Know Thyself -- Can I Do Bad All By Myself?

This video, "Love Drove Me Crazy" by Trete Lo is two parts, but I'm only posting the first, hoping that you will check out the second part. This is about wife abuse. The video focuses on a woman who is tired of being abused and it shows how damaging a bad relationship can be. Some of it is difficult to watch because you see how two people can degrade themselves believing they each have no choice.

It's funny that I came across this on the day that Mary J. Blige was hosting a show to sell her perfume "My Life," which will help to raise money for her organization, FFAWN: the Foundation for the Advancement of Women, Now, inc. When you think about how Mary survived many relationships like this, it is soul enriching to look at Mary, now. She is so strong. It makes me wonder how she can be so full of love. No, that's wrong. It makes me wonder how I can feel that level of love for myself and others. I survived by not being open and loving, not giving others a chance to hurt me. I've lived my life based upon the philosophy that "I can do bad all by myself."



Sometimes, I used to think that there was something wrong with me because of this, but the women around me who professed how good it was to have a man were always the ones in abusive relationships. I never saw a need to exchange my personal freedom for a man who would hurt me. I felt it was better to develop myself and find out who I am. That's why I love this Gladys Knight song, "The Need to Be."



Although I was so glad to see that Tyler Perry had included Gladys in his movie I Can Do Bad All By Myself, I know that women are not meant to be alone. The real questions are how do I find a man that is man enough to allow me to be a woman and when will I feel fulfilled enough to be woman enough to allow a man to be my man? I know where to find the answers -- where all of my answers are-- on the inside of me. The funny thing is that I'm now actually asking the question.

Know Thyself -- A Few Issues with Authority

In my astrological chart, Uranus is in my 6th house. This means that freedom of thought is paramount to me. This has gotten me in so much trouble. Not only can't I stand authority, because of my conditioning from childhood trauma, I lacked the courage to go off on my own.

My hatred of authority has been such a major part of my life that it is making up a major part of my healing process. With having Mercury in Virgo, I have decided to examine thoroughly my attitude toward authority. My mother and tyranny are major themes in this process.

I have been very blessed to go through this journey with my mother as she is on her own personal healing journey. My questions to her have caused her to question the role of authority in her own childhood with her parents and the overseer on the Elerby plantation where she grew up.

I'm so glad that I didn't wait until she was dead to start this journey.

Know Thyself -- Love Your Family

I am unmarried, without children so I always assumed that I loved my mother, siblings, nieces, and nephews. That is something that you are not supposed to question. However, when it came down to it, I didn't treat my family as if I loved them. I was mean and oh so surly. My family was my last consideration.

When I began to study metaphysics, I found that love was a big part of it. During a huge argument with one of my sisters, I had to admit to both of us that I did not love her. In fact, I realized that I could not define love. I was shocked at this because I never question what love meant. I just thought it was a feeling.

I created a definition -- to want the best for someone else and to want them to reach their full potential. I still, however, did not put my family higher on my list of priorities. It wasn't until I gave a talk, one Kwanzaa, on Umoja -- Unity -- that I realized the truth spoken by Dr. John Henrik Clarke during a Q&A session at one of his lectures.

A young man, showing off his prowess as a black revolutionary, asked Dr. Clarke what he could do to help awaken the black community to its heritage. Dr. Clarke told the young man to start with his own family. He said to make sure that his children, wife, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc. knew who they were. The young man was very disappointed in this answer. He seemed to want a broader source of recognition, but he had no choice but to accept what was given to him.

During my Umoja talk, I understood that I had not taken Dr. Clarke's advice. All of the problems that we "conscious folks" see that need to be corrected in the community, almost always exist in our own family who some of us (I had included myself) designate as unworthy.

Now, I'm learning to place among my own healing, the healing of my family as my top priority through teaching and acts of love, generosity, patience, and compassion. Ashe, Ma'at!

Know Thyself -- Chicken Lickin'

When I decided to stop identifying myself as a Christian, I dropped the habit of praying over my food, mostly because this was a habit forced upon me without an explanation. "Just believe" is no longer an option for me. Now, I have to know why.

I was watching a DVD on Native American shamanism when a priestess explained that prayer over food actually changes the physical ions in the food, making it more nourishing to the body. She explained that there is a measurable difference of the ions before the prayer and after the prayer. She demonstrated her traditional type of prayer which consisted of specific hand movements over the food. Christians can compare this to bowing their heads and folding their hands.

I began to give more credence to praying over my food. I still didn't desire making this a habit again because I didn't want to pray the way I was taught as a child -- "In Jesus' name." Just to explain a little bit, I no longer believe that I need a mediator to talk to God who lives right inside of me.

