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About GirlrillaVintage the Blog

PEACE! I’m Gracie Berry, a Black-Afrikan, queer, cis-woman, community root-healer/educator, multi-dimensional creative, womanist and owner of GirlrillaVintage. As a griot, its important to the integrity of my work that I share my life’s experiences and messages in a ways that honors my ancestors and comes from an Afro-diasporic centered view point before any of the margins. Showcasing my art, activism, autochthonous Afrikan-spirit, my story, vintage, words. Community roothealer. Here to love and liberate my people. I founded GirlrillaVintage in 2010, an Afrikan Roots & Empowerment Organization that shares Afrikan cultural diaspora content, events, and perspectives through the offerings of education, expressive arts, spirituality, vintage aesthetic, and workshops. A creative platform that uplifts Black and Brown communities, lineages, narratives, and stories, and uses compassion and creative problem solving to empower and reawaken possibility in and around my community. Visit my website at www.girlrillavintage.com

Dynamic Duo for the Collective

In our wakefulness let us call on our powerhouse of ancestors. Let us transmute energy as the collective. Let us break the matrix wide open with our diversity, our polarism, our shared purpose. A dynamic duo! ⁣

—TheeAmazingGrace

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📸 2016

#afrikanface #ancestortones #collectiveconsciousness #energyhealing #girlrillavintage #liberation #manifest #matrixcolor #roothealers #shadowkeepers #sharedpurpose #smudgetalk #spacebehindthestars #spirituality #theeamazinggrace #transmute

Feathered creatures are oracles don’t fight it

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I can’t escape encounters with birds. They poop on me and my things and sing about it LOL! Bird medicine is powerful and holds truth where there seems to be none. ⁣⁣


My mother’s mother taught us that it is a great sign of luck and respect to cross paths with feathers or even more when they show up in full form. She went on to say that ancestors often return in their likeness, so it’s important to pay attention to what they have to say.⁣⁣
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Here are two experiences I had with birds that I managed to capture on video. Each encounter I ever had with birds always involved ending one cycle in my life and beginning another. Brought messages of change, enlightenment, and unexpected gifts. Grateful to share these memories from 2014 and 2016. Enjoy my startled responses lol! 🦅 🐦 🦢 ⁣⁣

—TheeAmazingGrace
https://vimeo.com/384563854

#afrikanface #ancestorsspeak #birds #birdmedicine #birdsaremessengers #birdtotem #bravebirds #cooperhawk #firstnationspeople #flyhigh #girlrillavintage #mondaymood #roothealers #shadowkeepers #smudgetalk #sparrow #theeamazinggrace

Smudgetalk: Vacillating on a Pass Love

Vacillating. It’s funny how the past comes flooding back and attempts to stifle progress or decisions. Working through ending a sort of mental cycle about a past love in order to align more with my truth. Honestly, it stopped serving my highest good, yet I still find myself unpacking all the years of memories, the way in which it defined me, how deeply I loved them.

Breathing. A constant work…⁣

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—TheeAmazingGrace

#afrikanface #accountability #healing ⁣
#girlrillavintage #mindattacks #perspective #takingtime

Smudgetalk: A Visual Poem for Mama

“my mother was my first country. the first place i ever lived.” ⁣⁣
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—lands 📝 Nayyirah Waheed ⁣⁣
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And today marks 13 years since we found you. The day that grueling 2 years you were missing came to a devastating end, yet we found peace anyway.

My face is a reflection of yours. This visual poem is to remember that. I never want to forget that.

Rest my ❤️⁣😘

—Your kid, TheeAmazingGrace (I remember our last conversation and you told me that I was destined for greatness  and that you named me Grace, but not just any Grace, Thee Amazing Grace. Thank you for believing in me mommy!)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

#afrikanface #ancestorsspeak #centeringmyblackness #dearmama #girlrillavintage #intuitivebeing #mamasgirl #mendesfamily #mymamasanancestor #nappynotes #ripmama #roothealers #shadowkeepers ⁣#smudetalk #theeamazinggrace #unconditionallove #westphilly #westafrican #westafrikan

Afrikan Ancestry DNA Reveal 2018

Drum roll please…..To all my blood relatives on my mothers side! It is with great pleasure that I share with you our @africanancestry DNA results. We share a bloodline lineage (in real life) with the Mende People in modern day Sierra Leone West Afrika. We Mende y’all!!! Passed down from Great Grandma Frida May, her mother and so on! ⁣

The Mende people actually migrated from South Afrika to West Afrika, before the horror that was the mid Atlantic slave trade, more than 2000 years ago. I went to YouTube and listen to Mende Woman speak and just cried my eyes out because I knew that our family had lineage in Afrika. That’s our language y’all! Blood tithes never die. I keep trying to tell y’all, we come from someplace! ⁣

Cause once you just Afrikan ain’t no question. ***Check out extended reaction (Link In BIO). I trust that this gives you half the resolve I have and more! Love y’all! 📸 @cynmoni ⁣Drum roll please…..To all my blood relatives on my mothers side! It is with great pleasure that I share with you our @africanancestry DNA results. We share a bloodline lineage (in real life) with the Mende People in modern day Sierra Leone West Afrika. We Mende y’all!!! Passed down from Great Grandma Frida May, her mother and so on! ⁣

The Mende people actually migrated from South Afrika to West Afrika, before the horror that was the mid Atlantic slave trade, more than 2000 years ago. I went to YouTube and listen to Mende Woman speak and just cried my eyes out because I knew that our family had lineage in Afrika. That’s our language y’all! Blood tithes never die. I keep trying to tell y’all, we come from someplace! ⁣Like Kwame Ture said, “Once you just Afrikan ain’t no question”. I trust that this gives you half the resolve I have and more!

