JULY 4TH IS NOT MY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti or Peace, Peace, Peace!

We are just coming off the oddly placed Juneteenth Holiday into July 4th and I am feeling some kind of way about it!

As a Yogini, practiced meditator and meditation teacher, my daily Sadhana practice is that of acceptance, allowing things to flow without judgement, to become a watcher of the world. The truth is, EVERYTHING TRULY IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD?! Even with all of the madness I observe, I know that it makes the world turn. I used to mistake this act as being okay with everything, not having an opinion, even about things that have adverse effect on my family and myself. As time goes on and I get deeper into self-awareness, I realize it's all about choice. There's a time when words have no merit, other times, speaking up can drastically change a situation. The wisdom is in knowing when it's your time to say YOUR PEACE. When that time comes for me, I take a deep breath before I speak, I feel at ease after I speak, I have no regrets because I have done no harm to anyone, especially myself. Often, not speaking our TRUTH is a detriment to our health and well-being. It's interesting that we would rather hurt ourselves than be offensive to someone and that my friend is not the way of peace, it's simply going along to get along. It is something we are taught as children; we pass this down to our children and the cycle goes on and on and on. However, I decided that this would stop with me, I would not pass this along to my children. To do this I have to be the one to express my truth and writing is my favorite form of expression.

So, it's almost July 4th. Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention in history class, my knowledge of this day is limited to knowing that the "Americans" won freedom from the British and a declaration was signed by the "founding fathers" on July 2nd or 9th. I have not cared enough to do any further research on this subject but when I was roughly 15 yrs old, my Brother-in-law told me that the statue of liberty was originally black?! I knew without doing research or going to look through the large stack of Encyclopedia Britannica's that we had somewhere in the house that he was correct. When I came to the realization that America's symbol of freedom "Lady Liberty" was a lie, I was skeptical about July 4th but I wasn't going to turn down Baked Beans, Barbeque, Potato Salad (which we know you have to be very picky with who makes or brings to the family cookout) or an opportunity to get together with family. It's only been a decade or so that I knew Juneteenth existed. I had no idea of the exact date that slaves were given walking papers, what I do know is if they actually had papers, they didn't have a road map or directions on them. It was pretty much like this "wake up, prepare for work, go to work, work is over, leave, but wait, I live here". Where will I live? How will I eat? Where do I go? Even with no idea what to do next, we figured it out, what a strong people we are!

I am not super excited about Juneteenth being a federal holiday:

A. No one I knew, was aware of it

B. Juneteenth was a celebration of not just a day, A WEEKEND

C. It was one of the only things that descendants of slaves pulled together without any government interference

Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, they will market it, there will be commercials, drinks, tablecloths, t shirts all sold by large retail chains owned and operated by those who enslaved my ancestors. So, once again, they have rights to take something we held sacred, dear and close to our hearts, they can and will turn it into a marketing ploy to sell us their products. To put it in layman's terms, THEY WIN AGAIN! So, it seems that my post on social media don't get any attention, is there really a such thing as shadow banning? If there is, that means that only those who subscribe to my website or read my post intentionally will read this so, what a perfect opportunity to share what's truly on my mind! JULY 4TH IS NOT MY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Below is a very cool video about the TRUTH of America's statue of liberty and what it was really meant to be a symbol of, as well as how it was supposed to look. THANKS BROTHER IN LAW