Sankofa: Adinkra symbol of the week
- Catherine Lucktaylor
- Apr 20
- 3 min read
I've been wanting to share more about what truly inspires me and the role that Ghanaian Adinkra symbols play in my life and my work. So I've started a new series, Adinkra Symbol of the Week: Ancient African Wisdom for the 21st Century. Each week I'll writing about an Adinkra symbol, along with reflections and journal prompts which I hope you'll find useful and meaningful.
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I call the Adinkra symbols: Ancient African Wisdom for the 21st Century, and I have long woven them into my creative practice, my ceramics and my healing work. I'm so glad to finally share them with you in this way.
❖ THE SYMBOL ❖
We begin with one of the most beloved symbols of all.
Sankofa is one of the most beloved and widely recognised Adinkra symbols. In Twi, the word breaks apart simply: San (return), Ko (go), Fa (fetch). Go back and get it. Go back and fetch.
The symbol means: learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of your ancestors. Look back and bring forward what is useful for your own life and the lives of those around you. Keep the lessons. Leave what no longer serves. Acknowledge your ancestral heritage, you would not be here today without the many brave women and men who have gone before you.
It's a symbol of the wisdom of learning from the past to create a better future.
❖ WHY THIS MATTERS FOR YOU ❖
So many of us have been taught to leave the past behind. To move on. To not look back.
But Sankofa whispers something different. It says: what if the very things you need to move forward are waiting for you in what you left behind? In the stories your grandmother didn't finish telling. In the traditions that were interrupted. In the lineage that was severed, forgotten or hidden away.
In my ancestral healing work, I witness this truth again and again. When we are willing to turn and look back, with honesty, with tenderness, with curiosity, we find the wise and well ancestors waiting. Not to hold us in grief, but to hand us something we need.
Sankofa teaches us that this reclamation is not weakness. It is not dwelling. It is the most courageous act of all.
❖ JOURNAL PROMPTS & REFLECTIONS ❖
Take a moment to sit quietly, perhaps with a candle lit. Then explore:
What from your ancestral past , a tradition, a story, a way of being, might be worth turning back to reclaim?
Is there something you left behind in your life that still calls to you? What would it mean to return for it?
What knowledge or wisdom do you hold that came from those before you?
Where in your life are you rushing forward while something important waits behind you?
Allow whatever arises to be met with gentleness. There is nothing wrong in returning. Sankofa says so.
🎨 A gentle invitation...
If you'd like to explore this symbol more deeply, my free Adinkra Colouring Pages make a beautiful meditative practice. Sitting quietly and colouring an Adinkra symbol is a simple and grounding way to let its meaning settle into you. You can download yours free from my website.
❖ IN MY WORK ❖
Sankofa is at the very heart of ancestral lineage healing. Every session I hold is an invitation to turn back, not to be consumed by the past, but to recover what was left there. The wise and loving ancestors who hold our lineage are waiting to meet us, to support us, to hand us their wisdom.
In my EARTH | SPIRIT | FIRE retreat this May, we will work with the energy of Sankofa through ritual, ceremony and clay. We will turn and look back. And we will carry what we find forward into the fire.
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