The next time we sing and call in Ancestors-
The next time we pour libations, we will call her name.
And she will come. Wearing new robes, held together with words written by Audre, June, Lucille, Maya, and Ntozake to welcome her into the next world

And she will say something like —the best way to fight their lies is to write and give voice to our stories.
And she will stand at the edge of our circle and call us into the center one by one. She will listen deeply as we excavate our stories from our souls. There will be wailing and laughter. There will be cussing and prayers. There will be slurs and exquisite enunciation. There will be silence and shouting in our testimonies and telling.

She will gather all of it at the helm of her majestic robe and spread them across the sky when she flies back.

She is free-er now. We’ve inherited her relentlessness, love, and devotion to the humanity of Blackness. I’ve inherited a deeper sense of responsibility to tell my story.

She went to rest, yes. And in a little while, she will come when we call.

In our memory, in our hearts, our words yet to be written, Great Mother, Writer, Warrior, Truth Teller Toni Morrison lives.

My cousin Carlos is one of my youngest Ancestors. He was an artist. A visionary. A musician. And someone who danced, lived, and colored outside of others’ comfortable boundaries. He was a truth teller and rebel. He passed away on August 2, 2003 from injuries sustained from gun wounds. The last conversation I had with him was in June 2003. “He said to me, you sound so happy and free.” My reply was “I am.”

The men in my blood line have been asking to be heard.

I finally have both the softness, strength, capacity to listen.

For years and every time I lead a retreat, training, immersion, or teach at a festival I create an altar.

I usually bring images of the women, my grandmamas and their mamas. I place them on an altar. I say their names. I remember them and ask them to be with me.

A few days before leaving to teach at Asheville Yoga Festival and while practicing Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra I heard a clear message.

“remember the men. you don’t need to carry them. you DO need to remember and take them with you. They want to be with you on this journey to.”

And so, I took the men. My ancestors who I have the most complex, layered, and textured relationships with. The ones who are artists, musicians, lovers, devoted fathers, and deeply spiritual. The ones who are not. The ones who seemed to be trapped in the wrong place and time their whole lives and could not come to terms with the way the world dehumanized them. The one that turned on themselves and sometimes their family.

The poet in my blood is my maternal granddaddy, Nathaniel Norman. If I don’t remember him, I miss half of my words. I forget the songs and hymns that will soothe our souls. I forget laughter, sweetness, and charm. The wise economist in my bones is my paternal grandpapa, Big Charles. When I invite him into the space, he takes whatever resources available and multiplies them. He also guards energy and is a master of boundaries. The artist, rebel, and truth teller in my heart is my cousin Carlos. If I leave him out, I lack fierceness and the capacity to show up as my whole self no matter who it makes uncomfortable. And then there’s my daddy, Big Ram. He’s the philosopher and magician. The trickster and hustler. The preacher/sinner man. The fighting mystic in me. He is the container of multitudes, just like I am. When he’s in the room I know how to be with all that I am and love the unanswerable contradictions in my spirit. I can hold space for others to do the same for themselves with so much grace.

The Divine Feminine within me has awakened in profound ways. And in rousing that deep essence, the men call out for healing to.

I listen.

I gather our pieces, to be whole.

Someone who teaches, lives, and works in El Paso asked the question: “As a yoga teacher how do I continue to remain positive in the face of this.”

My response:
You don’t need to be positive. You only need to be real. The way I see the most powerful function of “the light” we cultivate in our yoga practice is to shine that light on our personal and collective darkness so that we can finally see what and where it is we have neglected, hidden, not tended to, pretended , or even “thought and prayed” it way back into the corners of our being.

We need places of refuge and healing- yes. And part of healing is turning our light to look deeply and closely at the wound.

We have so many personal and collective wounds. Ones rooted in systems and culture and those same ones defining our actions and interactions.

We need your light to illuminate this darkness. I am willing to look directly at this mangled bloody tragedy in El Paso through the lens of your light which is closer to it than mine is over here in Atlanta.

I say all of this to say… feel all of your feelings and express them however you need to. This is terror. This is tragedy. This is happening too often in our beloved country. A wall will not protect us, because the enemy is within, emboldened, and overly armed. I will not turn my face away from what ever you or the people of El Paso show me.

My response ends there yet my reflection didn’t. Sara Clark said it best “To see how police can gently escort yet another mass-murderer to safety when black and brown folk are gunned downed simply for existing is nauseating.”

We have at least two deep profound terrorizing wounds ripped/ splayed open here:

People in El Paso living daily life doing normal every day type things gunned down. Gone.
The white mass murderer apprehended alive. Unarmed Trayvon Martin was gunned down and killed. Sandra Bland was to. Tamir Rice. Gone. So many Black lives gone at the hands of those supposed to protect and serve.
Yet a mass murderer was apprehended without hurting him.

Are we paying attention to all of this?

We can’t skip this. This is what the light is for. To see our way in this collective darkness.

