On Superpowers, Gifts, & Ancestral Healing
What's your superpower? Yellow Brick Road.
Welcome to Yellow Brick Road, an exploration of the guided path!!
i was born with twelve fingers
like my mother and my daughter.
each of us
born wearing strange black gloves . . .
somebody was afraid we would learn to cast spells"
-- Lucille Clifton
In I Was Born With Twelve Fingers, poet Lucille Clifton (who is a Cancer queen so happy birthday and shouts out to her) talks about being born a polydactyl - with an extra finger on each hand just like her mother and daughter. The poem alludes to the common thread in experience between Black women of the same lineage, how whiteness’s fear of the resilience of Black womanhood doesn’t stop it from being transferred from one generation to the next, and how those powers come with the duality of trauma and alienation.
She had her extra fingers removed early on, but mentions later in her life that she always knew it was a mark of mystical powers. In the literal sense, she’s obviously right. She successfully penned some of the most gorgeously understated and profound poetry of her time with those hands, distinct lack of punctuation and structure defining her work. In the spiritual sense, abnormality was a connecting force of individuation which would propel her into a deep knowing of her specific creative power.
Being born with twelve fingers is unusual - being born with mystical powers, however, is not. We are all born with innate power which is passed through the family line, a throwback of our strongest ancestors and the will imbedded in our DNA to live out loud and in color. We all hold a library of soul knowledge stored in our bones which we come to know more intimately when we listen to them rattle and shake as we dance.
Healing through joy and creative expression in this lifetime is often deeply connected to latent gifts which are passed down from generation to generation. And while our gifts, talents, unique expressions of self are deeply individualistic - they are also a conduit to community, to finding likeness in a big world and rising in it, and to healing what may have been left unsung, unchallenged, and unactualized in the lineage before us.
What’s Left Unsung
I come from a family of musical genius lost in survival state. My grandfather was a drummer for years (he and my grandmother met at a wedding he was performing at) before abandoning his lifestyle to care for his family, and when his eldest son became a musician - he encouraged him to do the same. This would rupture in their relationship forever. The eldest son’s eldest son became a musician as well, and eventually put those dreams aside to take care of the responsibilities his father shirked in following his dreams. Round and round the family line goes, circling the drain of actualizing their gifts in this lifetime while being lost in the shame that draws us back to not-enoughness when we dare dream.
My mother always had a beautiful voice - perhaps the most beautiful in her family, but she knew better than to disappoint, to exacerbate the wounds of her father and brother. When we would drive around running errands, I would stare up at her in amazement as she hit every last note in a 90’s R&B song while barely opening her mouth. Her mother was a songbird in her own way - she was a powerful whistler. When she wasn’t on a nursing shift, she would cook, bake, sew, garden, tend to her home and her family like the impeccable homemaker she was - whistling the whole time. I wondered if she whistled to let the world know she was very much here in the mess of lost dreams too.
At my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, my great aunt asked me to help her execute a surprise. She wanted me to sing my grandmother’s favorite song, At Last by Etta James, on stage in front of everyone. I said yes, because it was the only answer my Aunt Bev would accept. My mom and I ran to the bathroom to practice my runs a few times through, and when it was time she looked at me and said, “Hit it, girl.” From the first note, I felt transformed and as I hit the second verse, my fingers went numb around the microphone and my body ceased to exist to me. I was only an energy source for joy, and of course, everyone loved it and told me I should try out for American Idol, as a bunch of old folks would.
Although I haven’t performed publicly or seriously since, I love to sing - not for money, or audiences, or any reason other than I can feel something powerful and restorative happening between me and the people who came before me when I do it. Sometimes when I’m deep in the throws of heartbreak and desperately need to process something but my head gets in the way, I’ll hold out a big, guttural note in the shower until I can finally sob and release. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a gift that runs far and wide through my family is a balm for sorrow.
Who’s to say if music is part of destiny in this life, but I’ve been thinking about music and how it was gifted by the universe to my family time and time again, beckoning us to a life of creativity, levity, and the bravery that comes with chasing desire, and we’ve hung up the phone every time. I’ve been thinking about how music may be our twelve fingers - not performing or becoming a pop star - but breaking the cycle of denying ourselves play, creativity, joy, and exploration even when scarcity demands it. If I look at the patterns of innate talent and passion throughout my lineage, there is a clear link to what my superpower may be in this life, and in healing myself, I will return back to it for myself and my family.
