Learn How to Meditate

“At last I have a moment of clarity I can cling to. I meditate. I find the path of stillness even though I do not know which tradition calls me. I know only that I am called to love. That to love is to serve.”

—bell hooks, Wounds of Passion

Black women, young and old, can benefit from the gift of meditation—especially in such a fast-paced, racist, sexist, capitalistic, and technology-based economy, which leaves us little time for self-care, renewal, or communing with the Spirit-God within. By learning how to meditate or “be still,” we align ourselves with the Universe, a Higher power greater than self, and are able to tap into our divine power, sacred wisdom, unlimited potential, and self-healing abilities. We are finally able to understand our true self-worth and to embrace self-love while simultaneously learning how to foster compassion for others and helping to build our own self-esteem. 

Many of the myths that we might have about meditation, however, must be dispelled before we are ever able to truly benefit from its life-affirming and self-empowering possibilities. We must heal all of your preconceived notions about “the art of keeping still” that you might have internalized from what you have seen on TV, read, or heard. First of all, meditation is a process by which you come to develop a deeper and stronger connection to the God within. The purpose of meditating is to get you connected back to the Source, especially since, for years, you have been chasing the material only to discover that the material cannot truly satisfy you, that the things you think you possess (including people) must soon, eventually, pass away. This is why we must not look to others, to material objects, things, or people to be our Source because when we lose them, when we lose certain titles or friendships with people with whom we seem to have established a deep connection or bond, we will enter the greatest depression of our lives. We enter a depression because we thought we needed those people or objects to “be”—to exist or remain happy in this world. 

When we meditate, however, we help to free ourselves from our earthly attachments. We free up our creativity and, in the process, we learn how to manage anger, stress, impatience, doubt, insecurity, and negative thinking through various deep-breathing techniques. Meditation, thus, helps you to keep your own power instead of constantly shelling it out to other people who may not value your precious self, voice, or soul. Above all, it teaches you how to love yourself unconditionally. It reminds you of the need for balance in all areas of your life; how to restore yourself back to sanity (after particularly hard and trying times); and how to detach from this illusory, material world. Meditation, then, is not an “escape.” It is a return to God’s grace and the deepest core of you. 

If you look in your Bible, you may find that the word meditate appears in several psalms and passages as does the notion of meditation. For instance, in 1 Timothy 4:15, it reads, “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” This phrase is a great testament to healing power of God’s grace and to the divine and sacred powers that are deep within you. It is a testament to the rich sense of abundance, prosperity, and state of bliss that you will eventually come to know once you heal your wounded past, become one with the Creator, and follow all of your greatest dreams. For only when you stop and detach from your ego, free yourself of your own narcissism and worship of the material, can you ever truly listen to that still small voice within you that has been vying for your attention for so long. Only when you come to learn to love the God within can you ever truly open up, love others, and free yourself from the kind of negative thinking that might pervade your subconscious and psyche. Only when you embrace true self-love and put you and your healing at the top of your own priority list, can you ever care for your own soul, step into your divine destiny, and redefine your own definitions of success, beauty, and womanhood.

 Many of the saints and the apostles in the Bible were known to have meditated on Him, for they knew that when they meditated on a Higher Power greater than self they would receive enlightenment and truth. You, too, must learn how to meditate in order to stay on what author Jack Kornfield calls “the path with heart.” You must meditate so that you can put your scattered life and surface personality back into order and perspective. You must meditate on the Creator, on the one and only Source who has the power to truly heal and rescue you, granting you complete clarity, consciousness, direction, forgiveness, and grace. For when you meditate on Him and, likewise, when you meditate and finally go in search of Her, you will find your purpose and self-identity—as opposed to the false self that you might tend to project or display in public.

