reinforces internalized self-hatred, pressure to conform to eurocentric societal norms, etc.). When a healthy woman captivates a man, he also feels the pull of attraction, but since he doesn't understand his emotions, he connects this feeling to the "dog" in him - fusing energy that could level him up with energy that lures him into his dark side. Instead of judging ourselves for running on default, we can transcend the social programming (that started in early childhood) by training ourselves to be stronger in will than the pull of the herd/social programming. Daily Qigong practice would provide clarity ☥ help the man distinguish between the "impulsive" dog (chasing/being targeted by a mate based on manipulation) and the "empowered" dog in him (choosing a mate based on quality).
What is interesting is that in nature, it is a dog’s prey or play instinct that could cause them to chase a cat. In other words, the dog sees a cat and its prey instinct kicks in, causing it to chase the cat in the same way that it will chase any smaller animal that tends to run away. The prey instinct is not about the cat, but about the fact that it is a smaller animal running away. Cats don’t usually chase dogs unless they are much smaller and for similar reasons. So, the cat sexually baiting a dog does not occur in nature (because of DNA incompatibility) and the dog’s natural/healthy impulse to chase a cat is not sexual. Whenever we use cultural idioms that contain fallacies - promoted as amusement/socially acceptable inaccuracies, we can be sure that we were subjected to social programming in early childhood (i.e. cartoons, spam advertising, etc.). With enough spamming (i.e. using music/jingles to get 'stuck' in our minds), what is unnatural becomes natural/acceptable in our minds even though it is untrue. ☥ I was studying in a remote area in Northern California and noticed that the roosters were crowing at all different times of the day and night because our lifestyles have confused them and pulled them out of their natural alignment. We see this behavior occurring more and more because of people who 'train' animals and socialize them to engage in unnatural behaviors (i.e. training a dog to have sex with a cat) because of a sexual/other perversion, for amusement, to earn money off of them or to fit into some sort of social program.
In this case, a major root cause of the man's lack of self-mastery is a gumbo soup mixture of impetuous behavior caused by a lack of self-awareness, emotional addictions to "feel-good" sensations (fueled by internalized self-hatred) + ego stroking and passivity, which includes allowing himself to be targeted without vetting the quality of the person and being driven by impulse instead of innate wisdom. The continuous ego stroking of the "cats" distracts the man from recognizing himself as a target or understanding the costs of playing the game at a much lower level. The object of most computer games (which, incidentally, is the name of the album from which the song "Atomic Dog" originates) is to master the level that we are on and move up to a higher level. However, the seduction in the lower level (reinforced by social programming) causes the man to celebrate his arrival, enjoy it and write off the chase as something inside of him that "forces" him to comply. At the end of the "Atomic Dog" music video, the Black man finds his way back up to the ground level and we see the same white woman who baited him walk behind him in search of a new target. Because we are not taught about the history of the extremely lucrative Human Zoos, we don't realize that colonizers have been kidnapping and formally studying us in zoos since the 16th century looking for weaknesses to exploit and earning millions of dollars. By the 19th century, their experiments had hit a series of jackpots, such as the programming of Phillis Wheatley and others. The results of these experiments provided them with an array of algorithms to embed within our social culture that allows them to:
☥ use us to enforce a eurocentric agenda (through financial coercion, high salaried public
positions of power, heavily subsidizing work that dumbs down our culture, etc.); and,
hiding the fact that we are regressing (which for them is like taking candy from a baby).
It is vitally important to recognize that emotional addictions are not limited to sociopaths, psychopaths, etc. The Dexter character developed sociopathic tendencies over time because of a subconscious unmet need that no one in his life knew how to heal. This means that, at some point, this character was no different than us.
If the onset of trauma can turn a person into a psychopath/sociopath, then what can the healing of trauma do? Self-mastery keeps us safe from self-sabotage and keeps our world safe from the development of behaviors that create and perpetuate harm.
