nguzo saba
song
seven principles
spell-castings
umoja
kujichagulia
ujima
ujamaa
nia
kuumba
imani
seven principles
Kwanzaa is a celebration of: the fruits of harvest, our interconnection as a mighty and melanated Diaspora, and these seven principles that guide us toward liberation and sovereignty. As the song declares, “We will determine who we are.”
…
How do these principles show up in your life?
Where does your food come from? Who grows, gathers &/or transforms it & how does it get to you?
What about your water and energy?
Who determines how & what your children are educated about?
How can you build land sovereignty with your people/community?
umoja
[unity that brings us together]
> through song <
Written in September* 2019, learn about our wilderness trip here
> through sacred instructions <
“The myth of separation is at the heart of the lies that we’ve been feed, and it supports all of the power structures that we have created. This illusion causes us to forget that we are connected to one another, and to a divine source which is embodied through us and put into action in the world around us. When we forget this truth and embrace the lie, it becomes possible for us to be at war with one another and to be at war within ourselves.”
> through dance <
In January 2020, the Place Corps cohort came together at Root3d in Albany, NY for a West African Drum and Dance class (find us in the back!).
> 1 <
kujichagulia
[self determination]
> storytelling sovereignty <
How can we decolonize our communication and build richer conditions for storytelling sovereignty?
The following resources center BIPOC and offer ways to understand and grow cultures of personal, cultural, and political determination of our voice and narratives:
Storytellers by Seeding Sovereignty
A Guide Toward Storytelling Sovereignty by BEEN media
Stories of Love & Liberation on the Land by Jordan Alexander Williams
> food & land sovereignty <
“This book is dedicated to our ancestral grandmothers, who braided seeds into their hair before being forced to board transatlantic slave ships, believing against the odds in a future of sovereignty on land.”
> 2 <
ujima
[collective work]
> ujima at place corps <
> 3 <
ujamaa
[cooperative economics]
> collective courage <
“In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century.[...]
Adding the cooperative movement to Black history results in a retelling of the African American experience, with an increased understanding of African American collective economic agency and grassroots economic organizing.”
> jackson rising <
“Jackson Rising is the rarest of things: a real strategic plan. You will not find a simple wish list that glosses over the hard questions of resources, or some disembodied manifesto imploring the workers forward, but a work-in-progress building the capacity of people to exercise power. And that project is Cooperation Jackson. Cooperation Jackson is an emerging network of cooperatives and grassroots institutions that aim to build a ‘solidarity economy.’ By seizing on the crisis and weak links of modern capitalism and building on the historic struggles for racial equality by the black people of Mississippi, Cooperation Jackson has created a model we can all learn from.”
> 4 <
nia
[purpose]
> awakening <
> divine spark <
“To change the trajectory of our current path we must acknowledge our place within the long dark birth canal. We must recognize that the darkness that we see is an illusion that is designed to amplify the light. It is the incubating ground for a higher awareness. Within this darkness we can search for our essential truths. Then we can birth that truth and put it into action in the outer world. We must awaken to the nature and power of the divine source that lives within us, while also awakening to the degree of suffering that is present in the world around us. And we must commit our lives in service to the divine spark of life by using all of our gifts, all of our intelligence, and our deepest love and compassion to facilitate the birthing of a new pathway forward.”
> bigger <
> integrating towards oneness <
Mapping Purpose Exercise, facilitated by Dawn Breeze
> 5 <
kuumba
[creativity]
> how to thrive in the apocalypse, with friends <
Visit the inaugural Place Corps cohort landing page and witness what our collective journey has birthed.
> using my hands <
> poems & spells <
autumnal notes of gold, amber, and scarlet draw me in
to deeper relationship with the divinity radiating inside and through
how do we offer radical love to our fellow beings? to this land? to our ancestors? to our community(ies)? to ourselves? to Oshun?
maybe, the only way to know is to try
autumn rising
white pine at my window
lavender in my bowl
in this room, i am protected
in this room, i am whole
protection spell
my place is wherever i exist
with my people and mama earth
my place resides
within me and between us
my place has
many stewards and no owner
my place is where love and magic
manifest in abundance
my place