Contrary to what most people might think, meditation is the complete opposite of prayer because usually when we pray we are “asking” for something; that is, we are usually lamenting, asking to be saved, forgiven, and so forth. When we pray, we are usually needy, oftentimes, perceiving ourselves as lacking something God knows that we already have, especially if we haven’t yet learned how to tap into our own power, and to view our cup as “half-full” instead of “half-empty.” As Ann and Barry Ulanov, coauthors of Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer might note, sometimes when we pray, we are impatient and greedy. But when we meditate, we receive. We give ourselves permission to be still so that we can listen to that small voice inside of us who knows what we must do, what decision we must make, and how we can embrace wholeness in the present moment. 

Meditation is that special time in your life when you give yourself full permission to exist without labels, attachments, restrictions, titles, deadlines, illusions, or false expectations. When you enter meditation you do not have to hum, chant, or wake up Sally Mae next door by singing some god-awful song. You do not have to hoot and holler, dress or look like some kind of gypsy woman. As is the case with many churches, when you meditate, you come to it as you are. You learn that you are already full and enough, regardless of what you might have, look like, or possess; regardless of your given circumstance, financial status, size, or hue. You can practice meditation in addition to reading your Bible, going to church, work, or school. You can meditate in the sanctity of your own living room, in warm, soothing bath, or while lying flat in the bed. You can enter it willingly and quietly, with a kind of calmness and passion that will, in turn, give you grace.

 Remember that when you begin meditating, you must be careful to note that you have the correct posture: your head and shoulders should be in alignment with your spine. Make sure that you are also in comfortable clothing whenever you begin meditating. Please don’t think that you will be able to meditate wearing bulky tennis shoes, skintight jeans, or clothing that in any way impedes on your ability to stretch, relax, breathe deeply, or keep still. Rid yourself of all of the accessories you have on and, likewise, the “mask” that you tend to wear in public so that you can commune with the woman, God, and little girl inside of you.  Now this does not mean that you have to meditate sitting butt naked—even though some people do. It just means that you must be comfortable while you are meditating, that you are okay and absolutely enough without all of the makeup (and whatever else you might wear) to feel validated, valued, desirable, and thus acceptable. I have found that meditating in a T-shirt, socks, sweats, or loose clothing is the most comfortable for me. Find out what works for you. You can sit up straight, either in a chair or while sitting Indian-style on the floor. You can also lie flat on the floor, as you would do if you were trying to make an angel in the snow. 

When you are finally ready to enter into meditation, consider placing your hands palm side up on your lap or placing them palm side up on each knee. If you are lying on the floor, you can stretch out your arms also with palm side up like an angel in the snow. Palms up allow the energy from Heaven and the Universe to flow through your beautiful brown body. With palms up, you can receive. However, with palms down, fists tightened, and a lock on your heart, you can neither receive nor can you allow the healing power of God’s grace to come inside.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and then just exhale. Inhale deeply through your nose and then exhale through your mouth. Repeat these steps about five times and then just continue breathing, thinking of absolutely nothing at all. This is the art of meditating, and it is really that simple, for, in truth, you are actually focusing on your breath, on the Spirit-God within, and, above all, on your own divine and lovable self. 

Focusing on our breath teaches us to breathe through our abdomen as opposed to breathing through our chest. When we breathe through our chest, we are not breathing properly. Have you ever noticed the way a baby breathes? A baby usually breathes through her abdomen. It is only adolescents, stressed-out adults, who breathe through their chests primarily because they are always in a rush. They are hyper and excited individuals bent on “possessing” or completing something. You can tell that babies breathe through their abdomens by observing the rising and falling of their small brown stomachs. We, too, can learn how to breathe this way again and we can achieve this through meditation. By meditating, we can remind ourselves that life is not a rush, that we are not running out of time, and that we have all of the time in the world to get done what needs to be done. Meditation thus helps us to remember who we are, whose we are, and whose time we are really on: God’s!

