Meditations Across the King’s River: African- Inspired Wisdom for Life’s Journey

By James Weeks

Join author and filmmaker James
Weeks as he delves into the ancient Ifa spiritual tradition that led his family
to healing. Absorb his stories as he travels abroad, tapping into the spirit
realm and showing us ways to commune with our ancestors while discovering our
purpose on Earth. His story has already touched tens of thousands of lives.
Complete with updated chapters, this new edition of Meditations Across the King’s River reaches deep into the soul,
urging us to open ourselves to our spirit guides and embrace their gifts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Winsome Entertainment Group
• Release date: Jan 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781513695327

James Weeks

James Weeks is an internationally known spiritual leader, author and finance mentor who has spoken at Harvard University and has been a guest on numerous radio and internet shows including KPFA, Africa Today, KPOO, the Ibeji Lounge, and Ancestral Voices. He has been featured in Market Watch, the Associated Press, and the International Business Times.   He is the producer of the upcoming documentary film, Across The King’s River: Fulfilling Your Life’s Purpose. He is also a babalawo, or priest in the Ifa spiritual tradition of West Africa and helps clients with strategies for emotional, spiritual and financial wellness.  James is a native of St. Croix, Virgin Islands and currently lives in Oakland, California with his wife and youngest son.  To learn more visit acrossthekingsriver.com.

Book preview

Foreword

My friend James Weeks is on a lifelong journey. Like the ancient wisdom gatherers, he has traversed from village to village, island to island, country to country collecting dispersed pieces of knowledge. Along the way he has acquired an intricate trove of family memories, blessed encounters, lessons learned, challenges faced, and dilemmas solved and shares them with us in Meditations Across the King’s River. Those of us who know James or are connected to him on social media have benefited from his journey and his gathered wisdom. In Meditations Across the King’s River, he widens his audience as books can travel further than we do, and can, in their material longevity, impact generations yet unborn.

I met James over 40 years ago in a high school creative writing class in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Since then, our paths have crossed as colleagues at The St. Croix Avis newspaper, as supporters of each other’s art and writing, and as friends. James is a man of many talents. He is the photographer with an ability to project the essence of personality in his portraits. He is the writer who can choose the right quote from reams of notes to capture meaning from his subjects. He is the storyteller that can engage your soul.

James is a committed family man and a loyal friend. With kindness and understanding, he ventures into the everyday lives of the people he meets and retrieves the wisdom they have to offer on how to survive and thrive. It was on a journey to help his son that he himself became a healer in the Yoruba tradition. In his efforts to communicate better with his friends in the diaspora, in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Americas, he became a linguist.

James is using what he has learned along the way to create a documentary film about African spirituality and healing traditions. He has used social media to promote this project, creating a platform where his audience benefits from shared wisdom and interacts with him and others.

This book, Meditations Across the King’s River, is yet another brick in the marketing foundation for this film. But what a brick it is, as he shares his connections with ancient souls and pathways in stories filled with universal resonance and clarity for those hungry for guidance. It is part of his calling as artist, teacher, and healer. With this book and with his social posts, James provides seekers with salve for their bruised humanity. With the skill of a true shaman, James blends the ancient with the current, the archetypal with the postmodern. He speaks comfortably about the African healing arts as well as the presence of the First Continent in food, technology, spirituality, and finances, and to possible answers to the challenges of climate change and social justice.

With his initiation to the African healing arts, James received a new name. Predictive of his destiny, Awo L’ola speaks of his future, even as James Weeks speaks of where he has come from and where he has been. In celebration of the future, I greet him with this verse.

Welcome Awo L’ola

As thunder walks the mountains

Awo L’ola descends from the hills

He has learned the sacred languages

And has come to teach us

How to talk to each other

He has given us new eyes

To recognize each sister and brother

As ourselves

He has given us new words to join the spirits

Of the long gone to the soon come.

We are anxious to learn how to speak across the river

And how to love across the seas

How to lose the bitterness caused by separation

How to heal

How to reclaim our names, our spirits,

How to set our children’s feet on the sacred path

Of the Holy Father and Blessed Mother

Awo L’ola has come down from the hills

And walked from coast to coast

He has flown from island to island

From blue bitch stone to rocky pebble

He will connect the past with the present

And secure the future.

Welcome, Awo L’ola

Welcome back to yourself

Welcome back to us

We have been waiting for you.

~Monique Clendinen Watson

August 13, 2018

Introduction

I

f there’s one thing my journey has taught me, it is that the human spirit is hungry and must be regularly fed. I created the Facebook page for Across the King’s River in 2009 to support my film but had no idea my inspirational messages would resonate with so many around the world. Inspiring others has become my life’s mission. I’m dedicated because I know tens of thousands look forward to these daily messages for guidance and hope.

