Today, on February 18, 2025, we celebrate what would have been Toni Morrison’s 94th birthday. She was born in 1931.
Morrison’s legacy remains as urgent as ever. She did not just write stories—she unearthed a primordial agency, demanding that we recognize, claim, and manifest our own.
Agency is our power to define ourselves, to reject imposed narratives, and to move through the world with intention and sovereignty.
According to Morrison, agency is not something we acquire—it is part of our DNA, embedded in us from birth, waiting to be recognized, claimed, and manifested.
Her characters did not wait for permission. They saw their reality, even when others refused to name it.
They felt their pain and power, knowing both were real. They investigated their oppression, tracing its roots beyond the personal to the systemic. Ultimately, they moved through resistance, re-creation, and existing on their terms.
Morrison’s lesson echoes in my Meditativism work:
- See It. – Identify the historical, social, and internal forces that have shaped your identity before you unconsciously accept them as truth.
- Feel It. – Recognize where these forces and emotions live in your body.
- Investigate It. – Interrogate the forces’ origins. Who defined you? What stories have been imposed upon you?
- Move It. – Reject the false, claim what’s yours, and manifest it in the world.
Morrison wrote, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” But she didn’t stop there. She redefined the act of defining—turning language into liberation, storytelling into sovereignty.
Morrison’s work, particularly in novels like Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Solomon, confronts historical erasure, memory, and the resilience of Black identity.
She gives voice to those whom history often silences, reminding us that language is a tool of oppression and liberation.
Her protagonists—Sethe, Pecola, Milkman, and many others—mirror our struggles when trying to claim our truth against the weight of external narratives.
Her ability to seamlessly blend historical trauma with intimate personal struggles challenges us to move beyond passive awareness into action. Her storytelling is both an indictment of oppression and a blueprint for self-definition.
Through her words, Morrison invites us to push beyond what is given, to question what we have been told, and to embrace the radical act of defining ourselves anew.
On this day, I reflect: What definitions am I dismantling? What agency am I claiming and manifesting?
Toni Morrison did not just leave words behind—she left a challenge, a blueprint, and a way forward.
Her voice continues to shape how we understand history, identity, and the boundless power of self-determination.
Happy Birthday, Toni.
— Jerome S. Paige, The Meditativist
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