Reap Year 2020

2020 is a leap year, but it is also a reap year. When I say that, I mean that I believe this is a time in history where there is a mighty collection of built up energies that are being released and fundamentally changing the lives of each individual—everyone being accountable for his or her own actions.

There is a saying “you reap what you sow”. This is true, but also buried within this idiom are two unknown, unpredictable elements of time and control. These two factors are heavily the reason why the world is currently filled with so much panic and unease, which is completely understandable. 

What goes around comes around

I think about how I grew up in San Diego, with a fairly privileged background. Although I was afforded more than most in my early adolescent life, it didn’t always feel privileged. From the outside, everything appeared a certain way, but on the inside it was completely different. I felt a lot of shame from this.

I felt no one, especially no one in my neighborhood, school or community, could relate to what our family was going through with the magnitude of AIDS in the mid 90s at the height of the social panic. Even my immediate family was hard to reach out to, because the shame was suffocating for them as well and I wanted to separate from their discomfort to protect their emotions. 

As a 33 year old woman, I can now look back and say that one thing that really rescued me from a lost and tragic childhood came from a gift from my aunts in Georgia, Vernessa and Barbara Mitchell, who gifted my family their music and had us inside our home jamming to something from which we could actually gain joy. 

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Higher Inergy

Barbara and Vernessa Mitchell, pictured with High Inergy in late 1970s (Motown)

Barbara and Vernessa Mitchell of Motown fame began recording gospel inspired records after years of creating secular music. I had always looked forward to listening to the music of my famous aunts, but in the 90s my mom brought home a brand new sound from them that was different from what I had ever heard before. This is when my spiritual maturity was first awakened, although of course I was too young to understand it all. Somehow I knew, however, that this was going to stick by me throughout my life. 

This song featured below is the best symbol of my childhood that gave me joy when I felt that life was treating me unfairly. This song alone has withstood the test of time and the message hits me just as hard today as it did when I was a young girl learning the lyrics for the first time. This motivational music comes highly recommended for these times:

Listen to “Reap”

In 2020, during a time of chaos and uncertainty in the world around me, I can listen to this song and feel the power of truly reaping what you sow: I understand now that it takes a lifetime to fully gather both the blessings and the curses that are thrown at you.

To me, this message might be the most important one of the new decade. You must remain patient and realize that balance will only be accomplished with time, which sadly is out of our control. 

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“Get out of this life what you put in.” -Reap

When you think cumulatively about reaping, you will start to value and invest in the choices you make daily, as you see how they add to or subtract from the time when the sowing period is finally upon you.