The Tree of Remembrance: A Ritual for Africans in the Diaspora

This ritual is something I've been ruminating on for the past 2 years. I have a spiritual teacher named Minister Ju a.k.a. The Imagination Guru. He created a visualization technique called the Positron Past where you revise past traumas and replace them with more positive outcomes. He’s an expert at finding the parallels between neuroscience, quantum physics, and the Bible. He uses this knowledge to help people overcome all sorts of difficulties and manifest their heart's desires by activating the God that resides in all of us. This visualization has been a staple in my spiritual practice for almost a decade now and it has helped me to overcome so much trauma in my life. It was one of the major inspirations and guideposts for The Tree of Remembrance ritual. Matter of fact, this all came together after I finished my most recent 21 day cycle of the Positron Past visualization.

I first heard about the Tree of Forgetfulness in one of Minister Ju’s webinars while in his Quantum Imaging membership. It deeply touched my heart and awakened my curiosity. I looked it up to learn more about it and when I read about the Tree of Forgetfulness and  the other ways that the Dahomey kings used magic to assist them as they participated in the slave trade I wondered if those same principles from the Positron Past visualization could be applied to our collective experiences with slavery. How it worked was our ancestors would be made to walk clockwise around a tree before they were sold to European slavers and trafficked to the Americas. Women would walk around the tree 7 times and men would do it 9 times. This was done to make them forget about their homeland and all they were being forced to leave behind. This ritual is my attempt at using magic to break the curse that was placed upon our ancestors and passed down to us.

I've done this ritual and I feel a change in the core of my being. Doubt and insecurity has been replaced with hope and determination. Faith is now the major driving force in my life and it's effortless! I don't have to work hard to maintain that state of being as I have in the past. I've been provided for materially and my life is changing in the most beautiful ways.

Some deeply rooted negative emotions came up in the first few days but as I continued, they were transformed. I felt a searing rage bubble up from inside of me. That rage was transformed into resolve by the time I got to day 7. Now, every day it gets easier for me to do the things that are required for me to be successful. A yoke has been lifted from my shoulders. My burdens are light. Despite all of the chaos and turmoil going on in the world, I feel nothing but hope, joy, and determination. I am excited about the future.  That is no small feat in this day and age. 

The Tree of Forgetfulness would not leave me and for 2 years I made connections between it and things I learned about spirituality over the past 17 years. The following is my random thoughts streamlined into a linear fashion. I hope it makes sense as I was led by spirit for this endeavor. I'm not a scholar, I just read a lot and follow some brilliant people so I'll do my best to convey my thought process.

When I learned about the Dahomey kings making our ancestors walk clockwise around a tree it instantly set off an alarm in my mind and the gears started tuning. The earth rotates counterclockwise. Going in the opposite direction is literally going against nature. Then I remembered the Kongo cosmogram and its motion is counterclockwise also. 

“The Kongo cosmogram is a core symbol in Kongo religion that depicts the physical world (Ku Nseke), the spiritual world (Ku Mpémba), the Kalûnga Line that runs between the two worlds, the sacred river that forms a circle through the two worlds, the four moments of the sun, and the four elements.” 

By MiddleOfAfrica - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131641276

I started the ritual in the north because in astrology that part of the sky is the realm of the ancestors, heritage, and your roots, the 4th house. We never see the sun in the northern sky. It rises in the east, peaks at noon in the south, and sets in the west. It’s symbolic of rising from the darkness and ascending into the light, bringing our ancestors with us along the way. A portal between the past and the present. Polaris, a.k.a. The North Star, is also in that region of space. It’s the brightest star in the Ursa Minor constellation. It's commonly referred to as the Little Dipper. It's right next to Ursa Major, commonly referred to as the Big Dipper, and they are navigational guides in the Northern Hemisphere. They are beacons that guided our ancestors in the United States as they escaped north to freedom.

Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and North Star

Follow The Drinking Gourd is a Negro spiritual that was used as a secret code. The "drinking gourd" is the Big Dipper and it was used as a reference point so that our ancestors wouldn't get lost on their journeys to freedom.

Here are the instructions on how to perform the ritual:

1. Find a tree and stand facing north. Use a compass to find it if you don’t know where it is. Here’s downloads for compass apps for iOS and Android.

2. Walk in a circle counterclockwise around the tree while repeating the words “I remember”. Women should do 7 revolutions around the tree and men should do 9.

3. After the last revolution around the tree, pour out libations while speaking the names of your ancestors. If you don’t know any of your ancestors, say “these libations are in honor of my ancestors”. Alternatively, you can also call on the names of honorable ancestors you admire such as Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. You can also pour our libations for people who positively impacted your life but have passed on such as friends, teachers, coaches, etc.

4. End by saying “thank you, thank you, thank you for this Great Remembrance”. Do this for a total of 7 days.

Here is a link to download a pdf with the instructions:

Tree of Remembrance.pdf

Download PDF • 3.58MB

Some tips:

You can add on to this if you like. Let your intuition be your guide. Leave offerings if you feel led. Say prayers or recite verses from your favorite holy text. I recited Proverbs 11: 1-10 and then later added Proverbs 3:6, which was my maternal grandma’s favorite bible verse. For the libations you can use water or spirits that your people enjoyed such as rum, whiskey, gin, wine, etc. Sing songs, dance, whatever you feel led to do, do it! If you want to really go hard, extend the practice for an extra 14 days for a total of 21 days.

Our ancestors are very present. They live in our DNA and are embedded in our cultures. Everything from the way we dress, to the music we create, the way we worship, our fashion, our hairstyles, our food, and so much more are intertwined with them. They are letting us know that they are ready to help us. The signs are there if you’re paying attention. All we have to do is say the word. This ritual is a good first step at activating them.

I wish my fellow diasporans lots of love, joy, healing, and abundance. We have endured and survived for centuries. Now, it is time for us to thrive. Arise Black people! This is our moment.