Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd

Introduction
    J ourney to Empowerment offers readers a miscellany of life-transforming experiences and contemplations. It is a key that will hopefully unlock, touch, and liberate our spirits. Through the reflections of others who’ve walked in our shoes, I truly hope that you’ll sashay into a brighter, more lighthearted place.
    Journey to Empowerment would not be if not for the holy boldness of my collaborators who have generously bared their souls and truths with the world. I know it took wrestling with emotions and deep breaths to step out and share their moments of reckoning. As I read and pondered, I felt it; as I’m sure you will, too.
    The added value of Journey to Empowerment is the unconditional permission that has been granted for your Spirit to speak its mind and move those thoughts into words. It’s your turn. Yes, within these pages you have unbridled permission to dream, journal, and mindlessly doodle…outside of the box of everyday existence. Write to clear your mind so that the heart can hear the truth and see the vision more clearly. In that quiet time and space, write and write…from the depths of your being. Don’t mull over structure, grammar, or political correctness. Shake up your soul and revere in the enlightening experience. You may use the journal prompts provided, or you may not. Just do what YOUR heart desires. Allow your thoughts to flow, then bask. Permission granted. And, who knows. Your writings just may be the innards of our next Journey to Empowerment chapter.
    â€¦Contemplate quietly,
    Â    …Thank prayerfully,
    Â        …Dream outrageously,
    Â            …Speak honestly,
    Â                …Process freely,
    Â                    …Act courageously,
    Â                        …Heal wholly,
    Â                            …And live abundantly.
    With love and laughter,
    Maria

Journey to Community and Connectedness
    No matter where we have been on our
    Individual journeys on this earth or
    Where we are going, We are One.
    â€”Mary-Frances Winters

The Purpose Posse: Set on Due Course
    B Y M ARIA D ENISE D OWD
    Our vessel is graced with tireless souls.
    Determined in this soliloquy of life,
    To stay on due course for the North Star.
    Our collective energies crescendo,
    In a sea-foam green kind of way.
    Each season East meets West,
    South heads North.
    In b’twixt and b’tween, we stay on path.
    While the high seas are rapturous,
    They soon become tranquil.
    Tropical, then cool; still, then breezy.
    Through locks and twists, curls and waves,
    Our passion engulfs us in the sweetness
    Of the grassroots cause and the empowering
    effects.
    The navigator is on board, and so are the shipmates.
    Collectively we set sail…on due course.

Purpose Posse
    B Y M ARIA D ENISE D OWD
    O nce upon a time, I heard the term “Purpose Posse.” Bertice Berry used it and it became a permanent part of my “people meditations.” Those two words rang a chime in my head at a time when it was dizzy with fighting what I already knew in my heart. I had allowed too many of the wrong people into my space and they were wreaking havoc on my legs and my legacy. I was in a place where I was chasing after and running from, and getting nowhere fast. I had finally come to a realization—and goodness was it painful—that this absolutely crazy time and place was a direct reflection of my ill-fated attempt to sail my ship in a direction that I knew wasn’t right for me. My Spirit had leaks and those holes rendered my ability to listen to God’s whispers impossible.
    The comings and goings of men and women in our lives are not by random selection. The right people come into our lives at very specific times, for very specific reasons, as do the wrong people, if for no other