When I view the mythical story of Eve and the snake in the Garden of Eden through the lens of this etymology, I’m moved by Eve’s willingness to risk her safety and security and step into the unknown. I’m struck by her desire to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and to know both the world and herself more deeply.

My paternal grandfather suffered from severe diabetes, and he became bedridden near the end of his life. My grandmother did all she could to maximize his comfort and minimize his pain. I imagine my grandmother propping up her husband’s rail thin body to feed him. I see her rubbing tiger balm on his legs and feet to bring warmth and sensation to these areas where he experienced poor circulation.  I picture her showing extra care when rubbing balm around the nub of his one infected toe which was amputated to prevent the spread of gangrene.

Beloved, i want all of us stripping. Stripping all that makes us itch for more and keeps us from being present with what is. Stripping what has spread to us imperceptibly and proliferated quietly, creating endless cycles of patterned behavior. i want us to clear our body/soul/minds of all that is not ours through daily release practices and regular purifying rituals done on our own and together. And more than anything, i want us to let our hair down and move in this world untamed and free. 

While there are different versions of Cumbayah’s origin story, the one most likely is that it was a song of the Gullah Geechee people of the Sea Islands of Georgia. According to Dr. Sumpter, Gullah Geechee people resisted the prohibitions of enslavement and sustained ethnic traditions from one generation to the next through language, agriculture, and spirituality. When heard against this backdrop of herstory, Cumbayah is transformed from a naïve panacea for peace to a call for action amidst the most oppressive of conditions. 

In his exchanges with his teacher, my son reminds me that the dismantling of heteronormativity requires these small disruptions which wear down the normalizing of straightness, gender roles, and gender binaries like ebbing and flowing tides which transform rocks and minerals into millions of soft grains of sand.

Marginalized communities have always been sources of profound wisdom and creativity. By embracing our people’s practices—be it through people’s songs, earth-honoring rituals, or storytelling—we open ourselves to sustainable and liberatory ways of being.