Our society relies on emotional addictions to create a need so that a product we purchase can fulfill that need. After the 13th Amendment was signed, we saw an ever greater effort to create and fuel emotional addictions. Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People have proven over and over again that we can create and sustain successful businesses without lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, engaging in psychological manipulation or cultural appropriation. However, colonizers are so addicted to their slave-and-master version/foundation of capitalism, that our attempts are continually thwarted. A few of these events that I've covered in other blogs bear repeating because we cannot heal what we will not face or understand, and we cannot afford to allow history to repeat itself again:
☥ 1891 - The Committee Of Fifty (an elite group of white doctors, lawyers and politicians),
used false propaganda to incite a riot and psychologically manipulated the crowd so
that they could break into a prison in broad daylight, brutally murder and mutilate
bodies in front of the crowd without being brought to justice. The Committee Of Fifty
became an execution squad who forced the economic suppression of Italian immigrant
merchants who had created profitable businesses (that threatened the slave-and-
master foundation of capitalism), and one of the murderers became the 44th
Mayor of New Orleans. This event is the largest mass lynching in American history.
When we analyze this event, and then look at how present day white politicians can still
commit crimes and run for/win political races, we can see how the cycle repeats. We
can also recognize that these emotional addictions will cause colonizers to turn on
anyone, including themselves.
☥ 1921 - Black People created hundreds of profitable businesses without the need for
white patrons. These businesses were so profitable that they were called "Black Wall
Street." However, because businesses that survive an economic depression, will have
considerable economic power once the economy stabilizes, these "Black Wall Streets"
triggered colonizers' emotional addictions to their delusions of superiority and
compulsions to inflict pain as a coping mechanism for their failure to maintain some
form of slave-and-master subjugation. This time, angry white mobs burned down
hundreds of Black businesses and went on a killing spree from Tulsa, Oklahoma to the
east coast that was so bloody, this time period is now known as Red Summer.
We can track similar efforts of economic suppression and violence occurring ~every 30 years since Red Summer, including the creation of homeless populations by running major highways through Black neighborhoods (1950's), Crack cocaine and the rapid expansion of the prison industrial complex (1980's), another surge of violence/police brutality, including the murders of Trayvon Martin (2012), Eric Garner (2014) and many others that followed. Overt enslavement will not be tolerated by Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People, so the "dog" in colonizers drives them to find other ways to continue covert forms of enslavement. The feel-good sensation of inflicting pain on another without being held accountable for their actions feeds their emotional addictions and perpetuates their behaviors. We have enough resources to feed, clothe and care for every person on the planet. However, if we take care of everyone, how will we determine who is better than another? It is maddening to consider that the suffering of our world is perpetuated by a group of people who insist on creating problems that only they can solve in order to make themselves appear to be superior to others - an appearance that even they don't believe is true. As uncomfortable as it may be to see that we are not as far away from extremely dangerous behaviors as we'd like to think, acceptance of the potential for creating harm helps us to reel ourselves in when the "dog" in us attempts to assert control. Acceptance ☥ Sankofa activation also helps us to value ourselves and our culture so that colonizers cannot use money or psychological manipulation to tempt, bully or sway us into denigrating or dumbing down our culture.
Nsaka Sunsum (Touching the Spirit) is an educational pedagogy and process that captures the interdependent meshing of African intuition (the voice of the spirit), consciousness (the voice of the ancestors), and information (the voice of experience). The three key Nsaka Sunsum pedagogical ideas are (1) Love (the undeniable desire of one’s spirit to connect, merge, extend and to expand into a greater oneness with another (spirit); (2) Culture (the critical milieu without which human life can not develop or exist. It is represented as the vast structure of behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, habits, beliefs, customs, language, rituals ceremonies and practices 'peculiar to a particular group of people and which provides them with a general design for living and patterns for interpreting reality;' and (3) Education (the process whereby humans both formally and informally reproduce and refine the best of themselves by guiding the student to human mastery, perfectibility and excellence). ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
I understood Deepak Chopra (a continental ☥ diasporan) to say that events occurring in our lives are either good for us or are creating a situation for us to go through [heal] in order to create good for us. The creation of what is good for us is determined by our choices. We can take actions that evolve us, or we can take actions that prevent us from evolving. Do we have a positive "dog" in us that can help us elevate to higher states of being? Anpu is the Kamitian (Ancient Egyptian) God Of Change ☥ Resourcefulness ☥ Servant To Lost Souls ☥ The Disenfranchised. He is represented with the head of a jackal which is very significant. Jackals were the first animals created by Roog the Supreme Creator of the Serer People of Senegal ☥ Northern Gambia ☥ Southern Mauritania. Jackals are related to the dog ☥ the wolf, symbolizing dog-like integrity ☥ loyalty and community wolf pack strategy. Let's consider how we will choose to integrate what we are learning to inform our Sankofa activation strategy.
