Ancestral Healing – by Dr. M*

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My life is built from African languages and dances long since forgotten
—–Disrupted by greed and slave ships.
My life is built on beatings, screams in the dark, and lynchings still
—–echoed in police shootings, overzealous incarcerations, and
—–babies without a village.

I live in a state of forgiveness.
—–For how else to keep from going mad with rage?
A strong heart to believe in the future
—–while waiting for my son’s safe return home.

You who profited from dollars for humans, and lost the
—–caring to be human.
You who did not say, “Stop!”
—–And instead live for conquest,
—–deviating from God’s grandeur believing yourself the greater.
In your DNA stands a grandmother as a young child smiling at the
—–lynching of a young black man.
You disassociate from your own lineage and go to the lab to create
—–“artificial intelligence,” since the atom bomb was too dramatic.
When will you return to your heart as the bedrock of existence?
—–Maybe afraid to feel the hurt of past suffering?

I have forgiven. My heart is light and strong.
Can you really look me in the in the eyes without the hatred of your burden of guilt laid down in your DNA?
Can you repent and reclaim your heart and not turn violent nor
—–artificial?

Ultimately your life and my life share distant origins.
—–Back to God’s words of “Let there be Light.”
Everything in existence share that common ancestry.
You can only truly connect to this lineage through acceptance and
—–ownership of the horrors of slavery,
—–and then ultimately find peace with the One.

No healing can happen without attention to the wound.

 

About the Author:

*Dr. M. is a dedicated spiritual practitioner, poet, writer, and a recently retired medical doctor.  She is exploring, using the written word, the expression of her journey as a black woman in the United States at this time.