When you learn to breathe through your abdomen, you may find yourself feeling much more calm, centered, at peace, and balanced.  You may find thoughts, patterns, ideas, or relationships suddenly coming into light. In addition, you will finally find yourself, as well as answers to all of your questions. Of course, when you first begin meditating, you may find that your mind is so scattered or cluttered that you cannot focus or sit still for any given length of time. You may recall a negative scene, thought, or emotion from the day. You may recall images from your past or remember that you have a deadline tomorrow, a bill to pay right away, a phone call to make, an email to send, or somewhere else to go. You may recall a recent argument with a loved one or something that is entirely too funny and too silly, something that cracks you up and tickles your funny bone. Know, then, that this, too, is okay. This is also why meditation requires practice your willingness to finally face all of the things that you would normally suppress, deny, or walk away from.

Try to remember that when these images do come into your psyche or consciousness (because they most undoubtedly will) not to concern yourself with trying to force or wish them away. You need only to breathe those images in, exhale them out, and let them pass like clouds slowly drifting across a clear blue sky, as you continue to focus on the Spirit-God within, the Creator, and your breath.  

Sit down and allow yourself permission to just breathe, relax, and think of absolutely nothing. You can meditate on a psalm, a loved one, a favorite flower, your favorite island, the sea, or even your favorite quote. You can meditate on how you are going to work a situation out or how you will afford to get to work in the morning. You can read Tich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Mindfulness and Teachings On Love or Jack Kornfield’s A Path with Heart and find out how to practice both a love and a forgiveness meditation. You can also use creative visualization in meditation in order to bring to you the means by which you can fulfill your dreams and divine destiny. Once you learn how to meditate, you can become a seasoned professional and meditate anywhere for as long as you wish. You can practice deep-breathing techniques while in rush-hour traffic or whenever you feel you are hyperventilating and about to panic. You can meditate with the knowledge and belief that you choosing to connect or commune with the goddess deep inside of you is conducive to your growth, mental health, and overall peace of mind. 

Some people like to meditate next to an altar at sunrise or sunset because they think that these are the most special and sacred times of the day, a time of great rebirth and renewal since, in the morning, the moon descends and gives birth to the rising sun and, in the evening, the sun descends and gives birth to the rising moon, which will replace or reflect the descending sun. If you read about our ancient Khamitic (Egyptian) or African herstory and history, you will learn that before the Bible (before Adam and Eve), there were the Egyptians and thus Ausar (Osiris is the Greek name for the male god who represented the sun and ruled the morning and afternoon sky) and Auset (Isis is the Greek name for the female goddess who ruled the night sky). Both the sun and the moon goddess represent right order, reciprocity, balance, and truth (i.e. määt). They are complementary, balanced forces, representative of rebirth, love, light, and renewal. You, too, have such dualistic qualities within your own being that require balance and awareness, as well as complete and total understanding. 

Meditate to clear your mind not only of negative stress and chatter, but also to rid yourself of attachments, old ways, bad habits, rude behavior, impatience, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and paralyzing fears. Meditate to experience a total revolution of the Spirit (the evolution of your own soul), to communicate better in all of your relationships, to stay in the present moment, and to sense your oneness with and all other life. Meditate to release and let go, to gain Higher consciousness, divine, sacred wisdom; and to join the whole of humanity in love, humility, and service. Indeed, it does take a while to learn how to meditate without getting distracted. Hence, like my undergraduate mentor Olivia once instructed me throughout the duration of her sabbatical, “Don’t expect the fireworks overnight.” Know that your blessings will come in due and divine time.

 Great books to consider reading are Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn; The Miracle of Mindfulness and Teachings On Love by Tich Nhat Hanh; Meditation for Beginners and A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life by Jack Kornfield; and Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey. 

Narrative Essay

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was an outspoken advocate for civil rights for African Americans.

For more than half of Fannie Lou Hamer's life, she was a rural agricultural worker who saw no end to the cycle of poverty and humiliation that was the plight of most southern African Americans. Fannie Lou, born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, was the last of twenty children born to Jim and Ella Townsend. When she was two years old the family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, where Fannie resided for the rest of her life. At age six she joined the other family members working as a sharecropper picking cotton. By the time she was 13 she could pick between two and three hundred pounds of cotton a day.