☥ The empowered "dog" in us is the manifestation of honesty ☥ integrity ☥ benevolence ☥
competence ☥ loyalty ☥ accountability ☥ connection to innate wisdom.
☥ The "wolf" in us is the master strategist and will not take actions that endanger the wolf
pack. If we see a lone wolf, we are most likely already surrounded by the pack. Every
action that the wolf pack takes is designed to sustain its health and keep it safe from
predators.
Anpu as the God Of Change nudges us to recognize that we have a choice and encourages us to make the choice that evolves us. When we are doing something that does not serve our highest good, it is time for us to make a change. Change in the positive could include stretching our muscles after 40 minutes of sitting. Change in the negative could include sexual perversion/promiscuity. Stevie Wonder's philosophy of "working with what you've got to work with" is an example of Anpu as the God Of Resourcefulness. Anpu as the Servant To Lost Souls shows up in our lives as those moments when our innate wisdom transforms the impulsive "dog" in us to the empowered "dog." Anpu as the Servant To The Disenfranchised appears in our willingness to accept our "quirks" and heal/develop them into super powers.
Extended Self is a re-conceptualization of Black self-concepts that recognizes that awareness of self is the awareness of one’s historical consciousness (collective spirituality) and the subsequent sense of we or being one. Defined as such, Black self concept is the personal transcendence into the collective consciousness (extension) of one’s people. ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
A Few Ways To Apply The Principles Of Sankofa In Everyday Life (continued)
☥ Take action ☥ self-correct ☥ repeat. Social programming causes us to hesitate or get
stuck in analysis paralysis: If I do this, they may think that … What will people think if I
don’t ______? What if it doesn’t work? Taking action is our ticket out of these mental
trappings. Go directly to a person instead of wasting time wondering what they are
thinking/how they will respond. Jack Canfield has a great saying that has helped me to
escape this prison. He says that we need to take the shot and then adjust our aim. If we
don’t take the shot, then we can spend the rest of our lives “perfecting our aim (a fallacy)” without experiential practice which prevents us from perfecting our aim in
reality. Taking the shot shows us what we need to refine in order to adjust our aim.
Insecurities and fear will “arise and pass away” but, as S. N. Goenka asserts, we must not
allow those feelings/"sensations" to prevent us from taking the shot. A strategy that
can help us through the fear is to breathe, pause, take the shot. Then breathe, pause
and adjust our aim … repeat.
Be a vigilant spam detector and dismantler.
☥ Lies are spammed so that they will eventually become the truth in our minds. Tarzan is
a spammed lie, borders are spammed lies, competition is a spammed lie, manipulative
commercials that use shame or false taglines to trend a concept are spammed lies
and eurocentric domination in the media is a spammed lie that creates hard-wired
social programs in our mind that we must work diligently to dismantle if we want to be free. Spam continues because we accept it, but we can be the generation that renders
spamming inert through daily Qigong practice, a determined refusal to accept,
and follow along passively with social programs (which means that our will must be
stronger than the herd) and through diligently protecting our children from the influence
of the media. For example, if our child doesn’t know that Shango is the God Of Thunder,
etc. but our children are aware of conventional superheroes/sheroes/humans, then we
have work to do. Our children need to know who they are FIRST before we expose them
to eurocentric appropriations of our culture.
It is OK if we don’t know this information. It is NOT OK for us to shame ourselves/others for lack of knowledge. Colonization and social programming is designed to strategically prevent us from access to this information.