Fear Marks The Spot
People are always like BE YOU! THERE’S NO ONE LIKE YOU AND THAT IS YOUR POWER! And like, yes, but there’s a failure to recognize that shame is our biggest gatekeeper in this life, and that bitch keeps us in a chokehold. It is deeper than just “Be you.” In stepping in to our power, we heal generations.
Fear of being ostracized, of paving a new path, of betraying other people’s expectations of who we are and must be in order for them to get us, is a consistent marker for where our superpowers reside - and the work is hard. What is viewed as ugly, shameful, irresponsible, or frivolous is often a gift in hiding. To excavate a superpower is to trudge through the shame and expectation that buries it.
Your gifts may have been deemed as an unsustainable career before you ever got a chance to simply play in it. You may have been told you were bad at something by someone you held in high regard when you were actually the best. If I had a dime for every person who negged something that I am, in fact, extraordinary at…I’d be a millionaire. But I have come to realize, one of my mystical powers is audacity. Of feeling as entitled to my dreams as an old, rich white man, and I needed to learn to trust in that above all else. I think the universe challenges us to say “fuck em” so we can find out what it means to believe in ourselves beyond limitation.
When we interrogate what stands in the way of our joy, we soon realize our fortitude and self-esteem built in facing challenges, obstacles, and criticism are the mystical powers themselves. Sometimes the arduous and rewarding process of coming to terms with our Ugly, the time spent reckoning with what makes us feel alienated and unknown, of what lies beneath the surface in shadows - the inner work which sets us free from feeling like those truths are anything but our glory and strength become the secret sauce to our fulfillment.
Yes, mystical powers can be marked by ease and the obvious. A unique name which rolls off the tongue with such grace it becomes your brand. A voice so rich it sends shivers down the spine of every person in a crowded room. I could say my superpower was being fat - making a career out of the exact body I was once at war with. I could say my superpower was being Black - the rich history of storytelling, creative ingenuity, and engrained community standing behind me in support. But I think the truth of my superpower has been found in grappling with the experiences which have come from those identities.
Mystical Powers Beget Community
Of course, no one of us - even those of us with shared identities and experiences - is like the other, so our mystical powers and journey to unlocking them will be unique. As an Aquarius with an individuality complex, this truth comes as great relief. I wonder though, as a soul rooted in community, how individuality and community can meet in the same space. Obviously, obsession with being an individual can be harmful, but I think a meaningful understanding of what makes us unique can help us understand what we have to offer the collective.
Shame is a liar and will tell us to run away from what makes us great because it may force us to interrogate loneliness. It protects us by creating an isolated genius mentality that leaves us without community. I’ve noticed as I get deeper into The Work, closer to the core of my being where my mystical powers are stored, I call in other souls and environments who mirror them. Who make me look at myself in the form of another - see the common thread between me and all that is beautiful - and stand in awe at my own truth through connectedness. The parts of me that once felt isolating, when I’ve been brave enough to own them, have actually brought me closer to community than ever.
Through the many identities, experiences, hardships, and connections which have made me feel distant from acceptance, love, safety, and any version of success I’ve defined over time, being my authentic, weirdo ass self has unearthed gifts I never imagined I carried within me and a tribe of folks who help me stand in power. Just like this newsletter, which allows me to tell stories and heal, and to set both of us free.
Journal Prompts
What are your mystical powers? What are some “unique” qualities about you?
What are some gifts which run through your family line and connect you to those you love?
What comes to you with ease, but others struggle with?
What do you see in your tribe that is a reflection of a superpower within you?
What are some adjectives you fear other people use to describe you, and how have those characteristics been a gift to you?
Have you ever been shamed for something you loved about yourself? How do you allow that to control narratives around what you’re capable of?
What is something you suspect is kind of amazing about you? Gas yourself up!!
Beautiful!!! Love this. I am currently in the process of figuring out what my super powers are. Thank you for sharing. ❤️