Hey Gorgeous!

It’s the week of Juneteenth and the mid-year Solstice, which marks the start of Cancer season. Both of these days represent powerful opportunities to reflect on all the ways our past is still present. More importantly, reflecting on the past can teach us how to make spiritually aligned choices today that will heal and bless multiple generations past, present, and future.

Flavor of the Week: Sankofa Portals

Sankofa is a Twi word from the Akan people of Ghana. It translates to: "It is not taboo to go back for what you forgot or left behind." OR “Go back and fetch it.” As we commemorate Juneteenth, the word fetch is especially layered since its additional meanings are:

• Mercantile: “to sell for a price”

• Nautical: “the distance traveled across open water”

We have human-made portals like holidays honoring historic events. And we have naturally occurring, cosmic portals such as the solstice, which is created by the tilt of Earth’s axis as it revolves around the sun.

The start of Cancer season brings focus and attention on home, including homeland, and family of origin, including lineages. I’m now wondering if that’s one reason so many family reunions happen during Cancer season… Either way, these themes are well-aligned for a holiday like Juneteenth.

This week is not just about remembering the past. It’s also a potent opportunity to reflect on how the past can be composted to nurture new growth and new life beyond our ancestors’ wildest dreams.

Fill Your Cup: Fetch the Pearls 

What are the gifts, skills, wisdoms, joys, or dreams you can fetch from the past? Your own personal history, or your family and ancestral history, or the long history of humanity and Earth herself?

I know many of us fear returning because the past also contains pain. A portal is not a mandate, merely an open door. If you do want to venture there, you don’t have to journey alone.

When it comes to the past, we can overemphasize regret. But the past doesn’t always come back to haunt you. It can just as often come back to heal you. There have been so many good, even great decisions you’ve made throughout your life. Give yourself credit for that. Perhaps a good choice you made in the past will soon provide you with a harvest you enjoy. And maybe even so called “bad” choices provide you with wisdom and growth. You may start to recognize progress in your self-forgiveness and healing.

One reason I go back to the past is to hold my younger self and soothe her in her times of loneliness and distress. Because little Sarah is there, I go back to recover her to me.

In the wake of this Juneteenth, I also feel called to go back and let my ancestors know that they have survived through us. That we are still here.

Fulfill Your Destiny: Choose with Your Heart

One legacy of colonialism is worshiping the hyper-rational and denying the intuitive, emotional wisdoms of body and soul. Let’s liberate ourselves from the oppressive and restrictive modalities of knowing and navigating. We can choose to reclaim ancestral and cosmic power that colonialism fights to reject and repress. As we persist into a future of greater freedom, let’s take a cue from the ancestors and follow the drumming of our own heartbeats.

What’s Brewing?

One thing I’m resolved to reclaim is my role as a teacher and a coach, and I’m remixing it to make space for all the self I’ve grown into over the years. That means my public speaking is reinvigorated with more soulfulness. My direct coaching offerings are returning with unapologetic spirituality. My content is revamped with the delight of my childhood imagination. All of this creates more space for me to nurture loving connections with you too.

If you’re interested in hiring me to speak or learning more about my redesigned coaching and consulting, you can let me know in reply to this email!

Pastry & Poetry: “Won’t You Celebrate With Me”

Composing this week’s refill, this was the first and only poem that came to mind. By the legend Lucille Clifton:

In Celebration,
Dr. Sarah