Sanctum

We are the result of our heritage and culture. Despite what we act like on the outside, we will always turn towards our native roots and cherish the past, however painful. What's more, we are all related to each other (which reminds me of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon I learned in math the other day). 

In Nikki Giovanni's Sanctuary: For Harry Potter the Movie, she shows us that we are are connected in some way. Even though Harry Potter lives in a magical world, and whose parents died saving him, we are no different. In the poem/allegory, Giovanni links Harry to the baby elephant from the beginning, showing the instinctive efforts of the parents and herd to protect the child. The herd wants the baby to remember and pass on their history, much like how African slaves sang gospels of their native lands, and how Native Americans expressed their culture through folktales. It's the reason why Harry Potter refused to call Voldemort "He-who-must-not-be-named"; he understood the power of letting go. How simple would it be to conceal the past and go alone with everyone else? While we may be connected to each other, we are made unique through our heritage.

This reminds me of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The key theme was remembrance, even though the Holocaust was a tragedy. Survivors were urged never to forget, and to teach their children and others about the Holocaust. At first I felt it was slightly sadistic to irritate old wounds and to expose these traumatic events to the next generation, but I quickly realized that trying to bury the past only made pain and anger fester deeper. Through becoming educated and coming to terms with what happened in the past as well as our inborn nature, can we prevent things from happening in the future. We must embrace our cultures and pass down what has been bequeathed to us so that we may live on in memory.