Happy Black History Month Reader!
Today is Mardi Gras.
It is also the first day of Ramadan.
It is the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Fire Horse.
And this morning we learned of the passing of Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., at 84 years old.
I grew up repeating, “I AM somebody.”
In 1984, I was in a middle school classroom - Social studies, I think. Maybe language arts. I cannot remember the subject, but I remember the teacher. Mr. Miller. A Black man. That was rare for me then. Rare enough that his presence still feels distinct.
I remember us talking about the election. Talking about Reverend Jackson running for president.
I did not yet understand policy. I did not understand party strategy. But I understood that a Black man was standing on a national stage and saying we belonged there.
That mattered.
By 1988, when he ran again, I understood that what I had felt in middle school was not just excitement. It was possibility.
Mardi Gras and Ramadan live in my story too. Although I don't consider myself particularly religious now, I have practiced both Christianity and Islam. I know the rhythm of feast before fast, the discipline of returning to what matters.
Fasting, though, has never been my strength.
In recent years, instead of giving something up for Lent or Ramadan, I have chosen to add something intentional. More walking. More water. More presence. I have unintentionally given up enough in my life, so I am less interested in subtraction for its own sake. I am way more interested in choosing what builds me.
That's my truth.
The Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the Year of the Fire Horse.
I do not have childhood memories tied to this holiday. It is not my cultural inheritance. But I remember the year of the Ox, reading that it was my year and feeling a quiet thrill. Not because I suddenly belonged to the culture, but because it reminded me that I could learn from traditions that were not mine without claiming them.
We are always looking for language that helps us understand ourselves. Sometimes through faith. Sometimes through ancestry. Sometimes through symbols and cycles. Not to appropriate. Not to flatten. But to notice what resonates and what does not.
The Fire Horse carries energy that is bold and kinetic. Movement. Heat. Visibility. It does not drift into the year quietly.
Celebration.
Fasting.
Renewal.
Legacy.
All arriving at once.
There are seasons when beginnings arrive neatly.
This is not one of them.
This is a layered threshold.
Joy and restraint.
Momentum and reflection.
Grief and ignition.
The Fire Horse runs.
Ramadan pauses.
Mardi Gras dances.
Legacy calls.
In a year marked by movement, speed alone will not be the measure.
The HUMAN work still holds.
Honesty: What season are you actually in right now? Celebration? Discipline? Grief? Renewal?
Urgency: What requires your attention today, not someday?
Meaningfulness: What is worthy of your devotion in a year that will move quickly?
Accountability: What work will you carry forward, even when it costs you something?
Nuance: How will you hold joy and sorrow, fire and fasting, without flattening either?
Fire can illuminate.
Fire can consume.
Movement can liberate.
Movement can exhaust.
The invitation is not simply to move. It is to move with intention.
To celebrate without forgetting.
To fast (or intentionally add) without judgment.
To begin without erasing what came before.
To act without abandoning care.
New beginnings rarely arrive quietly. Sometimes they converge.
And here we are.
Repeat after me. "I AM somebody."
Not as a slogan.
As a responsibility.
Who is this convergence calling you to be?
