Mama Shujaa

I feel like I changed the course of my day. This morning on my way out of the neighborhood I spotted a small turtle crossing the road. I slowed down to a halt. Gave it a thought, and then drove around it. I looked in the rearview mirror. A car was approaching at full speed and I watched in horror as it road over it, without crushing it. At that moment I made a u-turn and returned to the turtle. Just in time to watch its head re-emerge from its shell. Just in time to watch four other cars ride over it, almost crush it. I whipped my car into position in front of it. I put my hazard lights on, jumped out, popped open the trunk, grabbed a towel and scooped it up onto the safety of the lawn. Something in my act changed my morning. As I went about my day, I felt vibrations around me. Still cannot put it into words. But I am glad I did not shrug off my immediate instinct to help the turtle. I did not succumb to the reasoning that I normally do. I attended to my first desire. I shared my ...

Surrender to your writing. It is like love making. You need to let go of inhibition, just let the flow of words escape in exhalations and as you place each word within the sentence, allow the phrases to take shape.   Let the warmth and energy emanating from the feeling of releasing their pent up energy, let them light up a path for your expression.   Eventually, as minutes and hours go by, you will accumulate enough of a bank of memory to allow you to recreate the same escape route every single time. Climaxes feel good and when they occur in the right circumstances, they last and last and last even when the heat of passion has long simmered down.   The climax is what sustains your   joy.   And just like the feeling you get when you write a beautiful sentence, that sense of connection with your self, so is the act of love making. But you must now learn how to make love to yourself.   Trust you like you trust your partner in love. allow you to gui...

I f you want to talk to the gods, tell it to the wind... ... his father had told him.  Yet how could he tell it?   The winds were still The birds sang at the wrong time Tree frogs had stopped croaking Yes, flowers blossomed and leaves shed But at the wrong time Could he still talk to the gods,  Could he still tell it to the wind? They lusted at the expanse of green through the wrought-iron railings. Lush blades of grass so close-knit they formed an undulating moat around the ranch. Red brick palatial buildings occupied the front half of the property. The servants’ quarters were in the back garden before a generous array of indigenous trees lined up in a pageantry befitting the stately residence. The morning’s dew evaporated into the air, diffusing the scents of fig, camphor and grass, causing the hungrier cows to kneel on their forelegs, crane their necks, poke their heads through the fence and wrap flexible tongues around new te...

A first look at the memoir of Kenya's pioneer writer Rebeka Njau , author of The Sacred Seed , Books Horizon (2003), Ripples In The Pool , Heinemann (1978) and The Scar (1965) . Here is the first chapter of her soon to be completed memoir. In Quest of Justice, a Memoir by Rebeka Njau Chapter One WHEN I decided to write the story of my life, I struggled to find the best way to express my deep and complex emotions. Finally, in memory of the poetry of my earlier years as a writer, I chose to open this memoir with the following lines: My ears are plugged up By poisonous spittle of a grimy tongue; Times without number, Little birds have been twittering, joyfully at my backyard, But I cannot hear them. Falsity, scattered like seeds Everywhere I tread, Has driven me to extreme bitterness and pain, Making me feel powerless to forgive and forget. Like a piece of rock that stands on its own, I stand alone beside a sweet-scented bush To ease my heav...