“Habari gani?” or “What’s the news?”
“Today’s theme is Kuumba.”
Kuumba means creativity in Swahili. When we commit to creativity in this sense, we intend “to always do as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beneficial than we inherited it.”
That’s a beautiful purpose.
Last night I worked on my vision board for 2019. It involved a LOT of creativity. I started around 10pm and I finished it at 6:30am. (So I’m operating on little sleep!) But when I finished, I felt exhilarated and ready to meet 2019.
One thing that helped me craft this year’s vision board was thinking about the long term. What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind? What would I have to do today to meet that legacy? Who would I have to be today to meet that long term vision? So I inadvertently operated in kuumba when I was putting together my vision board.
(As a side note: I plan to write a series of posts in January about how to put together a vision board.)
Kuumba doesn’t have to take the form of a vision board, however. It can be creatively meeting the needs of someone in your community. Or finding a creative way to facilitate the healing of a broken identity.
Our kuumba doesn’t just heal ourselves. It heals others.
For this we light the final red candle.
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