(7) SAADI QUEST: MWM: Back to Africa – Roots Lead to Truth

The drumming and dancing and being around people from the Caribbean and Africa, especially the old ones, the elders made a big impact on Saadi. 


Saadi went to the Million Woman March not knowing what to expect.  The plans weren’t as laid out as in the Million Man March.  People were asked to wear white and bring drums and rhythm instruments.  Saadi brought some percussion instruments, and a shekare, the gourd covered on the outside with strings of beads.

Artist: Phoebe Beasley

She and her best friend Luna came up on some drummers.  The drumming called to Saadi’s spirit, she went over and began playing her shekare.  Gradually more and more sistas started to come.  They formed a dance circle, grandmothers, and granddaughters, middle aged and corporate, youth women and toddlers.  It kept growing and growing about ten people deep, with enough room in the center for four or five people to dance.  The energy was sparking and swirling around Saadi’s ears.  Everyone clapped and moved their feet.  As they did calls the energy rose higher and higher.

Rasta Wave by Traci Heaton

Saadi looked up into the sky.  She sang and chanted out sounds and calls coming from her soul. What Saadi saw was not the overcast sky of Philly.  Everything looked different, very bright and very clear, she felt transported to some other place.  They were all back in the homeland of their ancestors.  Saadi felt a surge of energy enter her spirit and pierce the top of her head.  She looked down and saw the circle from above.  She peered at their faces.  Everyone was moving and dancing, vibing to the ancient rhythms, knowing without knowing, as high energy coursing through wave after wave.  The circle had grown to more than 300 sistas of all ages.  A voice rose high sending ou

Sharon Franklin / Okra's Stewdio

t the ever-familiar call of the rolling tongue.  The call that started at a high pitch and raised even higher and higher, - yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…calling home.

Later after the circle was over Saadi and Luna walked around the grounds.  That was when she saw the elders.  One elderly brutha, so old his skin was a mass of wrinkles yet his eyes were bright and clear, looked at her like he was looking for something or as if he recognized her.  He said something but Saadi could not understand through his thick accent.  She looked around at the other old ones sitting with him. They would lock eyes with Saadi and look deep inside. The feeling was eerie yet somewhat familiar.

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A very tall elder woman with long narrow features walked over to Saadi.  The woman was dressed completely in cream, a head wrap, peasant blouse and a long wide skirt that brought out the rich red hues in her beautiful coffee colored skin.  She twirled small stones in one of her hands.  They made a rhythmic clicking noise.  She looked at Saadi for what seemed an eternity without saying a word.  Then she spoke with a heavy patois accent, “Mother Africa”  she said looking deep into Saadi’s eyes.  She looked at Luna and said, “Uhm, greetings daughta.”  Saadi felt a knowing, she felt an ancient self.  In a moment of clarity she saw she was being other than her true self and possibly approaching living a lie. 

I have been living as others see me…parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, lovers, even communities.  It has become second nature.  Now, I must search for my first nature.  My roots lead to truth.

Later Winnie Mandela spoke to the rally.  She told them that women around the world were watching them.  They saw the will of the Black woman in America, her will to survive, her tenacity and refusal to give up even after so many generations of oppression.  They knew that the Black women in America held a vital key to the salvation of Black people and Black people held the key to the salvation of the world. The world would never truly be free until Black people were free. Black women held the key to the freedom of all.

“Sistas! Do not give up!  Continue the struggle.  You are the helm of this freedom ship.  We are with you!

Saadi took the message completely to heart.  It was time to take a righteous stand with conscious bruthas and sistas at her side.  But it wasn’t quite clear just what conscious meant, Black conscious, spiritual conscious, consciousness that did not place women below men?  Where in the world was she going to find those people?

Now here she was talking to Malik. Was he the type of brutha she longed for?  Well here she was in the loc brutha’s home, feeling things she had not felt for a very long time. 

