To Know One’s History Glenance Green

To Know One’s History

Glenance Green

To know one’s history is a privilege, manifesting as a rite of passage. The ability to rest between the wings of the long-necked heron that we recognize as the visual representation of Sankofa, while she covers us as we look into our pasts to gain a deeper understanding to achieve guidance and wisdom on our journeys to our future, is a superpower from the ancestral gods.

To live, and I do truly mean live, in the present is to transform ourselves beyond the carceral state of our physical bodies. To gift ourselves the luxury of time and treat it as rare and precious as the existential entity that it is. Freedom is having the time to live.

To know our history is to appreciate the gifts that the ancestors have bestowed upon on us. To lay down the burden of shame. To acknowledge that carrying the gifts that fuel the fire of the torch that we hold is not a burden but a blessing.

To know one’s history is to know what you know and know that it doesn’t matter what you don’t know but how and what you do with what you do know, just because you know...better.