That dream, which spanned years, sparked a yearning to learn about her ancestors, who were part of the Luba, one of the largest ethnic groups in the Congo. When she was making plans to visit the village in the Central Kasai region where her father was born, he told her she was named after her late great-grandmother-the first wife of the late king of the Bakwa Indu, which made her great-grandmother the queen.
"My brain just exploded," she recalls. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'You are from the royal house-you and your sisters are princesses.' I was thrilled to find out I was a princess, but I wish he told me when I was 5 so I would have known that a girl who looks like me could be a princess. I remember watching all of the Disney movies where little Black girls were never represented as royalty."
CHILD OF A DIPLOMAT
Her father was born during the Belgian colonization of the Congo a period marked by forced labor, murder, torture, and other abuses of the Congolese people. Colonial rule ended in 1960, and when her father then went to Europe to study, he met her mother, a Belgian European.
Diambi Kabatusuila was born in Belgium where her father worked as a diplomat in the Congolese embassy in Brussels. When she was 6 months old, her family moved to Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They left Kinshasa to return to Europe when she was 16, and she later moved to the United States for college.
Queen Diambi, now the mother of two adult sons and grandmother of three, holds a bachelor's degree in business finance and economics from the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and a master's in psychology and mental health counseling from Lynn University in Boca Raton.
When her father shared their family history in 2016, she also learned that he was supposed to sit on the throne but refused.
この記事は Spirituality & Health の July/August 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Spirituality & Health の July/August 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
LET'S NOT LIMIT NATURE
\"NATURE IS MY CHURCH!\" she exclaims. And I cringe. That may surprise many of you, what with my constant ecological and spiritual musings about squirrels, monkeys, and other nature-y creatures. My conundrum with this often-uttered sentiment is the artificial boundary the word nature creates. Let me explain.
TIME TO TAKE THE RISK
We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.-Hildegard of Bingen, 12th-century Benedictine mystic, medical practitioner, writer, and composer
The Essence of FRIENDSHIP
A DEEP DIVE INTO WHAT MAKES THE BEST FRIENDSHIPS
QUEEN DIAMBI KABATUSUILA SHEDS A NEW LIGHT ON AFRICA
In 2016, before she became queen of the Bakwa Luntu people of the Dimbelenge territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Queen Diambi Kabatusuila was a 48-year-old therapist going through a difficult divorce, living in Boca Raton, Florida, and having a recurring dream about an old woman in an African village.
Recognizing and Tuning Into Medical Intuition
How one woman learned to trust her instincts and heal her body
Over the MOON About Helping Animals (and Their People)
Since I was a child, I've had a ritual: Every night, I go outside and search the sky for the moon and stars. I marvel at the magnificence of a dark, crisp, clear, midnight blue sky and its symphony of constellations, occasional meteors, and the glorious moon herself-each illuminating the vastness. This simple practice always gives me the deepest peace and centeredness. It aligns my internal compass every night before bed.
ENLIGHTENED PERSPECTIVES: AMANDLA STENBERG CHANNELS 'THE FORCE'
Journalist KAREN BRAILSFORD was over the moon when actress and musician AMANDLA STENBERG agreed to meet her over Zoom for this heart-to-heart about spiritual matters for Spirituality & Health: A Unity Publication. Brailsford, a lifelong seeker who feels blessed to be Stenberg's mother, once captioned an Instagram photo of her daughter with Michael Bernard Beckwith of the Agape International Spiritual Center: \"When your master teachers run into one another at a Hollywood event.\" Brailsford says she has learned a great deal from each one.
Unlikely Lightworkers from Liverpool
The Beatles were more than musical masters-they were spiritual pioneers.
The Neuroscience of Getting What You Want
AND WHY YOU MAY NOT WANT TO SEEK WHAT YOU WANT AFTER ALL
ANTI-RACISM IS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
GROWING UP in very charismatic and evangelical Christian spaces, I was told that the Devil's greatest trick was convincing us that he didn't exist. I feel a similar vibe when it comes to the big three systems of oppression-capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy-in New Thought and other spiritual spaces. These systems managed to convince some of us that they don't exist, we are immune from them, talking about them isn't helpful, or we will overcome them just by doing our spiritual practices.
