What is Confidence?

By Nana Ayoluwa 

What is confidence? Confidence is doing the right thing. The teachings of the M’TAM School of Kemetic Philosophy and Spirituality have provided me with that understanding now. First, it started by teaching me that good and bad are relative; right and wrong in our society are determined by politics, religion, our upbringing, and our exposures. What’s right in politics is whatever is made popular; it’s determined by the will of the politicians who promote their agendas for their own gain. 

It was right in 1985 for the Philadelphia police department to carry out an aerial assault against the black liberation group MOVE by dropping a bomb and leveling a city block, killing 11 people, 5 of whom were children. It was right enough for them then to get the authorization to obtain and then use the bomb on city civilians, and to have no criminal charges pressed against any authority figure to this day. However, it was wrong enough that 1.5 million dollars was awarded to the three surviving MOVE members. 

Then there are different politics for each state and even country. People are adhering to different religious beliefs, coming from different upbringings and exposures. Abortion is legal in one state but not another, one religion teaches it is wrong to eat pork, another teaches prayer once a week is enough rather than 5 times a day. All is relative to whichever group you belong to, but where do these sentiments stem from? 

The answer to that, M’TAM teaches, is that what is right comes from principles. We’re given that lesson through the Holy Drama, which is a story of our God-Father WSR Goddess-Mother, AISHAT, and the God-Son, HERU. The role of a human being can be seen in the role of HERU. In the Holy Drama, HERU is known as the first human, and just like us, was born from a mother and a father. HERU was born into chaos. There was a battle that his parents were fighting that preceded him. The battles he faced were against a force that preceded him and knew of his conception and upbringing. We too were born into circumstances that preceded us, the neighborhood we live in, the parents we’re born to, the family we’re born in, the schooling available to us, are all circumstances that were arranged before we came to be. Those circumstances shaped the challenges of our lives, the battles that we faced and face. 

The nature of others in our society, the principle of Nature itself, has fashioned our very beings, yet what is right for HERU is to fit into what came before him. Heru was educated by his mother and her sisters to be good, and it was this foundational education, his initiation, and the application of his intelligence, his understanding of the goal of his life, that HERU knows how to face the day and what it has to offer. Part of HERU’s education is understanding the importance of honoring your heritage and legacy, which includes honoring your Ancestors and, for many of us today, learning who our Ancestors are and the lives they lived to allow us to be here today. 

Another part of HERU’s education is understanding that when facing a challenge, one must face the challenge with the mentality of having already won. Of holding one’s head high and not giving in to emotionality, but rather keeping a clear head to be strategic and utilize intelligence. A third part of HERU’s education is maintaining and elevating his purity. The Rising Firefly Productions offers a book of Purifications to begin that journey for us human beings today, but for those unable or unwilling, purity begins in the heart with patience and tolerance, honesty, humility, and knowledge. HERU relied on the path set forth by his parents and their teachings, their living according to principles, and his initiation to understand how to navigate the world he found himself in. It was his family foundation and the initiation that built upon it that gave him the courage he needed to face the challenges he met in life and to know what the right thing to do was. 

I was born in Brooklyn, NY, to two parents fighting to reclaim their true identity through African traditions and cultures; my name reflects that fight of my parents. The wars of enslavement and European colonial expansion preceded me. The battle I find myself in is much the same as my parents, reclaiming my identity in the midst of a society that has weaponized politics, schooling, and propaganda that aims to distort African history and the image of the African man, woman, and child and promote a Greco-Roman perspective of life; an inherently destructive perspective, which can be seen in the way politics, economics, and promoted lifestyles here in the U.S impact individual lives and the environment. 

I am fighting against a system that aims to gather as many spirits as possible to work towards the gain and benefit of very few, rather than living a life that serves and honors my Ancestral heritage and lineage. I, like many, am several generations entrenched in the mentality of European colonialism and only the second generation to begin to crawl out. There is much restoration and balance to implement to shift from operating from the human desire-driven mindset of what is right and wrong back to the principled mentality of it. 

According to the Holy Drama, WSR's principle is cyclical and involves resurrection. Everything in existence, including life itself, abides by this principle. He is the God who built the Kingdom of the Dead, the Imentet, and dies to judge every human spirit in their cycles of reincarnation. He is the God who saved humanity on the 19^th of Tehuti, advocating for humanity among the Gods to allow our existence. They agreed to this with our solemn vow to be on the terms that we were of his principle, and that to stand against his principle would lead to our destruction and self-destruction. He allowed us to be educated, and he travelled the world spreading his teachings and sharing his wisdom. 

AISHAT is the goddess mother and wife of WSR, who worked continuously, despite SET’s advances, to thwart her goal of procreation. She resurrected her husband, WSR, and sought out the aid of other women to help her do so. She not only worked towards the goal of procreation but also the responsibility and obligation to rear their child and provide protection, nurturing, and education that their child HERU would need to be successful. She then ensured, through her action, the cyclical nature of all that WSR represents; she was the perfect complement to his mission.

That is the legacy HERU must now carry, as we all must now carry the heritage of those who came before us, as their descendants. Yet that heritage may have accumulated shame. It is on us to use the wisdom and teachings of M’TAM to move forward in a way that washes off some of that shame; to walk in the footsteps of our God-Father WSR and God-mother AISHAT and God-son HERU to live with the qualities of a healer such as WSR and AISHAT; to stand for the goodness of preserving our own lives and improving them for the generations to come. There are Ancestors of my father’s blood, my blood, who may have never been elevated, who it is now my responsibility as a carrier of Ancestral wisdom and knowledge to remember and call their names during my Ancestral offerings and to feed their spirits. Just like for each of us who walk through the doors of a temple or happen upon the wisdom shared through the Dagomba people. We all have the responsibility to honor and acknowledge our history and realize who we are. To understand that we need a model to follow and were given a Divine Trinity to emulate and procure wisdom from their quality and actions.