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(5) SAADI'S QUEST: Vision Quest - Part I

VISION QUEST - Part I

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She held her breath as she knocked on the door.  You had to knock loudly, since there was no outside intercom at the building.  Her breath came quicker, more shallow and rapid.  She stepped back and looked up through the door windows.  Her heart began beating faster now, her pulse increased.

I feel like I’m up on a ledge, a platform, a stage, a slave dock, up for review.  Courage girl, just look natural.

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Up at the top of the stairs a head appeared as long locs escaped, spilling, falling out into the hallway.  She caught her breath and felt her body respond.

There he is.  Oh please be glad that I’ve come.  If only I could see his eyes then I would know.  See them before a mask of second-handed politeness and pleasantness appears.  Calm down you can’t do anything about that.  He’s smiling and, oh my gosh, he’s coming down the stairs.

Even though it was Fall…why did they say “Fall,” did it descend from the high place of Summer, down through Fall into Winter, only to Spring once again to the heights of the Summer Sun’s warm return?  Is that what the Egyptians thought?  How can my mind be wandering like this?  Stop, Stop NOW!

Even though it was Fall he was wearing what she called the muscle man or wife beater T-shirt, the one that shows his shoulders and biceps.

“Sister Saadi, Greetings.”

“Greetings Brother Malik I came by to …” 

Whatever she said, it was an excuse.  She came to be around him, to smell him and feel his energy, or better said, to feel her energy when around him.  As he turned to go up the stairs she noticed the curve in the small of his back, a curve like the one in the back of the archer horseman, Sagittarius.  It curved into muscular hips, the hips of an athlete, of a man in touch with his body.

In touch with your body, in touch with your soul. 

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There was a layer of sweat glistening all over his body.  The dampened T-shirt showed his muscles even more distinctly.  He turned and began walking back up the steep narrow stairs.  Saadi followed.

“I just came from running.  It was good.  It always helps to clear my head.  It sharpens my mind.”

As he spoke he scooped his locs that fell deep down his back, up onto his head.  His maneuver captured and entwined them simultaneously, the locs serving as the holder and the held.  Saadi as always stayed back at the foyer.

I must wait until he invites me in.  A man’s apartment, girl you are too much!

Even though she likened herself a “Renaissance Woman” strict southern upbringing periodically caught her off guard, especially when dealing with behavior under the heading of “lady like.” Here she was still rooted in the foyer by the door, all conflicted in roles, but she sure wasn’t going to back away, not now.

“Come in Sista, come on in,” Malik called from somewhere deep in the apartment.

As Saadi entered the room she saw artwork all over the floor.  Some huge pieces as tall as six feet and taller rested against the walls.  Pieces of the sea were all around her.  It felt like a haven.  For so long she had felt the absence of art and artists, people who, like herself, look at life using art as one of their primary lenses.  Whether with visual artists, performing artists, writers, creative creators, when she was among them she felt more at ease.  That was how she felt with Malik.  When she was around him she felt more at ease and at the same time more invigorated.

Saadi finally spoke, “So you have been working again.  These pieces are wonderful.”

"Nappy Locs" painting by Gwendolyn Frazier   

As Malik walked back into the room he began to talk about the difficulties and frustrations he was having with his work.  He wanted it to be seen by more people.  He wanted to make a living from  his love, his art, his calling.  He wanted to give up his regular job on the sea and have his art be his sole income. In fact he had recently quit his seaman’s job with that intention but his work was not selling. People were not willing to pay what he felt his work was worth. On top of that he was having what a writer would call “writer’s block”.  He brushed past her.  She felt an electric spark.  No, it was more of a wave, an invisible ripple that spread through her body, followed by a sensation like mint.  Mint on the edge of her senses, delicious.  

Oh gosh! I’m moist.  I wonder if he can smell it. Does he have any idea of the changes I go through just being around him?  I wish I could talk to him about this but I don’t know what to say or to ask.  Is this spiritual, sexual, just an emotional flush, or a sexual fantasy? Gurl, all women probably feel like this around him and as fine as he is probably some men do too!  Just look around him.  There’s always a line of drippin’ females.  Am I just another “bitch” in heat?

To be continued...