Our Mother’s Womb/The First Teacher of Emancipation

Our mother’s womb – the first teacher of Emancipation

The womb feels

The womb feels like an intimate, warm space

dominated by water, yet not drowning.

with limited room for movement, yet enough space for growing.

overwhelmed with darkness yet preparing for the light of birthing.

Our mother’s womb – the first teacher of Emancipation.

With nine months of lifelong experiences and encounters,

our mother’s womb frees us to the world,

not before kissing us with the gift of Emancipation,

to live emancipation,

to teach emancipation,

to be emancipated,

to fight for emancipation.

Nevertheless, reality abounds.

“Man is born free, but everywhere he goes in, he lives in chains” (Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s Social Contract).

Emancipation Day:  A loud clarion call of the maroon abeng to return to the memory of our mother’s womb, the source of the divine kiss of emancipation.

It’s our roots, the root of all roots – the deep memory of the sacred womb, remembering, recalling, and re-enacting subconscious memories of emancipation, gathering us to teach lessons of

• physical emancipation,
• social emancipation,
• spiritual emancipation,
• mental emancipation.

Our memory of the womb is, perhaps, where Marcus Garvey wishes us to go when he writes, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture, is like a tree without roots.”

Nevertheless, reality prevails.

We have desecrated our mother’s womb,

mistreated this sacred beauty with

. . . vicious, violent, vile acts of rape,

. . . misogynistic perceptions and unjust mistreatment,

. . . mental, verbal, and physical abuse, and turning it into pornography.

The hope of our nation lies in restoring the sanctity and dignity of the daughters of Nanny, whose wombs are the sacred signposts pointing us to the memory of our original emancipation experience.