Thanks to Angela Anderson for helping to take pictures!

Move, Sista, Move

Tov Black, Author 

…when you hear the drums,

And your waist will follow,

Your hips, then your thighs, as well as your knees,

Down to your calves,

Til’ it finally reaches the soles of your feet.

You see it knows.

It knows that the beating of the drum is as familiar to the soul as oxygen is to the lung.

You cannot deny your body that-

You cannot take away from it what has always been,

Carefullyplaced before your verybirth,

The drumming of your mother’s very heart, being the first.

So move, My sister – Move!

Allow your spirit to dance.

Allow your arms to transform into wings,

And fly!

Soar so high above humanity that it is only

YOU, and the STARS, and the MOON.

Raise your arms up, as to praise him.

Fling them out to your sides, as to propel yourself forward.

As you stride forward, then back,

Tap the ball of each foot to the ground twice,

Paying homage to the past and this precious gift we now have called present.

Now move! Sista, Move!

I suspect the only thing that got our ancestors through –

When their body’s were weary,

Their feet all bloodied and severely pained,

Their minds and spirits drained –

The only thing that carried them,

Was the sound –

The pounding of the drums.

God collaborated with Mother Earth and the Universe,

And must have sent them from a far.

During these dark times of so much deception, violence,

hatred, and war,

May the beating of the drum carry you now –

And Move, My sista, Move!!