Love y’all!

—TheeAmazingGrace

🎥 @cynmoni ⁣

Reaction video below.

https://vimeo.com/279372674

#afrikanface #ancestry #africanancestry #africanborninamerica #blackfamily #blacklove #culture #dna #girlrillavintage #girlrillalove #healing #healblack #lifebeforetheboat #lineage #mende #mendepeople #sierraleone #westafrica #westafrika #yoruba

 

Sun salutations for my mama

She’s been around heavy these days. I swear it’s only a thin veil that separates this world and the next, we just have to trust that and stay in contact. ⁣

Haven’t spoken poems off the top of my head and heart in a long time. Thoughts of my mama will make me do that though lol! Thank you for being kind and being here mama. I love beyond.

Vimeo links below.
Enjoy! ⁣☀️

—TheeAmazingGrace

https://vimeo.com/383097284

https://vimeo.com/383097625

https://vimeo.com/383097719

#afrikanface #ancestorsspeak #ancestortones #blackisbeautiful #girlrillavintage #keepingitgreen #mamaknows #mymamasanancestor #poemsformama #reflections #smudgetalk #sunsalutations #vimeo

A prosperous 2020 to you all

On this day in 2013 I was 33 yrs young, slimthick, and struggling after a fuck boy breakup. Instead of sulking my life away I drove to Washington DC, rented the nicest hotel I could find and pampered my damn self. All the many ways 😉 lol!⁣

My bestie @cynmoni and I got all dolled up and found the hottest New Year’s Eve party that night and got lit! Always been resilient and always knew how to be the fun in the throws of misery.⁣

Remember, we never lose our strength, our souls although it feels that way sometimes. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. A prosperous 2020 to you all!⁣

—TheeAmazingGrace

#afrikanface #bethefun #bethepeace #blackwomenbelike #girlrillavintage #happynewyear #happynewdecade #imissthosehotpants #lovelybones #mende #newyearseve2013 #selfiecorner #throwback

Smudge Talk: Prosperous days ahead

Smudge talk. Ready to wash my face and sink into bed. I mean cause when you know, you know.  Ancestors. Always find away. They relieve as much as they can. Heavy burdens don’t last and we don’t have to carry them always, either. Experience more, feel more, then let go of the heaviness. Live in the lite. Prosperous days ahead. 💖

—TheeAmazingGrace ⁣

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#afrikan #afrikanface #ancestorsspeak #blackwomenbelike #bassandtreble #cunninglinguists #gotgele #girlrillavintage #imeverythingatonce #isaidthat #mendewoman #nofilter #ritualistic #sage #smudging #smudgetalk #theeamazinggrace #sierraleone #wearybones #westafrican

My Mamas An Ancestor

Always been super intuitive, but my intuition could’ve never prepared me for losing my mother. She was the first human being to ever break my entire soul and heal it at the same time. ⁣
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Next month marks 12 years since she’s been my ancestor. Found out from city hall that I will be installing my art exhibit at Amtrak on the very day the medical examiner called to tell me they found her. I was all shaken up about it, at first, yet realized the inherent blessing it is. How she likely helped to orchestrate the decision lol! ⁣

I will honor her legacy that day as I do everyday by continuing to build mine, instead of grieving her death. We always had a deeply spiritual bond even through the abuse and turmoil and nothing has ever been able to stop that. As we reach toward each other always. Thank you mommy! ⁣2nd 📷 Circa 1997

#afrikanface #ancestorsspeak #centeringmyblackness #dearmama #girlrillavintage #intuition #mamasgirl #mendesfamily #mymamasanancestor #ripmama #roothealers #shadowkeeperexhibit  ⁣#theeamazinggrace #unconditionallove #westphilly #westafrican

On Harriet

27170270-C65B-482F-9D95-C12BDA09205DObservation on Harriet: After seeing @harrietfilm tonight I liked how @kasi_lemmons attempted to portray mama Harriets acalades toward her revolutionary fight to freedom-something I’m most proud. I cried with joy and pride seeing her in action and imagining my ancestors in the same fight. Also, I was pleased with @cynthiaerivo performance being Nigerian west Afrikan born in England. Also, how I kept seeing @the.sleepngiant face in her face—Y’all likely kinfolk sis lol! Cause after all we all Afrikans scattered all over this place. ⁣

Aside, I do wonder how much of the movie was fact and fiction. And despite how good the freedom fight felt I left troubled. Witnessing the brutal killings of two black folks on screen while racist whites were unscathed, spared, and even comforted by the enslaved Afrikans was unsettling to me.⁣

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I wish Kasi had gone deeper or made more of a statement that wasn’t necessarily a “safe one” to appease white audiences, but one that warranted vigilante justice in retaliation for such unimaginable horror that the slave owner put her and her family through. It would’ve been REVOLUTIONARY AS PHUCK, for mama Harriet to blow his racist ass away on screen when she had the chance. To me it would’ve showed the duality of her undying love for God along with her undying desire to free our people by any means. Especially since history tells us how she wouldn’t think twice about turning her gun on our own people that got in her way, so killing a racist should’ve required no thought.

—TheeAmazingGrace

#afrikanface #aramentaross #harriet #harriettubman #harriettubmanmovie #freedomfighter #girlrillavintage #givemwlibertyorgivemedeath #kasilemmons #mytwocents #revolutionaryaction