Trent - The Awakened Woman: remembering & reigniting our sacred dreams

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Dedicated to you the dreamer, the beacon, and the generous light that enables others to shine. You awaken the world, giving us hope, and a compass reference that indeed, it is achievable.

But still, like air, Ill rise.

MAYA ANGELOU , STILL I RISE

I invited Tererai Trent to appear on the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show as my favorite guest of all time. That was quite a proclamation, considering that from the fall of 1986 until the winter of 2011 I had interviewed more than 37,000 guests. Ive listened to the wide range of stories of the human diaspora, despair, self-destruction, dysfunction, loss, victory, achievements, and triumphs.

Id first heard Tererais story two years before she appeared on my show for the first time. Her hunger to overcome ingrained obstacles and daring to create a vision for a better life resonated deeply with me. Her lifes journey embodied the essence of every lesson Id shared in my own work for twenty-five years: Hopebelieving in something greater for yourself. Understanding your thoughts create your reality. Gratitudeappreciating what you have no matter what it is. Knowing it doesnt matter where you come from. Keep reaching for your dreams. And above all... you have the power to change the course of your life with education. Her storyfrom being a barely educated child bride and mother in remote Zimbabwe to achieving her dream of an education in America by being awarded her PhDis one of such resilience and courage, I knew she would inspire anyone open to hearing her.

When she walked out onto my set, there was an immediate and deep spiritual connection at work. We locked eyes and stood still for just one or two breaths. In that short moment of time I could feel something powerful. Woman to woman. I see you. I know you. I know who you are and I know what it takes to do what you have done.

It was a holy moment, a profound experience of looking at someone and with every fiber of my being feeling the fullness of who they really are, and instantly knowing they feel my fullness, too. You see and are seen. Completely.

One of the most inspirational people Ive met in all my years of interviewing, Tererai has a personal story that will bring you to tearsand make you cheer. Her perseverance, commitment, and hopefulness are a salve to even the weariest of spirits.

Yet Tererai, in all her wisdom, knows it has never been just about her. There has always been a we behind her success, and the way she knows and honors this deep down in her soul is Tererais true gift.

What I felt that day on my set with her was a way of being in the world, a practice of awakened sisterhood that I have also experienced with my girls in South Africa at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG). Following the tradition of their ancestors, I hear the echoes of their greetings as they pass each other on their way to class: Sawubona I see youand in response, Ngikhona I am here. Its something we can cultivate. I see you, I am here. Its a power we can create and nurture.

This is the book I have been waiting for from Tererai because it embodies that feeling she and I exchanged that day on my show. With memoir, myth, ritual, and poetry Tererai inspires us in The Awakened Woman to tap into our deepest longings and to grow from them a sacred dream, a dream that satisfies what she calls our Great Hungerour desire for meaning, purpose, and community. I see you, I am here. Woman to woman.

Part memoir, part inspirational blueprint for how to make a better world, part love letter to our mothers, daughters, and ourselves, The Awakened Woman reminds us of the power of belief and how it inspires us to create and transform our world and those around us. Her words pierce the deepest parts of us, the place where all our longing and loneliness reside. She invites us to stop anaesthetizing those parts with material things, and instead to listen to our longings and allow them to wake us up to our true potential.

All the beautiful writers, storytellers, entrepreneurs, grandmothers, and mothers who speak in this bookfrom Maya Angelou to Toni Cade Bambara to Audre Lorde to Tererai and her motherare the home thats waiting for us, inviting us to step into their arms and their wisdom. They call out for us to take our place among them as dream seekers.

If youve ever had a dream, a longing, a desire, but thought to yourself, No way, I could never. I dont have the time/money/resources/skills/courage... this book is for you. If youve ever looked at the world and felt an aching for one of its many hurts or injustices, this book is for you. If you know the power of sisterhood or need to know its power, this book is for you.

Oprah Winfrey

A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination, prepared to be herself and only herself.

MAYA ANGELOU

I grew up in a cattle-herding family in rural Zimbabwe, a member of the Northern Shona or Korekore people. My village, Zvipani, is in the Hurungwe District, which was named after a famous sacred mountain known as Urungwe.

During harvest seasons, before our community was devastated by the Second Chimurenga War that shaped Zimbabwes struggle for liberation, the people of the Zambezi Valley performed their rainmaking ceremonies in the shadows of this great mountaina potentially active volcanoits size a source of pride and dignity for all the people in the fifteen thousand or so households that make up the Hurungwe District. When earthquakes hit the region, and the mighty Urungwe rumbles, the people of the valley drop to their knees in prayer in awe of its power.

The Shona have inhabited Zimbabwe since at least the eleventh century, when the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, a city center for trading where many artifacts of art, politics, and culture have been found, are dated. Shona people are divided into five major clans, each with its own mutupo, or totems defining lineage and family. I was born into the Moyothe Heart mutupo , among the Korekore in the northern region, which has traditions steeped in such ancient art as fabric painting, sculpture, and music practicesbeautifully giving voice to the human condition in ways that transcend geography and time.

The Korekore people are indigenous farmers with a rich spiritual culture. We believe that our world and all that exists begins with the Supreme Being and Creator, an invisible spirit presiding over heaven and earth whom we refer to as Mwari, Musikavanhu, or Nyadenga, which in translation generally means: He Who Is; God, the Great One; the One who created people or the Great Spirit. Individuals cannot access God, and so our elders seek advice and guidance from God through vadzimu , ancestral spirits. These invisible guardians, our ancestors, are the cornerstone of our spiritual life as well as a source of comfort and protection, especially during illness. It is these ancestors to whom we pray for protection when the Urungwe rumbles.