Aya Collective Publishing

Reconsidering Eve: Towards a Deepened Consciousness is a book that allows us to reimagine what we have thought about Eve, what we have thought about Blackwoman hood, as a result of our sacred texts. Developed over 13 years, this text gives readers the capacity to push back, redefine, and reclaim who we are as Black women. Here, I want to share with you a dimension of Eve to invite you to go deeper into the stories found within the pages of the book. 

And I want to start off by telling you something really important: You won’t bust hell wide open. I promise.

I’m not trying to claim I’m God or anything like that…trust and believe. What I am suggesting is that we have been collectively sold a mythology rooted in fear and punishment in order to keep us complicit and adhering to the status quo. 

I was the young Black teenage girl who bought it…hook line and sinker. At a young age, I was preoccupied with the fear of going to hell if I did anything wrong. So I tried to keep my legs closed. Paid my ties. Tried not to gossip. Was a youth leader. Went to all of the youth retreats. Hell, I even went to college and got a ministry degree. All because of fear. All because I thought one wrong turn, one mistake would lead me straight to the fiery furnace. And I made a ton of mistakes so I always thought that I was compromising my eternal fate.

It is now that I realize how much I gave up by allowing myself to be defined by someone else’s perception of me. Growing up, I learned that Eve was who we were to hate and as a woman, I was just like her, predisposed to sin and licentiousness. As a result, I felt disconnected from myself and no matter how much I tried, I felt disconnected from the divine. 

I know many of you have been where I was…trapped in the same cycles of internalized fear in relation to something that should feel so sacred – our relationship with divine. Our relationship with divinity, with the creator of the universe, should compel us in love not make us cower in shame. I did not start to break free until I started to redefine my relationship to shame, and more so, my relationship to the narratives that told me that as a Black woman I was inherently full of sin. I didn’t break free until I started to redefine Eve, the mother of all living beings, and changed the way that I related to this woman accused of bringing down the world which allowed me to change the way I related to myself. 

You are not going to bust hell wide open, for engaging in the same process of reflection and reclamation of who you are. I say this because I believe there is a hesitancy, a resistance of sorts of engaging in the sacred texts that we have been taught to trust in this way. I say this because many of us are much more comfortable with securing our place in heaven, or so we think, than throwing off the concepts and thinking that keeps us imprisoned in our minds, upholding the status quo. My ask here is not about redefining your relationship to God, but instead, redefining your relationship to yourself by joining me in the process of pushing back, redefining, and reclamation of who you are, your divine Black feminity. 

Here is my invitation to you: join us in the process of pushing back, redefining, and reclamation by participating in our upcoming class all on Eve, kicking off Sunday, March 23. Through this class, we will: 

• Elevate Your Consciousness: Take you through a three-session workshop to learn more about Eve and how misconceptions of her have influenced the way that you have viewed yourself as Black women
• Provide a Community: Bring you together with like minded Black women who are also studying and learning about Eve and themselves
• Give You Tools to Create: Provide you with opportunities to share what you are learning about Eve through writing

Sign up for this opportunity today! We can’t wait to see you soon. And if you want to get a head start on your writing, check out these writing prompts which will spur your creativity and connect you to your divine feminine energy.