My Appreciation

Thank You,
for taking this moment, to visit Healing Season. I am sure that you will find it to be an introspective, provocative and motivating experience. My intention is to use the power of the written and spoken word, to tap a potential, sow a seed, free a mind and that is why I write. My greatest desire, is that each time you visit, you find another piece for a Healing Season.



Ajuba Hampden Joy


"The pen is mightier than the sword"
Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1839

Kwanzaa's Seven Principles

I will continue to display the principles, because it's a good idea to keep them present. Do you agree?
I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of Kwanzaa,
Dr. Maulana Karenga, when I was a student at Shaw
University, in Raleigh North Carolina.
From December 26th. through January 1st we observe and celebrate the traditions of Kwanzaa. It is not a holiday although we give a greater credence to Kwanzaa at that time of the year. The Nguzo Saba (N goo-zoh) The Seven Principles are a lifestyle. Just imagine how much greater this world will be, as we continue to instill these principles into our lifestyle and become them.

1.umoja (unity) (oo-mo-ja)>
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. You are a unit in the community.

2.Kujichagulia (coo-gee-cha'-goo-lee-ah) (Self-Determination)
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves
This is why many of us change our names and have changed the sound of our children's names, wear Afrikan attire and have taken to reading and writing our own account of our plight) There is nothing more powerful than a made up mind. Initiate and be great in, 2008.

3. Ujima oo-jee-mah (Collective Work and Responsibility)
To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
If your neighbor is not able to roll their trash bin to the curb, won't that eventually effect you? Roll it for them.

4. Ujamaa oo-jam-mah (Cooperative Economics)To
build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
On the average, the dollars in the African community leave one Black business, are received by another Black business and then those dollars leave the community. There was a time when we traded almost exclusively with Black businesses. Never mind the motivation. The practice worked for us. Our dollars did flips, bounced, rolled turned cartwheels and remained in the community. (That system "won't" broke; we didn't need to fix it- we need to resurrect it.) Thus the principle, Ujamaa. Our business are a part of the economic food chain. Let's alter our economic diet. It's not too late to initiate.

5. Nia knee-ah (Purpose)
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. What is your vision for greatness?

6. (Creativity) Koo-oom-bah
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

7. Imani (Faith)
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Initiate and be great in this year 2008. Happy New Year to You!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Ebony Man

Ebony Man, black suede king
Strut your stuff, I am watching you...
watching you strut your stuff

Smile of Ivory light
Thatched hair on your body coiled,
waiting for my touch
I'm watching you
Strut your stuff

You, who fished the Nile...feed me!
You who created Hieroglyphics... read me!
You who built the Pyramids... show me!
You who created math..count on me!
Strut your stuff...
I'm watching you

Ebony bliss, it is you whom I've missed
It's so good
to see you
again!

Copyright ©1994 by Ajuba Hampden Joy
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Why I Write

I write to put a new twist
on the capstone of life
Speak the thoughts that well up in me...
I must release them

I write to make it known
we've come this far by faith,
and to capture a piece of immortality
in a moment of vanity

To sing a contralto lullaby
to a million Blackmen
and my sistas...their back-ups!

I write because it is a gift that found me
when I lost my mother in Africa
To rejoice in the souls of Black folk
praying for the racist and those who are...
internally oppressed

To honor the African Nationalist
past, present, future
I write to get it straight in my mind
What I want you to hear is,
there are a thousand stars in the sky
a story for each one

I write to the monuments of Egypt,
for we must build new Pyramids today
I write to life not yet embodied
in the wombs of my sistas
I am compelled, driven from sleep
with a literary gift from the Spirit

To purge, merge, urge some action
free a mind, tap a potential, sow a seed!

I stand on the shoulders of my Ancestors...
I "bes" be right!
It's wrong not to speak your peace
it's history, herstory, ourstory and mystory
Let me tell it like it tis
I write to heal. the pen is mightier, than the sword
This is my contract with truth
I'll be a bridge over troubled waters
and you lay me down...
with my pen.

Copyright © 1995 by Ajuba Hampden Joy
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Monday, December 17, 2007

Present Time

The loudest noise in my house,
when all is quiet...
is the ticking of my kitchen clock

It summons me
to dwell on this life's...present time
Time as a present
A gift to share

Time to do what you love
It brings to fore the constant and
steady move towards the after- life.

My kitchen clock
reminds me of the tenous quality of our lives,
as we presently... know them.

Copyright ©1996 by Ajuba Hampden Joy
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