Returning to What We Already Know

Sometimes returning is not about going back. It is about recognizing what has been with us all along.

I have been thinking lately about how many things I grew up with that I never thought to question. They were simply there. The shea butter in the house. The remedies our mothers and aunties seemed to know without looking anything up. The little routines that were never introduced as self-care or called rituals. They were simply part of how we lived and how we cared for one another. I don't think I understood the value of many of those things then.

Sometimes it takes leaving home, growing older, or simply living long enough to encounter something familiar again and realize that you are seeing it differently. That has been part of my own experience with shea butter.

Growing up Ghanaian, shea butter was not something I thought of as special or luxurious. It was familiar. But years later, when I traveled to Tamale and saw more closely where it came from, how it was made, and the hands behind the process, something I had known for years began to mean something entirely different to me.

Tamale, Ghana — seeing something familiar with new eyes.

It made me wonder: How many things do we spend our lives searching for, only to discover that some of the wisdom we need has been with us all along?

When the Ordinary Becomes Meaningful

There are things we inherit without realizing we are inheriting them. Not necessarily possessions, but ways of doing things. Ways of caring. Knowledge passed from one person to another so naturally that no one stops to announce, This is tradition.

For me, shea butter is one of those things. What I once understood simply as something we used took on a much deeper meaning when I saw the process for myself. I watched women carry on work that had been practiced for generations. There was knowledge in their hands—in the way they worked with the shea nuts, understood each stage of the process, and transformed something from the earth into something that would eventually care for someone else’s skin.

Knowledge carried by hand, from one generation to the next.

Standing there, I wasn’t discovering shea butter.

I was rediscovering it.

And there is a difference.

Discovery can make something feel new. Rediscovery asks you to look again at something you thought you already knew.

What Changes When We Look Again?

As children, we don't always ask where things come from. Someone gives us something. Someone prepares something. Someone tells us, “ Use this. And we do. Then we grow up. We move away. Our routines change. We are introduced to countless new products and new ideas about wellness and self-care. We learn new language for things previous generations may simply have considered part of everyday life. There is beauty in learning new ways of caring for ourselves. But I also think there is something worth asking:

What have we left behind simply because it became too familiar to notice?

I have found myself asking that question beyond shea butter.

What did the women before me know about slowing down?

About caring for the body?

About community?

About making something useful with what was available?

About passing knowledge from one generation to another?

I don't believe everything from the past needs to be preserved simply because it is old. Some things should change. Some traditions should be questioned. And each generation should have the freedom to decide what it wants to carry forward.

But we cannot make that choice if we never stop long enough to look back.

Returning Doesn't Mean Going Backward

This has been on my mind throughout September as we have explored The Ritual of Returning here in the Circle. When I say returning, I don't mean trying to recreate a life that no longer exists. I left Ghana in 2003. The woman I am today is shaped by the years that came before that move and by all the years that have come after it. I cannot separate one from the other. And I don't think I need to.

Where we come from does not have to compete with where life takes us.

Maybe it is about allowing both to belong. Taking what still holds meaning. Asking questions about what we once accepted without thought. Finding new ways to carry old wisdom. And sometimes realizing that something we overlooked when we were younger deserves another look. That, to me, is part of what makes a ritual meaningful. It isn't meaningful simply because it is old, beautiful, or passed down.

It becomes meaningful when we understand why we are choosing to continue it.

The Ritual Can Be Simple

These days, something as ordinary as applying shea butter can remind me of much more than caring for my skin.

I think about where it came from.

I think about the women whose hands were part of making it.

I think about Ghana.

And I think about how something can travel with us for years before we truly understand its significance.

That doesn't mean every moment of self-care needs to become profound. Some days, shea butter is just shea butter. Some days, you moisturize your skin and continue with your day. I actually think there is something beautiful about that too. Ritual doesn't have to mean ceremony. Sometimes it is simply paying a little more attention to something you were already doing.

What Have You Been Carrying With You?

So this week, I want to leave you with the same question I have been asking myself.

What is something you grew up with that you understand differently now?

Maybe it is a food you once took for granted.

A phrase your mother always said.

A scent that immediately takes you somewhere.

A Sunday tradition.

A recipe you never thought to write down.

An ingredient you once considered ordinary.

Or a way someone cared for you that you didn't recognize as care until much later.

You don't have to bring everything from the past into the present.

But perhaps there is something worth looking at again.

Something worth asking about.

Something worth learning more deeply.

Something worth passing on.

Because sometimes returning to ourselves isn't about finding our way back to a place.

Sometimes it is simply recognizing what has been traveling with us all along.

Come as you are. Take what speaks to you. Make the ritual your own.

With Gratitude,
Alice Agyeman
Founder, MAAGO