Libations for the Ancestors June 14, 2014
The Annual San Francisco Bay Area Libations for the Ancestors is Saturday, June 14, 2014, 9 AM at the Fountain at Lake Merritt (juxtaposed with Merritt Bakery and the tennis courts). It is an International Libation, everyone is pouring at the same time, which means we start exactly at 9 AM PST.
2012 marked the 25th Anniversary of the Libations Ceremony. What is significant about this day is that throughout the world African ancestors are being revered simultaneously. In Pacific time zone, that means we are pouring at 9 AM sharp. In Central or Mountain time, 11 AM sharp and Atlantic or Eastern time zone it is 12 noon sharp!
In other parts of the world our morning will be their evening, but we’ll all be in the same day (smile). Though community is important, especially for African people, if you are not able to get to a gathering or cannot host one of your own or are on the move, stop at the designated time and pour libations on the roadside, if necessary. . . . Join us in spirit and at the least pour thanks from your heart then, now and forever more.
2013 in the African Diaspora in the Americas and beyond in Charleston and Georgetown, SC, Hampton, Virginia, Seattle, WA, St, Croix, Virgin Islands, Oakland, CA, Long Island, NY, Portobelo, Panama, West Indies, Cape Coast, Ghana, and Brooklyn, New York, Atlanta, Georgia, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia–Pan African people lifted the names of ancestors who made the journey across the Atlantic and those who died aboard those slave ships and those who returned home (as was the case in Ethiopia that year for Wanda Sabir).
Stop what you are doing Saturday, June 14, 2014 at 9 a.m. PST and pour libations for our African ancestors who were taken against their will from Mother Africa. Ask them for strength and endurance. Freedom is a constant struggle. For those who’d like to pour libations in unity. Join us at 8:30 a.m. We will pour precisely at 9 AM. Bring your drums and other percussion instruments to celebrate our ancestors’ lives. Bring flowers, breakfast pastry and fruit to share. It is traditional to wear white, but for those who know me…bring yourself, it’s what’s inside that counts.
Feel the power of that moment as we recall their greatness of spirit and give thanks. Ashay!
In Oakland we met at the fountain at Lake Merritt, across from the Merritt Bakery where the fountain is: E-18th Street at Lakeshore Drive. We can meet there again this year. It is a nice spot, easy to locate and wheelchair accessible.
This is our seventh or eighth year participating in the international remembrance of the African ancestors who were bought and sold during the European slave trade. This is also an opportunity to reflect on those subsequent ancestors like Mama Tubman and Baba Denmark Vesey, and ancestors elsewhere in the African Diaspora. It is, a prayer for our survival and an opportunity to greet and support one another in this important work: healing from enslavement: socially, politically, and economically. It is also an opportunity to reclaim our personal and collective power, plus long overdue justice and equality.
Likewise,
Later that day in Oakland, there is a Juneteenth Festival at 11 AM, also at Lake Merritt.
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