The Sixth Principle, Kuumba (Creativity)

 

Happy sixth day of Kwanzaa - Kuumba (Creativity)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Seven Principles, (are) a foundational way forward in this awesome and urgent challenge to each and all of us. (...and) serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The Sixth Principle, Kuumba (Creativity), uplifts and promotes the practice of the ancient African ethical principle of serudj ta, the moral obligation to repair, renew and remake the world, making it more beneficial and beautiful than we inherited it. And it interprets this as both a social and environmental practice. For oppression is damaging and destructive to us and others as well as to the world. And as a moral and social vanguard, we must see ourselves in our ultimate agency, as injured physicians, who will heal, repair, renew and remake ourselves in the process and practice of repairing, renewing, and remaking the world.

For as Mary McLeod Bethune taught “Our task   is to remake the world. It is nothing less than this.”

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Fifth day of Kwanzaa

 

Happy fifth day of Kwanzaa - Nia (Purpose)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Seven Principles, (are) a foundational way forward in this awesome and urgent challenge to each and all of us. (...and) serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The Fifth Principle, Nia (Purpose), teaches us the collective vocation of constantly building and developing the capacity of our people to be ourselves and free ourselves to pursue an expansive good and come into the fullness of ourselves. And it reaffirms the interrelatedness of the pursuit of African and human good and the well-being of the world. For it remembers and reaffirms the sacred teachings of our ancestors in the Husia, that the good we do for others and the world we are also doing for ourselves. For we are building the moral community and good world we all want and deserve to live in.

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) for fourth principle of Kwanzaa

Happy fourth day of Kwanzaa - Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics),

 

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Seven Principles, (are) a foundational way forward in this awesome and urgent challenge to each and all of us. (...and) serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values. Nguzo Saba offer us an African value system that provides morally grounded guidance for our lives and living. They serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The Fourth Principle, Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), lifts up and promotes the values of shared work and shared wealth; the right of all people to a decent and dignity-affirming life, and thus the right of all people to a just and equitable share of the common goods of the world. Indeed, as Wangari Maathai taught, “We must now rethink our relationship with the living world, (and) the way we manage resources.” And we must resolutely and continuously resist mindless consumerism and the plunder, pollution and depletion of the world by corporations and countries who ride roughshod over the earth and the vulnerable peoples in it.

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Third principle of Kwanzaa

 

Happy third day of Kwanzaa - Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

Nguzo Saba offers us an African value system that provides morally grounded guidance for our lives and living. They serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The Third Principle, Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) speaks to the ethical obligation and transformative practice of building together the good world we all want and deserve to live in and leave as a rightful legacy for future generations. It teaches us to recognize and respect the common good in and of the world, to cultivate and harvest it together and practice an ethics of sharing this and other goods of the world.

 This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Second day of Kwanzaa meaning

 

Happy second day of Kwanzaa - Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, (are) a foundational way forward in this awesome and urgent challenge to each and all of us. Indeed, the Nguzo Saba offer us an African value system that provides morally grounded guidance for our lives and living. They serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The Second Principle, Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), teaches us we must think and act for ourselves and define ourselves by the good we choose and do in the world. It speaks to our right and responsibility to be ourselves and free ourselves and make our own unique contribution to the radical reimagining and remaking of our societies and the world. And Kujichagulia stresses our moral obligation to reaffirm and support this right for others, especially those oppressed and struggling for freedom, those wronged and injured and struggling for justice, and those disempowered and struggling for power over their destiny and daily lives.

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Kwanzaa 2020

Happy first day of Kwanzaa - Umoja (Unity)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Seven Principles, (are) a foundational way forward in this awesome and urgent challenge to each and all of us. (...and) serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

The First Principle, Umoja (Unity), begins with ourselves, but expands outward to include others and the world. It reaffirms Anna Julia Cooper’s assertion that “We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness of all special favoritism whether of race, sex, country or condition.” Umoja urges a moral sensitivity and caring kinship with each other, other human beings, all living beings, and with the world itself. For as our ancestors taught, we are not only human beings (watu), but also world beings (walimwengu). And thus, they taught in the sacred text, Odu Ifa, that we must “take responsibility for the world and do good for the world.”

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

Changes

I'm going to include my "welcoming to my journey photos" and experiences all under "When I Was 69" blog.  So come on over there to see what's new in my life.  I have to cut back somewhere! This blog will be archived of many journeys that we've shared. I've posted 1061 times here!

The view is worth it, but how long can you look at it?

Getting there is more of the fun...once you reach the summit, how long can you just look at thousands of mountains in the distance? They are fortunately labeled well now on photographic dioramas facing each direction.

 Looking down at the road we came up...

 Our 2 Barbaras selfie from the top of Mt. Mitchell.

 On Thursday there wasn't a big crowd, and each person took turns taking photos...everyone was very polite about that.

We were glad we'd brought our sandwiches, guacamole and chips, and ate in a picnic shelter. But none of the water fountains were available to fill our water jugs. (They did sell water at the concession, I wonder if that had anything to do with the fountains being turned off.)

On top of old (Mt Mitchell)

Once again I huffed and puffed my way to the top of this summit. It's a long drive (well, a bit more than an hour) from Black Mountain...go along the Blue Ridge Parkway then up 2 miles of steep incline in the State Park.  But the last 100 yards you walk up a very steep incline. Fortunately there are rest benches about every 50 feet.

 My friend has had one knee replaced, and is scheduled for the other one this next week!

 Looking up from about the halfway point, where there's a 180 degree turn.

 There are many dead spruce and fir trees on Mt. Mitchell.

 Being able to see the summit helps when puffing up that last incline.

 Catching one's breath at 6684 feet, where the air is a bit thinner than Black Mountain (2400 or so).

My friend came from Tampa FL, so she's used to about 20 feet above sea level!

Tourists follow me

I've led tours when I was quite a bit younger, around my school during the summers, when families would want to see what it was like.

Now I love taking friends for their first time to Mt. Mitchell on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I have many other neat places to go as well.  As my aging has kept me from hiking in the beautiful woods, at least there are many sites which are available to us drivers/minimal walkers.

 A rather low overlook close to home.  We tried to limit the places we stopped!

 At Craggy Gardens Picnic area, the day was absolutely perfect for looking for miles in every direction. And being Thursday before the big Labor Day weekend, it was vacant!

 The little visitors center at Craggy Bald is always a fun place to stop along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Just a glimpse of Burnett Reservoir shows behind all those leaves. The reservoir is low because the dam is being worked on.

We kept taking selfies, mostly with only half of my face!

Onward we went...Mt. Mitchell is next!