I have yet to discover an upside to ignorance/downside to self-discovery. It
is vitally important that our children do not idolize us as all-knowing. Let them see us
grapple with simple problem solving so that they get a real life understanding of what it
takes to solve problems (with a solutions-based focus that they can understand at their
particular level of development ☥ with the reminder of how to heal so that they are not
traumatized by the “problem”).
It's important that children learn as soon as possible that it cannot be a problem unless there is a solution. We may not see the solution because we need to take some sort of action that takes us out of our comfort zone (growth) or have to heal something that is blocking our vision/sabotaging our progress, but the solution is waiting to be discovered. This approach trains us to focus on the solution/healing instead of stressing over the problem.
Let them see us self-correct so that they develop the habit early. Let them see us learn
and grow, so that they participate in their growth ☥ evolution. Let them contribute so
that they learn to trust their innate wisdom. As we start ☥ deepen our Sankofa process
of learning about our history and culture, we teach and learn with/from our children.
This type of learning can turn into fun family activities/games and is an outstanding
method for dismantling self-hatred while cultivating self-love.
For [children] to truly be educated [they] must know about [themself]. It doesn’t matter what [they] know about other people - all the facts that [they] might have memorized that made [them] sound smart ... If [they] don’t know anything about [their] land of ancestry … [their] history then [they] are not educated. ☥ ☥ Dr. Ama Mazama ☥ Associate Professor ☥ Director Of The Graduate Programs ☥ Department Of African American Studies ☥ Temple University ☥
☥ Cultivate benchmarks for trust for self, family and everyone. We do this to protect
ourselves from self/outside sabotage that is driven by subconscious trauma. Seek
understanding and cultivate self-awareness to dismantle the long term affects of
colonization and invisible ways that it controls behavior. In other words, until we
completely heal from the legacy of enslavement, we accept that colonization has
influenced every aspect of our lives and that influence can show up in the form of
internalized/projected self-hatred, internal/external sabotage, jealousy, envy,
competition, rank pulling and ego games. Our benchmarks for trust ☥ relentless
commitment to the art of self-correction holds us and others accountable to exemplary
behaviors. For example, our strong, healthy boundaries would assert, "Don't ask
me to wuk for carnival" and our daily Qigong practice will teach us how to see a
colonizer's tactics far in advance so that we cultivate the self-control to resist being
baited into knee-jerk reactions/pressured into engaging in substandard behaviors. It
teaches us how to recognize the ways that we have been fooled into swimming
with the sharks so we will heal, wake up, connect with SPIRIT and if we get pulled into
the water, we can "dance underwater without getting wet." Our empowered behaviors
form a protection shield around us which takes the "heroin" away from colonizers and
forces them in the "fire" where Ra ☥ Sun God ☥ God Of Fire ☥ will hold them until they
are humanized ☥ purified.
Study the work of African scholars throughout the diaspora such as Dr. Lesiba Baloyi, Dr. Wade Nobles, Dr. Na’im Akbar and Dr. Bethwell Allan Ogot. Their work is often purposely suppressed, so we will need to make a special effort to find “Kunta Kinte." It is vitally important that we study the work of spiritual scholars who have been the keepers of essential parts of our history ☥ culture that left Africa such as Osho, S.N. Goenka and Ayurvedic scholars such as Dr. Vaidya Bhagwan Dash. No matter how aggressively white people force their way into our history and culture (which they heavily subsidize and spam), they cannot be trusted as an authoritative source (i.e. whatever we learn from them must be vetted for fallacies, biases, etc.). Keeping in mind that we’ve endured thousands of years of oppression + trauma, how can we educate ourselves to learn who we are pluralistically?
☥ Check out or revisit “Journey To The End Of The Year Health And Healing Strategies.”
During this Journey To Radiance podcast, Sunni Patterson offers simple ways for us to
connect with our ancestors such as asking ourselves, “What would Uncle _____ do in
this situation?” Ancestral work is not complicated. We can light a candle, meditate, pray,
remember stories that we heard about our ancestors, etc. Sankofa continually
facilitates the defragmentation process for us in the background and nudges us to take
empowered actions that serve the highest good. We do not need to limit or separate
any aspect of ourselves. We can sing gospel songs, Orisha prayers, mantras, play,
not turn us into a different person, it helps us to become more of who we truly are.
