Today is that special day, falling within our Afrikan Women Appreciation Month, that we honor the matriarchs of our families! You know…Big momma, Aunt Bertha and nem! The ones who were the reasons we gathered together for Sunday dinners and other celebrations. And sadly, their absences ending up being why we don’t do such things anymore.
They are/were the reasons the families stayed connected in all of the good and also the trying times. Pull up pictures, audio, video and the like to remember and memorialize the matriarchs of the family. Set up special sacred spaces for them.
On an African Vodun spiritual level, the deity associated with the matriarch, the queen mother’s of the family, is Nana Bulúkú. She is the primordial mother; the primordial wisdom of the universe. She was here before time. Nana is the Divine mother of the universe that not only gives food and riches to her children, but also takes care of their spiritual emancipation by bestowing power.
Nana is primordial wisdom. She teaches us that wisdom is the ultimate form of beauty and delight, the most sought-after object in creation, and hence the ultimate embodiment of what is popularly called the “divine feminine”. So today and always, memorialize the matriarchs and uplift their names.