I often find myself challenged to celebrate my Blackness in a world and society that does its best to dehumanize and tell me I am anything other than divine and worthy of love and respect because I exist. This meditation was created when I owned my yoga studio, Transformation Yoga that centered the essential lives of Black people living in America. This was recording shortly after the deaths of our siblings Ahmad Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Their deaths again reminders of how Blackness is seen as a threat regardless of whether we are sleeping, holding a counterfeit dollar or simply jogging through the neighborhood.

This meditation was created with holding the hold that Elder of civil rights justice, Ruby Nell Sales shared that it is never naive to hope, but instead what are we hoping for? This is a guided invitation for us to remember or envision what it is we are hoping for, whether a seat at the table is what gives us freedom or being self-determined as a people and liberated is where our freedom lies.