☥ Use these suggestions as a nudge to create your own Sankofa healing process. No one
knows you or your experiences more than you. Trust yourself and enjoy your lifelong
Sankofa journey.
Be transformed by your love. Be moved by holy intention. Be steadied by your faith; And take heart as you trod. ☥ ☥ From The Poem, 'Akoma' By Sunni Patterson ☥
The idea of radiance is critical ... when we come together, we sparkle like diamonds. ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
Journey To Radiance ☥ Sankofa explores Sankofa through the wisdom of Psychologist ☥ Elder ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles and Griot ☥ Artist ☥ Educator ☥ Healer ☥ Sizwe Abakah, and how we can use the wisdom of Sankofa to heal ourselves, our families and communities.
For over four decades, Dr. Wade W. Nobles has studied classical African philosophy (Kemet, Twa & Nubian) and traditional African wisdom traditions (Akan, Yoruba, Bantu, Wolof, Dogon, Fon, Lebou, etc.) as the grounding for the development of an authentic Black psychology. Dr. Nobles is a founding member of the Association of Black Psychologists and former national President (1994-95). He is Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies and Black Psychology at San Francisco State University and the author of over one hundred (100) articles, chapters, research reports and books; the co-author of the seminal article in Black Psychology, 'Voodoo or IQ: An Introduction to African Psychology.' Dr. Nobles is the Co-founder and past Executive Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture, Inc., a free standing independent community-based, nonprofit Black 'think-tank' and scientific, educational training and research corporation, based in Oakland, California. ☥ ☥ www.drwadenobles.com ☥
Sizwe is an Educator, Radical Healer and Mentor and has worked throughout the Bay Area. He has supported African American Wellness through the National Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Oakland Freedom School, Flourish Agenda's Camp Akili, Oakland Unified School District's Manhood Development Program, and Determination Black Men's Group at United Roots to name a few. He approaches the work with passion and insight. Sizwe believes that contentedness is our currency and building authentic intimacy is key in our relationships. The practice of being vulnerable with each other can help us get to a place of transformation and liberation. ☥ Sizwe utilizes his skills as performer to build awareness, connection and open doors to self-mastery. Sizwe, also known as Spear of the Nation, is an MC and producer. Spear has released 2 joint albums with Lunar Heights, 3 solo projects and has been featured on a host of songs over the past 20 years of his career. Sizwe is the lead actor in two films produced by 393 films: 'Tent City' which highlights the impact of unprocessed grief on mental health in America, the toll that gentrification has taken on the city of Oakland and ignites a call to action to reclaim our humanity in the midst of our ever-changing world. 'So Beautiful' is a docudrama that was shot in South Africa, in the land of Sizwe (Eastern Cape). ☥ ☥ ☥ www.spearitwurx.com/about-us.html ☥
Check out our Journey page to download and share the combined chapters as a MP3 file.
Consciousness relative to African people is a construct that represents the ability of human beings to know, perceive, understand, and be aware of self in relation to self and all else. In the African worldview, all that is consciousness is, in fact, revealed in and determined by relationships or 'energy in motion.' An African-centered understanding of consciousness would recognize that, at the most fundamental level, consciousness is found in the 'pulse' that gives human beings life. What is recognized on the physical level as the electromagnetic energy of the cells underlies the phenomenon of consciousness. From this perspective, then, consciousness is in effect the intelligent energy of the Divine. ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
Our liberation has always been, 'How am I going to be African and free?' ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
We are DEMM ☥ Divine ☥ Energy ☥ Made ☥ Manifest ☥ ☥ Dr. Wade Nobles ☥
Epilogue Your Treasure Map For Self-Care
Thank you for taking the time to actively engage in your own self-care. If you have ever spent time at a hammam ☥ steam room ☥ sauna, you will notice that it is a comfortable space because you are wearing minimal or no clothing and you can just be yourself. However, after a short time, it starts to get hot, and you begin to sweat.
