As I travel through Africa, doing inter-generational healing work and writing my book on the alchemy healing our ancestral trauma that lives deep in the waters of our body - I encountered Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending what’s broken with gold.

My whole healing life, I’ve been drawn to the waters, how it holds individual and collective memory, and the work of gathering the broken pieces — seeing trauma not as a wound, but a doorway, and river. That, after all, is the ancient understanding of trauma healing. Whether it's within us as individuals, or among us as a collective.

So when I came across Kintsugi - the Japanese art of mending what is broken with gold — while traveling in Africa, it felt like a gift from the Gods and my ancestors.

Out of a deep bow to my lineage - to African and Indigenous-rooted wisdom — I’ve come to lovingly call it Kintsugi-o. Not out of disrespect, but as an honoring. An honoring, a rhythm, an emphasis, and a golden river.

In many African languages, "o" emphasizes. It says: this isn’t just repair.

It’s reverence.

A way of living. A way of seeing.

A way of calling in the power of water.

A way of holding all the pieces — of me, of you, of us — as sacred.

 

The land does not ask you to be unbroken.
Only to return.

To press your ear
to the soil & hear
the gold humming
beneath the river’s wound.

Singing the words,

“I come from a line
of things that refused
to die beautifully.”

I am the crack that opens

The Light of the ancestors.
The scar as altar

— Omi

THE CHARACTER IN MY BOOK MOVES FROM INVISIBLE TO VISIBLE. SHE RECOGNIZES HER WOUND IS A DOORWAY TO OUR ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

Beginning with the breath, the confident, first-person narrator knows “I am love” and sits resting in Easy Pose. From there, each page turn introduces ways to manage feelings and use the breath, the mind, and affirmations to know “I am stillness,” “I am life,” “I am bold,” and “I am grateful.” All the while, the text moves readers through yoga poses that embody the thoughts expressed….. The affirmations, set apart with a larger, colored display type, will become familiar, comforting refrains taking up space for positivity and setting a standard of self-care for readers. Achikeobi-Lewis’ lyrical prose and visual art combine to offer a beautiful experience of mindfulness and movement perfect for meaningful time between children and caregivers that will feed the spirits of both.

- KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW

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