2.24.2017
During a meditation before bed, I saw an image of a candelabra similar to what Jewish people use for Hanukkah. It was yellow/gold in color, engraved/etched onto a surface. All at once I saw the imagery of a star, a silhouette of a woman, and a beam of light move from the base of the candelabra through the top and beyond.
In these moments, I did not understand the significance of or the relationship between these images. What did a feminine figure have to do with the Jewish candelabra? What is the name of their candelabra? I could not even recall the name of it. It was something I grew up knowing the name of, as it was an image that I frequently saw beside the kinara of Kwanzaa in my school-aged years.
Because I was sheltered from the Abrahamic religions, my mother opted for participating in Kwanzaa as a means to shield me from any potential bullying from my classmates, and to celebrate a part of my diverse heritage. It was already a problem for my peers and the adult staff at school that I chose to identify as a Jamaican-American or a mixed person, as opposed to African-American. To tell a group of African-American Christians or those with an Afro-centric view that I didn’t celebrate Christmas or Kwanzaa, or that my mother taught me to listen to my dreams and intuition, would only serve as a means to further isolate myself; and by extension, my little sister. So celebrate Kwanzaa we did, until I began high school.
For almost four years, I’ve been living with the long-term effects of an inner ear lesion. The lesion is long gone but its side effects are not. Throughout the day, I feel a combination of unsteadiness and sudden, unpredictable sensations of movement. On better days, the unsteadiness is almost non-existent and the feelings of movement are minimal. On worse days, I’m troubled with a type of brain fog that makes it hard to concentrate as well as disrupting unpredictable sensations of being on a boat that can’t pick one direction in which to move. It’s frustrating, tiring and demoralizing.
Sometimes, being overwhelmed with guilt makes one unable to act. Other times, guilt manipulates and attempts to control. It might offer a sense of responsibility and concern. More often than not, guilt comes bundled in small doses of should-haves and could-haves.
This year, February 28th, the 14th of Adar on the Jewish calendar, is the first night of Purim, a holiday the orthodox 
In the ancient world, snakes represented fertility, creativity, rebirth, wisdom and, even, death. They were often closely connected to female goddesses, priestesses and powerful human females who were the embodiment of such powers. For example, there is the Minoan goddess/priestess holding the two snakes in her outstretched arms. She is closely linked with fertility and domesticity. Similar figurines, with similar associations and dating to approximately 1200 BCE, have also been founded in the land of what once was Canaan, where Israelites also lived. Medusa, in whose hair lived venomous snakes, turned men who looked at her to stone. Ovid’s account of the creation of Medusa credits the Greek goddess Athena with Medusa’s lively hair. Another Greek legend says Perseus, after killing Medusa, gave her head to Athena who incorporated it into her shield. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is portrayed often with snakes wrapped around her as a belt and/or on the floor next to her. 
Feminism and Religion 