Celebration of Kwanzaa

Our family has never celebrated Kwanzaa, this is something that I have always associated with strong Afrocentrism, something we are not here in this family.  But after getting some prompts from others in the African American Wiccan community, I decided to do a little research and I found something that I am considering researching further.  Here is what I found.

Seven days of observation starting the 26th of the month and each day stands for one of the following.

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): 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.
• 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.

Many changes, many options for growth

This year has been challenging for many people and a lot of us are hopeful that the coming year will be a new opportunity for growth and balance. The energy of this past year has been filled with abrupt changes and now we are hopefully moving to a point, energetically, that will have a little more stability and allow everyone time to level out some. Since the coming year breaks down to a 4, numerology suggests that it is going to be a year that offers just that.

As the family closes this year we look back on a lot of up and down accomplishments amongst the members. In good news, some of the members are still in College, others are actively pursuing creative ventures, several have obtained degree marked elevations and several of us had the opportunity to meet at Pantheacon in February.

Throughout the challenges of the year, we have still seen some growth and a lot of shadow work being done amongst many of us.

My goals with FRP for the coming year include being able to support completion of degrees for some that have been working at it for a long time and creating a solid base and connection among us all.

The family of the rising phoenix wishes everyone a blessed season and a wishful close to the passing 2010 year. May you continue to find peace in closure and look towards manifesting your coming desires.