Free Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd

that hold the pen, the ink inside the pen, the blood that f lows through the fingertips, the hand that embodies them and the connection to the heart.
    The blood in our hands and the ink in our pens are blood sisters. The energy of their juices creates chemistry on the page that is saturated with our truths. How divine that hands which palmists tell us have our lives written all over them guide the pen across the page. Our thoughts may start in our minds, but our hearts are really their authentic resting places. Once there, they become our truths. Hence, the theory of “blood sisters,” whose lifetime oath is to take us as close to our authentic selves as possible. The hand is truly holy: on the hand is the finger upon which we place a ring as a declaration of love; the hand is the first to touch a baby’s head as she makes her entrance into the world telling her she is safe; and the soothing touch of the hand comforts someone in pain. How can such a holy vessel lie? Through the hand we will eventually humble ourselves as we write. As the words of Proverbs 18:4 share, “A person’s words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as the f lowering stream.”
    We humble ourselves as we write. What do we find out about ourselves? This is the question I am seeking to unearth as I plow through the words on this page. When I accept the fullness and the potential of my life and all our lives, I know that there are no edges to our worlds. Woven into the lines and loops of our words are the imprints of our deepest and innermost desires, and it is our hand that leads us there.
    I am of African ancestry, born to Caribbean parents who migrated to England, where I was born and raised. The sheer expansiveness of the journey traveled so I could be here permits me to have no boundaries of where I can go or what I can desire for myself. The African in me longs to live by the sea, to go to sleep with the sound of waves in my ears and to rise knowing she does not sleep. It is my journal that safely hears me tell of these desires. My hand coaxes these truths pulsating from the womb of my birth, speaking to me of the things I can’t easily reveal in public, like how I long to make love in the open, naked by the sea. When all is said and done, the lover in me is also the mother in me; she is the sister and the friend, the aunt and Godmother, the woman speaking at the podium, a body moving through the aisles of the market, a thousand different faces all wrapped up in one, all with their own secret desires. My journal knows them all so well.
    Sometimes our lives hit a spot that scares the living daylights out of us. It really does feel like the lights in our world have been switched off. I hit that place several years ago as I watched a seemingly successful career collapse around me, and I retreated from the world. I was wise enough to consciously take time out to be with myself. While being with myself, I realized how much I had been missing the real me. A period with very little money in these times can send even the most sane of us mad. I felt inadequate and found myself sinking deeper and deeper into a place of desolation from which I wasn’t sure I would return. Even when surrounded by people, I felt alone. My journal through these times was my constant companion. She stayed with me, witnessing my thought and my moods, and gracefully allowed me time to wallow on the page in self-pity. I know that these lean times are often the periods many of us find the most difficult in which to write, but it is the most crucial time for the journal writing to continue. It is during these times that we are writing ourselves back to wellness, health and strength. I had to keep on writing to live.
    Most of us on the spiritual path will not escape the barrenness of the wilderness experience that when explored beyond that surface contains an oasis of healing and magic. It does not discriminate against whom it will claim. I