But most readers appreciate a good backstory. By revealing some of my own struggles and spiritual experiences, observers can have an understanding of the forces and events that shaped me as they try to apply these teachings to their own lives. The spiritual affirmations I share on Facebook come to me intuitively each day. Most of the essays, however, were inspired by my travels throughout the Caribbean and by my path as a priest of Ifa.

I believe wisdom is universal and that some of the core concepts of Ifa can benefit people of all faiths. A profound respect for nature lies at the heart of this ancient philosophy that originated with the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria. We do not start from the premise that we are higher than the rest of creation. We bow down to trees, rivers, hills, and mountains, says Yoruba scholar Wande Abimbola. The people of ancient Africa did not view nature as something to be exploited, governed, or conquered.

Reverence for the ancestors, or the egun, is another core practice of Ifa and most African spiritual traditions. Throw away the idea that people die, says the late Zulu healer P.H. Mntshali. Ancestors do good and powerful work. The ancestors know what is the best life for you. They are serving you. You may think you know better, but only the ancestors can see the whole picture. The ancestors work on their own schedule, their own time.

Ifa was brought from West Africa to the Americas by Yoruba captives during the Transatlantic slave trade. Although many in the African diaspora are increasingly turning to Ifa and other African-inspired spiritual traditions in a search for self-identity, Ifa has mushroomed into a globally significant religion practiced by hundreds of millions of all races.

Ifa predates Christianity and Islam, and is a vibrant mélange of spirituality, art, literature, history, ethics, dance, metaphysics, divination, poetry, medicine, sacrifice, mathematics, and science. Along with the belief in a supreme God or force known as Olodumare, believers of Ifa also pay homage to the orisas — deities that represent different forces of nature. Oya is the orisa of the wind, hurricanes, and tornadoes. There are some 401 orisas and each one has a crucial role to play in our spiritual development and the survival of life on the planet.

From the depths of the rivers (or the ocean, if you’re a devotee in the West) comes the orisa Yemoja, the ever-vigilant mother whose invigorating waters gave birth to all life forms. The name Yemoja, often spelled Yemanja or Yemaya,  literally means the mother whose children are the fish. The perpetual motion of currents is Yemoja’s attempt to cradle her children in her womb.

Everyone knows no life form can survive without water, but few are aware we can’t survive without lightning — the energy the Yorubas call Sango — which helps to fertilize plants. Lightning strikes the earth one hundred times every second, more than eight and a half million times a year. As harmful as lightning can be, its absence would mean the speedy and total destruction of life on this planet. In less than one hour, the Earth would lose the negative electrical charge that enables it to convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen, which almost all plants require. Without plants there would be no animal life, says Freeman Patterson, in the book, Photography of Natural Things. So, give praise when you hear Sango bellowing in the storm-drenched skies.

In the face of global warming and income inequality, I believe the messages of indigenous spiritual traditions will become increasingly relevant. Rather than isolate ourselves in these challenging times, the sacred teachings of Ifa say, "there should be a gathering together like trees do to form a forest and we should not walk alone. It is in schools that we find the egbele fish in the ocean. Bees form swarms. Brooms are formed from bundles of twigs and the eligiri birds form flocks."

Meditations Across the King’s River was first published in 2019. This second edition features a new chapter, Ancestral Gold. I’ve also revised other essays based on new experiences, interviews, and travels. As I share my wisdom, I encourage readers to reflect on their own journey. I have included spiritual, emotional, and financial strategies that help keep me grounded and focused each day. My belief is that spiritual growth must be balanced with financial literacy; we must take steps to create intergenerational wealth.

The affirmations in this second edition are flanked by Adinkra symbols from the Akan people of Ghana. These symbols are not merely art. Think of them as classical world literature, conveying deep truths in visual form. In ancient times, the Adinkra symbols helped our ancestors navigate life and can help us too.

For further reflection, I have included these five Adinkra symbols, and their approximate meanings here:

Adjusting my shawl, said Alexa Lightborne, before the Bermuda wedding, was like performing the biblical washing of feet.

(Photo by Meredith Andrews)

Chapter 1

Our Greatest Job: Finding Purpose

You can’t reject yourself and hope to find God.

True spirituality begins by first embracing yourself.

M

y friend Vanessa messaged me on Facebook recently. How does one discover their purpose? she asked. "Does your spirit guide or teacher tell you? I ask

because I wonder when I’ll ever know mine. I want to choose to do something in my life that makes me feel happy and fulfilled. But I also want it to be aligned with my life’s purpose."