In spite of intensive labor the Townsends were always in need because sharecroppers had to give a portion of their crop, as well as repayment for seeds and supplies they had purchased on credit, to the owner of the land on which they toiled. One year, when their crop was especially bountiful, Jim Townsend, hoping that his family's economic status would permanently improve, rented a parcel of land with a house and purchased some animals and farm implements to boost the farm's productivity. The family's hopes for prosperity were dashed, however, when a jealous white neighbor poisoned the Townsend's animals.

The condition of African Americans in the South caused young Fannie to wonder why they had to suffer such hardship while working so hard. In spite of her circumstances Fannie was able to attend school for a few months each year until she reached the sixth grade. After her formal schooling ended, she continued to study and read the Bible under the direction of teachers at the Stranger's Home Baptist Church. Fannie's religious beliefs and training were dominant influences during her entire life. She regularly prayed that someday she would have the opportunity to do something to improve the condition of African Americans in Mississippi.

During the 1940s Fannie Lou married Perry "Pap" Hamer, who worked on the W.D. Marlow plantation near Ruleville, Mississippi. Fannie also worked for the Marlows, first as a sharecropper and then--after the owner learned that she was literate--as the timekeeper. In the evenings she cleaned the Marlow's home. The Hamers supplemented their income by making liquor and operating a small saloon. Unable to have children of their own, the Hamers adopted two girls, Dorothy Jean and Vergie Ree.

In 1962, when she was in her mid-forties, Hamer's life changed drastically. She was invited to attend a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "Snick") meeting at a church near her home. SNCC, an organization founded in 1960 by a group of young African Americans who used direct action such as sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience as a means of ending segregation in the South, encouraged its workers to travel throughout the South to win grassroots support from African Americans. When Hamer heard the SNCC presentation she was convinced that the powerlessness of African Americans was based to a degree on their complacency and fear of white reprisals. She decided that no matter what the cost, she should try to register to vote. Though her first attempts to pass the voter registration test were unsuccessful they nevertheless resulted in the loss of her job and threats of violence against her and those who attempted to register with her for trying to alter the status quo.

In 1963 Hamer became a registered voter and a SNCC field secretary. She worked with voter registration drives in various locales and helped develop programs to assist economically deprived African American families. She was regularly threatened and faced beatings, a bombing, and ridicule. Nevertheless, she was a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), formed in April 1964 to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention. The MFDP sent 68 representatives in August 1964 to the Democratic National Committee meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hamer was one of the representatives who testified before the party's Credentials Committee. In a televised presentation, Hamer talked about the formidable barriers that southern African Americans faced in their struggle for civil rights. She talked about the murders of civil rights activists such as Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

"If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America," she said. "Is this America? The land of the free and the home of the brave? Where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook, because our lives be threatened daily." Hamer discussed the abuse she had suffered in retaliation for attending a civil rights meeting. "They beat me and they beat me with the long, flat black-jack. I screamed to God in pain...." As a compromise measure the Democratic Party leadership offered the MFDP delegation two seats, which they refused. Hamer said, "We didn't come for no two seats when all of us is tired." And no MFDP member was seated.

In 1965 Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine ran for Congress and challenged the seating of the regular Mississippi representatives before the U.S. House of Representatives. Though they were unsuccessful in their challenge, the 1965 elections were later overturned. Hamer continued to be politically active and from 1968 to 1971 was a member of the Democratic National Committee from Mississippi.

Hamer was also a catalyst in the development of various programs to aid the poor in her community, including the Delta Ministry, an extensive community development program, and the Freedom Farms Corporation in 1969, a non-profit operation designed to help needy families raise food and livestock, provide social services, encourage minority business opportunities, and offer educational assistance. In 1970 Hamer became chair of the board of Fannie Lou Hamer Day Care Center, an organization established by the National Council of Negro Women. She also served as a member of the boards of the Sunflower County Day Care and Family Services Center and Garment Manufacturing Plant. She became a member of the policy council of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, and from 1974 to 1977 was a member of the board of trustees of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Hamer underwent a radical mastectomy in 1976 and died of cancer March 14, 1977, in the Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Hospital.

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