Kwanzaa

 Waxing Gibbous Moon

I realized today, the first day of Kwanzaa, that I didn't know the first thing about Kwanzaa so I decided to learn at least the fundamentals. Consulting the good Dr. Googlie, here is part of what I found.

https://cbs12.com/news/nation-world/the-seven-principles-of-kwanzaa

(CNN) — The seven-day holiday is a non-religious one observed in the U.S. meant to honor African Americans' ancestral roots, according to CNN. The holiday celebrations last [from December 26] until the start of the new year on January 1.

Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili phrase "matunday ya kwanza," which means "first fruits," according to CNN.

The holiday was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga and became popular in the 1980s and 1990s in tandem with the black power movement, CNN reports. The holiday is defined by the seven principals and each day of the festival is dedicated to a specific one, marked by lighting a candle on the kinara, a seven-branched candelabra.

These are the seven principles of Kwanzaa:

          Umoja

Umoja means unity in Swahili.

Karenga defines this on his Kwanzaa website as: "To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race."

Kujichagulia

Or self-determination. This principle refers to defining, naming, creating and speaking for oneself.

Ujima

Translated as "collective work and responsibility," Ujima refers to uplifting your community.

"To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together," Karenga writes.

Ujamaa

Cooperative economics. Similar to ujima, this principle refers to uplifting your community economically. "To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together," he writes.

Nia

Nia means purpose.

Karenga expands on this principle with, "To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness."

Kuumba

Meaning "creativity," Karenga defines this principle as "To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it."

Imani

The final principle translates to "faith."

Karenga defines this as faith in community, writing, "To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle."

So there you have the basics - according to this article, anyway. I am going to try to learn a little more about each principle each day until New Year's Day. It looks pretty straightforward, but maybe there is more to it. By the beginning of 2021, I expect to be just a little bit less of a cultural dumb ass.

But wait a minute, although 2020 is not over yet, my 2020 in 2020 Challenge is finito. Yesterday I completed my goal of walking 2,020 miles in the year 2020, a pretty modest task, really. I averaged a little over 5.6 miles per day, enough to keep your heart healthy, but far from strenuous. The challenging part was simply keeping it up day after day on mostly the same old local routes. THAT GOT PRETTY BORING. The farthest away from home I have been since the pandemic started is Point Lobos, about 45 miles from here. In the end, I only missed one day, when it was too unhealthy to go outside due to the skyrocketing air quality index during the fire season. So ta-da, it is done.

Who knows what 2021 will bring. I hope things will settle down and the vaccine will work. Maybe by July I will be able to hike in the mountains again. I think I will think up some kind of bicycle regimen or maybe a hike-and-bike thing starting in January just for variety's sake.

Peace, Love, and Self Improvement,
Jim