I hear this question often. The search for purpose is universal and is one of the core themes of my film, Across the King’s River. For many, the quest for meaning is elusive because the struggle to survive is so time-consuming and draining, it often leaves little time for addressing the needs of our soul and our longing to live a purposeful life.

Given the daunting challenges in the world and in our personal lives, many dismiss the quest for purpose as irrelevant or self-indulgent. I strongly disagree — our purpose, no matter how humble, has a role to play in the healing of the earth. Surely, the great civil rights leaders and artists of our times were connected and committed to their purpose and were able to draw from a seemingly endless reservoir of courage and inspiration when others would have simply given up.

In my mid-twenties, I was blessed with the opportunity to interview the acclaimed activist writer Audre Lorde, shortly after the publication of her book, A Burst of Light. Audre was living on St. Croix at the time and even though she was dying from cancer, she was still committed to her purpose. I write because I have difficult truths to tell. I train myself for triumph by knowing it is mine, no matter what. I visualize daily winning the battles going on inside my body, and this is an important part of fighting for my life. I’m going to write until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe, she said in A Burst of Light.

To doubt yourself is to doubt the intelligence of the universe and your ancestors.

During her career, Audre Lorde endured death threats, wiretaps on her phone, and was passed over for numerous university teaching jobs because of her activism. Luckily, most of us won’t face death threats as we attempt to live our purpose, but we must be prepared to make tough choices.

Liana Nanang, a Bermudian artist, activist, and storyteller, is ready to fight. She says her dad’s dedication to social justice molded her into the warrior she is today. Her dad, Julian Hall, was a well-known activist and attorney who fought tirelessly to ensure the working class of Bermuda had rights. Dad grew up in segregated Bermuda. I saw the sacrifices he made. Dad was famous for calling a spade a spade. He died young because of it. Liana, the author of the forthcoming books, Tell Me My Name, a memoir, and Menoa, The Medicine of Ancestral Wisdom to Heal Our Fractured Minds, says I’m here for the underdog, the under-represented, which, tend to be black and brown people on the racial level. Determined to make a difference, Liana and her life partner, Ajala Omodele, who is also an author, have teamed up to launch Unstoried, a multimedia storytelling company that educates, entertains, and empowers people of color. Their aim? Disrupt the way films and books about us are made and marketed while supporting free mental health healing centers for our people.

Ask yourself: What am I doing to elevate my mind, my body, and my soul, today? Cultivate all three. Daily.

When Liana and Ajala reached out and asked me to perform their wedding ceremony in Bermuda recently, I felt honored. Under a merciless afternoon sun, I stood before their loved ones and chanted ancient Yoruba verses, then offered insights into the bold vision this couple have for their future. My life purpose is to channel the stories of our ancestors, and to be led by them, says Liana. I believe our life purpose is to use each other’s love, support and skills.  What we can do together is much more than what we can do apart.

Ajala says he was sent to earth to provide a healthy example of Black love and to show the possibilities of healing even in the face of great trauma. The ancestors want me to be well. They want me to be well so much that they gave me the perfect partner. There’s so much stacked against Black folks. Here we are defying the odds and standing triumphantly. This is a day of deep celebration – an opportunity to use all the tools at my disposal to have a love supreme like John Coltrane said.

Liana’s cousin, renowned Bermudian costume designer Shiona Turini, is also committed to purpose. The love for her craft began at an early age, she told me.  Her journey over the past ten years has taken her from humble beginnings as an unpaid intern to becoming a stylist for leading brands, publishers, celebrities, and films and shows such as Queen and Slim, Wakanda Forever, and Insecure. She took a break from working on Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour to go back home to support Liana and style her wedding dress. I’ve always been very focused on the narrative that our clothing takes, she once said in an HBO interview.

As a babalawo (Ifa priest) among poets, musicians, visual artists, and gombeys – traditional African-Bermudian drummers and dancers who performed in masquerade at the ceremony, my participation in Liana and Ajala’s wedding touched me deeply and reignited my love for my calling during a season when I felt burnt out.

It may be the most profound spiritual experience I’ve had, said Tara, a close friend of Liana.  I left that night with such a full heart and shed many happy tears. A text from another guest said: I’ve been so raw today; the whole thing really cracked me open.  Tikya, a friend who helped plan Liana’s bridal shower texted, The ceremony changed lives.  It gave us a home.

That was our intention, Liana says, to let our loved ones know that we believe in the strength of our community to uplift and hold us. The flood of emotional responses that Liana, Ajala, and I received after the ceremony made me reflect on the unique gifts we all have.