Getting to Know ME

(Hiawatha's Hair Show Cleveland 1998)

(Sakinah & protege's/models @Hiawatha's Hair Show, Cleveland 1998)

In 1996, when I dropped out of beauty school to make money to support my son, working without a license, I almost missed my divine plan. I'm thankful for my true friend telling me that I missed my calling as she witnessed me teaching one of my proteges WHILE saying I don't have time to go back to school. I would immaturely say that time is money but over time I found that by carrying out my true purpose, I was rich in abundance with peace and prosperity.

(Sakinah @Bronner Bros. Hair Show Atlanta 2012)

Dana, my mentor, wrote these powerful words almost 20 years ago, and I used this to LEARN ME.

(Dana Smith)

"Sakinah" Poem Written By Dana Smith 1998

"Look at her beautiful, she is my friend 
a brown eyed woman-child with silk mahogany skin 
that serves as an illustrious background for the long ebony hair framing her face and 
flowing down her back...

(Sakinah & son, Oronde, Jr. 1996)

Kinah cool, she's the "O" original shorty from around the way
Little Momi, eyes sepia and slightly slanted, she struts soulfully...
She crowns me, doin' my hair in proud lovely creations 
or like a booster snatchin' shit off of everybody's stations
So much on her mind thinking all the time 
Slow never, however, with Hawaiian gold toke through bamboo smoke 
she's feeling just too fine
I once asked her the meaning of her name, 

(Sakinah 1982 Pittsburgh, PA)

she never looked my way or blinked as she explained...
Calm she purred, and at first I couldn't believe what I heard, calm did you say
and I laughed because I never saw her that way
She stopped her flow and turned directly toward me, and nodded, Yes. 
Only then could I see as I looked into her eyes, I could still see the child inside

Innocents lost, survival a must holding onto her strength still trying to learn how to trust inside so sensitive and warm,
I thought to myself, Yeah, there's always a calm before a Storm."

(Pittsburgh, PA 2015)
Click to view Blacktie Article

In 2000, I was awarded an Academic Scholarship to become a Master Educator of Cosmetology and in 2015 I was named the IOB, Irene O. Bartko Recipient and Elizabeth Brandmarti Support Awardee. As I traveled the US, and embraced diversity, many shared with me they know of my name and in their religion, the name is a good fit. Who would have known that my calling was what they call me....

• Shekinah is the English transliteration of a Hebrew and Arabic noun meaning dwelling or settling, and denotes the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God and His Glory
• Accordingly, in classic Jewish thought, the Shekinah refers to a dwelling or settling in a special sense, a dwelling or settling of divine presence to the effect that, while in proximity to the Shekinah, the connection to God is more readily perceivable.
• The Shekinah is held by some to represent the feminine attributes of the presence of God (Shekinah being a feminine word in Hebrew)
• "Whenever ten are gathered for prayer, there the Shekinah rests"
•  It also connotes righteous judgment ("when three sit as judges, the Shekinah is with them." 
•  Personal need ("The Shekinah dwells over the headside of the sick man's bed"
• "Wheresoever they were exiled, the Shekinah went with them."
• Even at a time when the Jews are impure, the Shekinah (divine presence) is with them.

• Shekinah paraphases Hebrew verb phrases such as Exodus 34:9 "let the Lord go among us" (a verbal expression of presence) which Targum paraphrases with God's "shekinah" (a noun form).In the post-temple era usage of use of the term Shekinah may provide a solution to the problem of God being omnipresent and thus not dwelling in any one place.
• The Talmud also says that "the Shekinah rests on man neither through gloom, nor through sloth, nor through frivolity, nor through levity, nor through talk, nor through idle chatter, but only through a matter of joy in connection with a precept, as it is said, But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him". [2Kings 3:15]
• The Shekinah is associated with the transformational spirit of God regarded as the source of prophecy
• Meaning in Hassidic Judaism: regards the Kabbalah, in which the Shekinah has special significance, as having scriptural authority.