I had already been studying how electrons and subatomic particles respond to thought. What the priestess confirmed for me was that our ancestors and the ancients of original cultures already knew and had developed their cultures around the knowledge of subatomic cooperation with creation through thoughts and rituals. This is why the spiritual practices of indigenous cultures seemed so strange to Europeans who, never having heard of unseen physical matter, forced their version of Christianity on the world.

In cooperating with the Universe on a subatomic level, indigenous peoples had developed spiritual practices that supported abundance, peace, and harmony -- the opposite of Westernized Christianity, which is based upon scarcity, force, and submission. The result was that wherever Europeans went in their quest to "discover" the world, they found lush abundance which was thousands of years old. What this means is that in my attempts to reject Christianity out of anger, I deleted a habit that should have been allowed to remain. Praying over food, in whatever spiritual system you practice, is necessary for continued abundance, peace, and harmony.

One day, in my quest to understand why I love eating chicken that I know is full of hormones, I had an epiphany. The rationalization I gave myself for eating the chicken was economics. It's cheap chicken, pumped into black neighborhoods and sold at prices we can afford. The real reason I eat the chicken, I discovered through meditation, is that I believe in limitations. My epiphany was that, after seeing some of the ways I use a belief in limitations and how that use is a direct reflection upon my choices, I also understood my power to change my beliefs.

In not praying over my food, I could not see how much I hated the food I was eating. It tasted good, but in knowing that it wasn't healthy, I had come to hate it. I wasn't eating what I wanted to eat. I was subconsciously doing the opposite of prayer, I was cursing my food and I didn't even know I was doing it.

Since my economics did not allow me to change my food, I asked the Universe how I could change my attitude so that I loved what I was eating. The answer was to honor the life of the food before it was processed and ask the ions to purify both of our spirits. I never thought about the brutal life that chickens, other animals, and plants must undergo before they reach my table as food. It's horrible. I can also offer a prayer to change the industry so that the food comes to us in a healthy state.

So, in changing my attitude, I hope to be able to change the food and the food industry through prayer. Now, all I have to do is reestablish prayer over my food as a habit. But, I know I can do this.

Know Thyself -- Who Do You Think You Are?

One of my mother's favorite admonishments to me during my childhood, after I had said something smart-alecky, was, "Who do you think you are?" This of course was a rhetorical question which I knew better than to answer. The question really meant, shut up before you find yourself at Winnfield Funeral Home up the street. I was reminded often that she carried an insurance policy on me. Once, and only once, I got up the nerve to remind her that if she killed me, she would go to jail to which she quickly replied that she didn't care and that she brought me into this world and she could take me out of it.

So many jokes in the black community have been made about this typical interchange between parent and child that we really don't stop to examine the cruelty of it on both sides. The cruelty goes back to slavery, of course, but the demand for respect is ancient. In African Societies, children would have to go through rites of passage in which they were trained and tested in preparation for entering adulthood.

This Hugh Masakela song, African Secret Society, explains the South African tradition for rites of passage for young girls.

Slavery reduced that tradition to a backhand across the mouth or threats of other violence, seemingly always with the admonishment, "Who do you think you are?" -- the question being raised by overseers as well as parents.

What do you say in such a hostile, degrading situation? "I'm nothing? I'm less than you are? I am what I am?" Any answer would provoke violence. This was a typical question from slavery and segregation. A look or movement with the slightest hint that suggested equality could get you killed. Take that last statement literally. The book, 100 Years of Lynching, shows how easy it was for black people to get killed during segregation alone. For what happened during slavery, you would have to read slave narratives.

When you are forced repeatedly throughout your childhood to silently admit your own worthlessness in response to "Who do you think you are?" -- a question raised by parents who were field hands perpetuating a legacy from hundreds of years of abuse -- how do you ever develop a healthy sense of self-worth?

It ain't easy.

Know Thyself -- Transformation

In the Metu Neter, there are symbols called Sesh Metut Neter. They are hieroglyphic symbols. The Khepera is one of the symbols -- a beetle and it, like all of the Sesh Metut Neter, has many meanings, one of which is transformation. I can use this symbol today as a focal point in meditation to represent the transformations that I want to make in my life; namely, to become a happy, peaceful person.

This video of Sadhguru captures everything I have been learning about transformation, including things I did not know I was learning. "A rose bush has many more thorns than roses," he says, "but it is not called a thorn bush." If something in you blossoms, he adds, then people won't mind the thorns.

In essences, it is pointless for me to try to extract all of my thorns. It is more prudent to nurture the blossoms. Then everything else will fall into alignment.

Know Thyself -- "I AM" Amendment

Shakka, the artist in the video, "Looking Over" revised the video so the link below doesn't work. Here is the link to the revised version.