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Showing posts with the label ujima

Embracing Ujima and Umoja: Building a Symphony of Unity

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  Embracing Ujima and Umoja: Building a Symphony of Unity Greetings, beloved Gye-Nyame Tribe and extended family! Today, we embark on a profound journey exploring the principle of Ujima and its deep connection to the principle of Umoja. These guiding principles illuminate the path towards unity, growth, and collective empowerment. In this blog post, we invite you to dive into the power of Ujima and Umoja, understand their significance to our tribe, and discover the transformative potential of unity in action. Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility: Ujima, derived from the Swahili language, embodies the essence of collective work and responsibility. It reminds us that we are part of a larger community, where our individual successes and struggles are intertwined with the well-being of our tribe. By actively engaging in collective work and taking responsibility for the growth and progress of our community, we foster unity, resilience, and shared prosperity. Umoja: The Foundation of Un

Ujima + Imani: Cultivating Responsible Faith

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  Greetings Tribe and Extended Family, Today, we find ourselves on the day of Ujima in the week of Imani, a potent blend of principles that carries immense potential for personal and collective growth. We've been exploring the dynamic combinations of principles that make up our cultural framework, and today, we'll dive deep into the concepts of Ujima and Imani and how they can be applied responsibly for our collective success. Ujima, the third principle of Kwanzaa, translates to "Collective Work and Responsibility". It's an invitation to come together, to share the work, the struggles, and the triumphs. It encourages us to understand that our actions or inactions affect the entire community. By embracing Ujima, we accept our responsibility to work towards the betterment of our community, our tribe. It's about understanding that our strength lies in unity, and together, we can build a prosperous and harmonious tribe. Imani, the seventh principle of Kwanzaa, sig
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  Don’t Lose What You Have For Imaginary Gains Here is another folktale about losing ourselves in pursuit of something that is not ours, and truly can never be. We to birds that were gifted with the ability to sing, that became enamored with the neigh of a horse. When I first heard this one I could do nothing but laugh because I had been caught in situations like this.  The swan and kite in the story fell in love not necessarily the sound of the neigh, but they may have fell in love with the sense of pride in which the horse did it. I believe that they confused the two. They really wanted the pride that the horse put behind the neigh, and not the neigh. Many of us get caught in this trap. We confuse the exterior with the internal and think that we want what the other person has. We begin to imitate, but we don’t get the same response that the original received. It is hard for us to understand that “it is not the close that makes the man, it is the man that makes the close”.  “The kites

#NguzoSabaChallenge 3

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  #NguzoSabaChallenge 3 Great Ujima: We are in the week of Imani, the base of the Nguzo Saba, and we have an opportunity to grow like you would not believe. I am also on my third day of my #21DayNguzoSabaChallenge and once again I have decided to fast my way through it. I am fasting for a deeper understanding about our system, myself, and the next steps for our tribe. I will be speaking about what's going on with me as I move through the 21 day process. Right now I am good as I hit these keys and lay down this blog, but on day 8 of the fast I will move directly into water only. Day 11 is the high point of the fast where I begin to ramp down and come back toward eating. That is usually the day where a breakthrough is made. So I will be talking with you all the way through this event. “We are in the week of Imani, the base of the Nguzo Saba, and we have an opportunity to grow like you would not believe.” Now the act of fasting can be looked at as a solitary thing, but it can be used

Create Your Work

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  Create Your Work Great Ujima: We are here to talk about using our Kuumba to create the thing that we do to make a living. We have to begin to use our Kuumba to create our work. We have all these marvelous principles waiting to serve us, but we are too busy serving others to realize the power that we have at our disposal. Combining the principle of Kuumba with the principle of Ujima as we get to do on this day gives us a look at the true power of this combination. The angle we will hit today is creating a system in which we are able to work for ourselves and serve the community at the same time.  “Join me today on Ujima in creating the new, meaningful and fulfilling careers for yourself and your family” We have talked about the importance of living a systematic life (verse from AOTL), but now let’s look at constructing a system that can work for us, rather than selling all of our time to someone else’s system. Right now most of us are involved in building up other peoples lifestyle at

Purpose & Ujima

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  Purpose & Ujima Great Ujima: First I want to apologize for the total mess up with the “Daily Toast”. I already shared that the sound was messed up for this week, but I found out that I posted it at 6:45am rather than 5:45am. Now I have to go back and listen to my commercial to check what time I stated was show time. I go through phases where I totally forget show times, and a bunch of other stuff, just ride the wave for this week and we will be back to normal next week. It’s crazy to think that I had a big accident during the week of purpose, but all things work together to bring balance. Enough of that!  Let's get to our discussion. Well we have made it to the magnificent principle of Ujima, and we are in the week of Nia, so let’s pull these super beings together and see what they can do. “Ujima is a principle most people don’t know about because it’s a collective action that involves building community, but not in the way you think. Find out about it here!” We know that Uji

Building Your Tribe

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We are on Ujima  today which we know to mean collective work and responsibility. Collective is one of the keys to this principle tying the idea of resource; we can say that the collective is the focus for today. Tribe building is a skill in putting people & the resources they bring together. Of course before we get into bringing different people together, we first have to take the inward journey of putting the parts of ourselves together. We have to recognize the resources we put on the table. Let’s once again take a look at the 5 parts of ourselves that make up the whole that we are, and be able to maximize their power so that we can pull the best out of our external tribe. Yep, we have an internal tribe that we will have to work with composed of our: Intuition - This is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. This part of ourselves plugs us into a larger reality, and gives us access to information without having to go through the

Respect Your imani

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  Great Imani: It has been a very busy few days. I am working at the Ohio Alliance Of Black School Educators (OABSE) conference here in Columbus, Ohio. It took more time that I expected but it was worth it. It is great to hear about all the work that is going on with schools, especially when it comes to Black children. "Imani - a collective force rooted in community" I was trying to record my show but my daughter wanted to take a long walk in the woods in the dark. So I accepted her challenge and we ended up going four miles. Needless to say after the long day, and the evening into night walk, I was exhausted and would have not been able to give yall my all. I am bringing this up because it was a lesson in it about Imani. My daughter was excited to go for our walk but as it started to get dark, the excitement started to turn into fear. Before the sun totally disappeared she was running around picking flowers, running ahead of me, and lagging behind. As the darkness solidified
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  Great Kuumba Congratulations you have been born in a legendary time. I am serious, we are standing in the midst of a crisis point in history, and you have the opportunity to take action that will mark you down in the historical memory of your people. But before you go out and conquer the world please take some time to conquer yourself, or better yet align yourself with your Culture, and principles. The world is in the middle of changes that are happening so fast that people are lost. If you don't believe me just take some time and think about the changes you have experienced in your life. It used to be that the only way you could be heard was to be selected by a big corporation and pushed. We are now standing in a time where we can actually share our talents, and skills with the world (no middle man needed). When I was young I used to dream about being on TV. Now I get up every morning and do a show. I never thought that I would be able to do something like that, but that is the