Editor’s Take
BY NJEMILE Z. ALI
Resonance & Emergence: The Return of Self
KIZA calls our current times the Age of Return. Who is returning? To what? As we look, feel and listen around, the call to Self resonates the most. We feel capacities ready to emerge, allowing us to become fuller, more complete and more satisfying versions of ourselves than we have in the past 6,000 to 50,000 years. The original people of the Earth and Universe are returning to ourselves, ready to live in the reality of what it means to be, not just the first people, but also divine beings, resonant with timeless attributes of spirit. We are rising. We are returning.
Our writers are bringing the energy of Returning front and center, harvesting treasures from the depths of primordial waters and bringing them to the surface of our awareness and activities.
Leadership coach Joia Jefferson Nuri helps us hear the sound of God’s silence that she experienced while facing incredible, unexpected pain, and shows us how that silence transformed her thinking.
Thanks to publishers African American Images, we are blessed to bring forth the words of the late educator, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, as he describes how to appreciate and nurture the brilliance of Black boys, that is often relegated to social education classrooms and marched into prison.
Poet and lyricist Priestess Yogini Nura-dina has set her poetry to song, inviting us to remember to live our dreams and release what is holding us back from our emergence.
This issue’s Treasure of the African Diaspora is Devin Brown, a woman who regularly braves the waters of the mighty Mississippi in her kayak. Columnist Zakiyyah Ali met Devin in West Alabama, where the paddler was following her dream of helping more Black folk get comfortable being in and on the water, which the paddler recognizes as a central part of our nature, our surviving and our thriving.
Nashid Furaha-Ali is KIZA’s newest regular contributor, introducing his column entitled Creative Cosmology In this issue. He takes us to the far-flung spaces of the “BlackLit Universe” to connect with our creative power.
In this issue’s Writing Biz column, Eryka Parker shares insights on “Reclaiming Creative Power as a Black Writer” after burnout. She focuses on restoration, sustainability and keys to owning one’s creative power in a literary culture that often prioritizes visibility over wholeness.
Continuing in her “Love of Literature,” Khadija Pounsel shares the living history that unfolds in ReShonda Tate’s With Love from Harlem. Through Khadija’s pen, we experience the vivacity of life and art during the Harlem Renaissance.
In her review of Weathering the Storm by Dr. Tiffany G. Townsend, Shaunale Rénā shares resonance and emergence as the “new sound” that happens when old lies are being silenced and Black stories are being told.
Spring has sprung and Mother’s Day is on the way. Energy is moving up and out, bursting forth all around us. We are using the resistance around us as a launch pad to our greatest selves. Emerge! The day is ours!