Mother Wisdom from Alice Walker
By: Iyabo Onipede – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
I recently went to listen to a Wise Mother. Agnes Scott, an all-women’s College in Atlanta, Georgia hosted An Evening with famed writer, Alice Walker for their 2018 Gay Johnson McDougall Symposium on Race, Justice, and Reconciliation. She was amazing. Did you know that she has published over 30 books?
She talked about Winnie Mandela’s funeral and how it was the first time since the olden days of Egyptian Queens and Kings that the world stood still for a funeral. Winnie’s funeral was 11 hours long. She touched on many issues, but this is what I want to share with you, Dear Confluence Readers.
She said that in each of us, there is light and darkness, peace and war, confusion and clarity. She said we carry both and we need to be able to look deeper at the darkness and own our shadow side.
She said we cannot heal any of -isms we are all fussing about – racism, sexism, nationalism, classism, and all the blah, blahs, until we ALL look at our shadow sides. For those that chose not to look at their shadow side, those of us that do look at it, make a way for them to look at theirs. Looking at your shadow side is medicinal and it heals, not just your soul, but also our collective soul.
- Meditation helps access that shadow.
- Self-care helps loosen its grip on our lives.
- Figuring out a way to get yourself back releases the control of the shadow.
That cheered me up!
She also said that we can stop war by not funding it. How do we fund it? By buying things that we do not need. The inextricable web of our consumerism feeds wars in far-flung places on the planet.
Beloved, if you do not get regular inspiration in your life by listening to Wise Mothers like Alice Walker, make it your priority.
We navigate a wild and crazy world in these shaky times. Wise Mothers ground us and stabilize us.
In the meantime, when she talked about the extreme forms of deprivation Nelson Mandela endured in prison, including human touch, I was reminded that I consider hugs among the most sacred of human contact that we can have.
Therefore: Hugs!
Iyabo is a Leadership Development Coach whose work focuses on the soul of the leader. She moves leaders from thriving careers into discovering, crafting and living into their life work. By helping successful people integrate spirituality into their leadership roles, they become more engaged with their work, expand the connection of their work to social justice issues and experience more satisfaction in their life work. Using the power of narrative and reflection, she helps leaders fine tune the sacred “work their souls must have” (Alice Walker).
Iyabo is located in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated from Goucher College (B.A.), Georgetown University Law School (J.D.) and Candler School of Theology at Emory University (M.Div.).
Iyabo’s home on the web is at http://www.coachiyabo.com
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