My name sake. My great great paternal grandmama, Ms. Mama Octavia was short, stubborn, and didn’t say nothing she didn’t mean.⁠
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The story goes she was released from a family she’d served when the man of the family died. Along with her release, she was given the equivalent of change to start her new life with. She sewed that change up into a pocket at the heart center of her dress and walked away with out looking back. ⁠
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Born into a kind of servitude, whereby her body didn’t belong to her. Her time, space, and energy was claimed before she ever took her first breath. She needed to be stubborn. Tough. ⁠
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My great great grandmama shut down and locked up parts of herself to survive. I inherited those locks and that capacity to shut down and out as a means of survival. I have lived behind some of the closed tight doors that she had to hide within. ⁠
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She refused to be broken. Her refusal to be broken kept her existence in tact. She loved. And she created. And I am here.⁠
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I inherited Ms. Mama Octavia’s locks, and in this life, I’ve also inherited the keys. The prayers. The practices. The means to free up. ⁠
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She continues to show up in my meditations, yoga nidra, and dreams. She, continues to tell me:⁠
“Daughter, the tools that aided our survival ain’t always the same tools to thrive with. Open the locks, release the chains. You are meant to thrive.”⁠
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My grandmamas are with me on every retreat. Every class. Every circle I hold space within.⁠
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They are as real as sunshine, and also magic. like you and me.⁠
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Today at noon, VIP registration for my New Year 2020 Starshine & Clay Yoga Retreat for Women of Color opens. This particular retreat is for sisters, women, who are ready to use the key and open the lock. For sisters who are ready to free up. To claim our legacy of freedom.⁠
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On my VIP Starshine & Clay list? Check your inbox at noon today. Not on my list? message me at octavia@octaviaraheem.com to be added before noon.

“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream…” -Maya Angelou

The past four weeks I’ve worked with 9 women in my #Held mentor group for yoga teachers. We’ve named, faced, and began to clear limiting beliefs.  Slaying all manner of oppressive dragons, We’ve unearthed dreams that had been marginalized, beaten, shamed, hated, ridiculed, and buried deep within us. We’ve actively reclaimed our right to rest, dream, rise up, and work for our own visions/ dreams more than someone else’s.  We’ve remembered dreams that are 500+ years old.

And what has emerged is forever free within us.

Grown women deserve space to dream. When we dream. When we vision, we remember and tap into our creative power.

Power.

Sisters. We have a wealth of creative power.And for some of us, it’s bound up, tied up, being poured out for everybody else, and leaking out in places where we lack boundaries in relationships, family, and work. It may be historical, but that’s not our legacy.

It’s time to snatch our power back.
Old paradigms and systems rely on women’s complicity in being “drained” at home and work for its fuel.  Abiding in that place won’t create the space and time for you to dream and reconnect to your creative power.
Snatch your power back from the vampires, parasites, lazy lovers, energy drains, and inner gremlins that keep drinking up all the fuel you need to grow your visions and dreams.

Your family and even “friends” who depend on your energy to feed them and their visions & dreams even if it starves yours— they may suddenly become unavailable or the opposite- clingy, as you begin “operation snatch back.”

Get your energy together anyway.

Snatch your creative Power, your energy, your fuel back.  Run to the wide open field of your own heart and mind. Dance freely in the field of your own imagination.

Rest and dream there. Rest and meet your dreams. Your creative power is in there.

“Be here now…. Be HER now.” – Lux Atl

Long before I co-owned Sacred Chill West, I owned my work.  I operated with the level of discipline, focus, commitment, care, and consistency that I believed owning a brick and mortar space would require.  
I was off by a lot (owning a physical space asks for more than I could have imagined) yet the inner muscles I stretched and strengthened then,  expanded my capacity to both “hold down” and elevate my work- now.
I honor the wise part of me that knew that the kind of freedom I wanted required discipline.
I treated myself like the woman I hoped to be and I grew into her. I treat myself like the woman I am becoming. I grow into her.

Being her now is:

So much inner work. Radical truth telling. Re-shaping my most intimate relationships. Defining my place vs. playing the role I was given.It’s not letting myself off the hook when it’s hard.It’s laying down in soft places and praying deeper than I ever have.It’s standing and walking through the fire until I see the blessing (tapas).
It’s ugly crying to release the heat and cleanse.
It’s bearing the gifts that my Ancestors gave without shame or apology.It’s trusting that what I’ve seen in my heart and mind’s eye is mine. It’s the smallest of steps and decisions I make every day- to be her now.

Sister, Trust her enough to do your work, now.  Honor her by tending to the details and process in the choices you make each day, right now. Let the distractions go.

No one else has read your book. She has.  Every day that you ink, you become the master of her story.No one has healed in your wellness space, yet. Every day that you save, plan, and study, she does.No one has walked the gardens you tend to. With every seed that you dig and plant- your bare feet become more deeply rooted on her true path. No one has held the baby you long to carry. Mama, she has. with every layer of womb wound you peel back. She holds baby.No one has heard the songs you write except for her. With each note and lyric you lay down, there’s another track to carry her forward.

Every step and stumble, you become more of her.More of your whole self.