African | Leslye Joy Allen

“Self Portrait” by Copyright © 2015 Leslye Joy Allen. All Rights Reserved.

This blog is just a quick update…I have recently been in touch with young people who belong to, or I should say are in communiqué with, the Old Souls…

Old Souls are those ancestors who have passed on and who regularly communicate with children and other young people in their efforts to keep the majority of us on the straight-and-narrow path…

I cannot begin to tell you how many people I know who are the parents of small children who speak as if they are well over the age of eighty when they speak…All I can say is that it is the Old Souls that speak to and through these children and young adults…

I have also experienced this with the young people that I have taught and/or mentored and/or influenced in some way. Quite often, I hear some pearl of wisdom, some saying or colloquialism that they are much too young to know. It comes out of their mouths as if my/our grandparents or great grandparents are speaking through them…

I have learned to listen to that Old Wisdom coming from young mouths…I have also learned to completely let go of that Western Judaic-Christian tradition that, unfortunately, draws a sharp demarcation between the secular and the sacred…I have known this to be problematic for quite some time. It has taken me nearly a lifetime to BELIEVE it was problematic…

In most of the many varied African cosmological traditions, a problem (or a person who presents themselves as a problem) was there to teach everyone involved in the problem an important moral or ethical lesson…The requirement was to experience the problem and fully learn the lesson and in order to learn the lesson one must be fully human—not holy—but human…

In my own very recent and past losses, I have learned to trust this fully human experience from the young people I have encountered (and by young, I mean post-Baby Boomers) who do not need judgment as much as they need our guidance and love. They do not need criticism as much as they need our support and cushion, as they try and fail and learn from their experiences and failures and successes…

And we must remember and acknowledge that they are not as young as we older folk would like to believe they are…They come bearing the gifts of the Old Souls and we would do well to listen and learn…I have learned to listen. When I do, I often I hear my parents and grandparents voices…Àṣé!

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

by Leslye Joy Allen

I have lived over fifty years and I have never really met and never really dealt with a Black woman who was passive. My experience may not be the same as everyone else’s, but as a young Black girl growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, there simply was no such thing as an uneducated, passive and do-nothing Black woman; and my late Mama and her friends have been that example. Mama’s friends have been a blessing to me while she was alive and a boon to me in her absence…

I will only share a little bit about one of them here…

Her full name is Mrs. Bendolyn Handspike Ricks. Her nickname is “Peaches.” The house she has shared with her husband of more than forty years has always been one of the homes in the neighborhood where all the kids went to just hang out and be kids and clown around. Even though she insisted that I call her “Peaches” well over twenty years ago, I had to reach the age of fifty before I could call her anything other than “Mrs. Ricks.” Being raised to be extra respectful to adults, I simply could not call her by her nickname until after I passed the half century mark. But here is what I learned from “Peaches.”

Make your voice heard! Everyone at City Hall, the Mayor’s Office, and the local police department knows her. She will call them all day long if need be to get what she needs and what our community needs. I know….

because when a pipe from the street collapsed and created a plumbing problem for me, the City’s water department claimed that they could not arrive at my house for the next three weeks. So, I called Peaches…

and she told me the city council person I should call. So, I called them and the water department and crew arrived the next morning rather than the next three weeks…

When she is travelling out of town, she asks that our police department send extra police officers to cruise by and look after her house…

and this past week, while she and her husband were vacationing, I watched as one police car after another sat near her house…

I say this to make a point…

One need not be wealthy to get something done. One need only be persistent enough to demand what one needs and to fight for what one needs…

and one needs only to have the kind of Black women I know and grew up with…

On those occasions when I worry, I simply pause and remember my Mama and her cronies—some Baaaad Sisters who I can only hope to someday emulate…Àṣé!

This Blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this blog or any total or partial excerpt of this blog must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly and visibly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Tag Archives: African

The Old Souls…