This is a good thing because you are helping your body to eliminate toxins. If you want to detoxify your body correctly you will:
☥ Breathe slowly and deeply to help your body adjust to the intensity of the heat.
☥ Sip water every 15 minutes to stay hydrated.
☥ Have a piece of fruit ☥ pumpkin seeds ☥ favorite healthy snack available.
☥ Take a shower after excessive sweating.
☥ Go into a cold room/take a cold plunge/cold water rinse off to cool down before doing
another sweat and to stimulate your lymphatic system.
☥ Go for a walk in nature, spend time in meditation ☥ contemplation, have a healthy meal
and give your body some time to complete the healing process (which could include
sending you messages through your intuition about your next steps).
As you journey through ☥ interact with the blogs ☥ other content on phyllishubbard.com, you might have an insight that causes you to suddenly feel mentally ☥ emotionally “hot” -- which could show up as:
☥ “Ah-ha” moments
☥ A hop-in-the-bed-and-cry-yourself-to-sleep or fetal position crying time of intensive
self-care
☥ Intense feelings of anger/regret about something in your past
☥ Disorientation caused by the realization of truth
☥ Strong reactions such as heightened senses, vomiting; an urge to release emotions
such as yelling/screaming, going outside for fresh air/to take a walk, punching a
boxing bag/pillow; a feeling of tightness in the chest, etc.
If you find yourself having a strong reaction, I encourage you to flow with it while helping your body to release mental ☥ emotional toxins by using the same five self-care strategies listed above for releasing physical toxins. Your body talks to you all the time, but unconscious adherence to social conditioning can mute its messages.
Strong reactions are your body’s way of letting you know that there is a deeper issue requiring your attention.
Keep revisiting the content ☥ utilizing the five self-care strategies until you no longer experience the strong reaction, release fears and have identified ☥ transformed ☥ removed the root cause of the issue. You will find additional strategies throughout this website that you can add to your mental health self-care toolkit.
Self-Care Sustainability Suggestions
☥ A Cross-Cultural Healing Haven – read this blog to understand the purpose of
phyllishubbard.com and the meaning behind its organization ☥ symbols.
☥ Revisit the content periodically and make a note of if/how your perceptions have
evolved. Check out our blog page for an experiential healing journey.
☥ Check out the other pages on phyllishubbard.com:
☥ Home - watch the videos. Click on the images in the Spiritual Guidance
section. Each image has a story that might assist your self-care journey. Learn
about other spiritual practices.
☥ About - Learn about my background ☥ reasons for co-creating
phyllishubbard.com with Spirit. Explore healing through the image carousel and
videos.
☥ Shop ☥ Kamitology - Purchase and download vital tools for your personal growth
☥ development.
☥ Reclaiming Our Humanity - Help us develop and disseminate video courses.
☥ Rise TV - Practice breathing and movement exercises and deepen your
understanding of healing through the experiences of community members.
Check back periodically to discover new/re-experience the content.
☥ Journey - This is your invitation to own the journey to radiance. Experience the
journey and download healing resources to share with your friends, family and
community.
When you share healing, healing comes back to and flows through you.
About Sharing ...
During my first presentation to an all-Black audience, I introduced 20-year-old research on the hazards of sitting. I presented the research because I noticed that people sat for way too long at convenings and realized that the information was not disseminated to Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant communities. I was determined to intentionally include this research, often surprising participants by getting people up to stretch. After more than 13 years of intentional work, Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant People are just barely beginning to normalize conscious movement. We still have a long way to go, and it is important that we share what we know as much as we can to prevent the disenfranchisement of wellness information to Black ☥ Indigenous ☥ Immigrant communities.
Copy/Paste Version Of A Full Citation Example:
Hubbard, P. S. (2020, September 27). Journey To Radiance ☥ Sankofa ☥ Part II. PHYLLISHUBBARD.COM.<https://www.phyllishubbard.com/post/journey-to-radiance-sankofa-part-ii>
Please do not keep phyllishubbard.com to yourself. We will not co-create a better world until we heal our current, past/childhood traumas. We will not love others until we learn to love ourselves.
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