Under the Shola Tree: A Vision of Sovereignty, Balance, and Impact

There are spaces where time, wisdom, & vision converge, a council of ancestors, scholars, mystics, & guides convening across generations & geographies. In these spaces, seeking, exploring, & serving become deliberate acts of alignment: tracing history, genetics, & global ancestral wisdom to live a life rooted in spiritual truth, integrity, & authenticity.

As Black women, having birthed the world in body, spirit, and lineage, we are often thrust into cycles of self-betrayal without full discernment. Painbodies, inherited wounds, ancestral traps, & societal expectations condition us to belong, protect, guide, nurture, & love everyone but ourselves. From birth, we are taught to seek validation, to perform as the “good girl,” to conform, to carry the savior complex, & to attach to outdated institutions that favours the ego, control & masculine, all at the cost of direct access to God and the sacred knowledge that our wholeness is inherent. True sovereignty arises when we reclaim the right to be enough, to honor our gifts, and to walk in the fullness of being simply for having been born.

I knew the world was not fair at fourteen, yet in that awareness, I discovered a God who is righteous and unwavering. Faith, spiritual practice, and the liturgy of the Orthodox Christian Church have provided a sacred technology, a framework and discipline, to seek truth independent of human approval. Through stillness, silence, and contemplation, I have cultivated the capacity to discover, seek, & create with clarity. This practice sharpens awareness, fosters conscious detachment, and strengthens the ability to navigate life with discernment, empowering one to live fully in alignment with purpose, integrity, and divine law.

Before choosing the path of entrepreneurship, I had already cultivated alignment from a young age. By fourteen, I recognized the power of choice, negotiation & will power, harnessing education, social networks, and the deliberate building of my resume, wealth, and health, all to grow in leadership, discernment, & capability. These foundations ultimately enabled me to lead my life as an Independent thinker by 16yrs, to choose to do my education & career both in an emerging market & the wealthiest nation in the world & being successful in Airline, banking, development work & finance. Having been focused, disciplined & timing I was headhunted as the youngest COO of Ethiopia in an international startup bank, Zemen Bank, achieving a success inauguration in just two years. I applied over a decade of experience with a hand picked team, to structure policies for an innovative, groundbreaking, and disruptive institution that transformed the trajectory of the financial and banking industry in Ethiopia. This journey affirmed my capacity for impact at scale and inspired a deep passion to venture into emerging markets, leveraging knowledge, vision, & strategic insight to create sustainable & ethical growth, after travelling through Africa & Ethiopia.

Since creating Deldeyoch and choosing the path of impact driven entrepreneurship, I have intentionally designed, led, and completed thirty projects. Each endeavor has been a deliberate act of creation, service, and impact, a manifestation of purpose, vision, and alignment with both ancestral wisdom and contemporary insight.

Having traveled solo to over thirty countries, and journeyed through ancient lands, I have walked the Simien, Shewa, Tigray, and Bale mountains of Ethiopia, traversed the deserts of Afar, the Sahara, the Namib, the Thar, and even Nevada, and crossed the Mediterranean, Indian, Red, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans. I have broken bread with at least one person from every continent, encountering humanity in its raw, refined, and diverse expressions. These journeys are a profound confirmation of the strength, resilience, and power that resides within, more than we often imagine. They illuminate the essential truth that our stories, as women, carry weight, wisdom, and transformative potential.

With the emergence of AI, the relentless distractions of the mind through our phones, the destruction of the Earth by human hands, the fragmentation of social structures, and the proliferation of false prophets, the call upon our collective light has never been more urgent. It asks us to seek bridges, pathways that align us in truth rather than fear, clarity rather than illusion. This moment demands vigilance, discernment, and conscious engagement. It calls for the courage to navigate both visible and hidden challenges, to illuminate paths of integrity, and to uphold frameworks that honor ethical stewardship, interconnectedness, and sustainability.

Stillness, focus, discipline, and consistency, living fully in spirit allow the mind and body to align with vision. It is a practice of eating to sustain a conscious lifestyle, pursuing impact-driven work, disarming armor, and cultivating a life of growth and flow rather than mere survival in warrior or hiding. Along the path, one inevitably encounters failure, vultures, vampires, self sabotage, liars, thieves, hijackers, lack of desernment, tests, predators, financial loss, scavengers, racists, sexists, dark souls, and power-hungry beings, as well as self doubt, all masked and labeled to compete, control, or challenge one’s sovereignty. These encounters are inherent to the path of discernment, especially in emerging markets, and serve as mirrors for strength, clarity, and resilience.

To be in service to God not in conformity but warrior to impact, awareness, to foster inclusion, and to bring light to darkness is not a pursuit for the faint-hearted. It requires courage, research, intentionality, humility, and alignment with calling, passion, and purpose, not pity, savior complexes, or the need for validation to belong. True service arises from sovereignty, vision, and a steadfast commitment to truth, integrity & doing our SWOT analysis to know who we are underneath our avator, mask & persona.

To navigate this world, we are called to be sharp, alert, and vigilant as a serpent, while remaining kind, compassionate, and discerning as a dove. This is not about being “nice” or conforming; it is about embodying clarity, integrity, and purpose, to be vigilant in any boardroom, or family gatherings. It is to live with vision and discernment, cultivating sustainable impact, conscious growth, and a lifestyle aligned with both spiritual truth and ethical responsibility, as well as strategically leaving any room that is not aligned to ours vision, or accepting rejection as redirection to know our limitations.

Failure is not an endpoint but a teacher. It is a mirror reflecting where courage, strategy, or clarity must be strengthened. In embracing failure without shame, we transform what appears as loss into insight, what seems like defeat into a step toward mastery. Each misstep becomes part of the architecture of growth, a necessary passage toward wisdom, resilience, and alignment with purpose. True strength lies not in avoiding failure, but in meeting it with discernment, humility, and an unwavering commitment to continue forward.

In forgiveness, yet without forgetting, I have learned that everything happens for me, not to me. Every challenge, betrayal, and shadow encountered is a teacher, a sacred catalyst for growth, discernment, and alignment. This awareness transforms pain into wisdom, resistance into clarity, and experience into insight, allowing one to navigate life with grace, sovereignty, and purposeful presence, no longer a child but a mother to ourselves as women.

In creating a utopian vision through Deldeyoch 2.0, the aim is to manifest a living bridge between past and present, sacred and modern, personal and collective. It is a deliberate architecture of vision, ethics, and ancestral wisdom, a space where human potential, spiritual alignment, and conscious impact converge. Leadership, learning, and service are inseparable; personal transformation becomes the foundation for collective advancement, and sovereignty is both a right and a responsibility.

This utopia honors the laws of God, the rhythms of the cosmos, and the ethical frameworks embedded in history and culture. Abundance, health, and prosperity are aligned with conscious impact. Decisions are made with discernment, grounded in clarity of purpose, and informed by both intuition and reason. The feminine teaches receptivity, empathy, and creativity; the masculine teaches discernment, structure, and action. Together, they forge a life of integrity, vigilance, and visionary impact.

This platform is for those who choose to seek, explore, and serve, individuals committed to tracing history, honoring ancestral wisdom, and living with spiritual integrity. It is for those who embrace discernment, vigilance, and clarity, cultivating both the receptive, intuitive, nurturing feminine, and the strategic, protective, action-oriented masculine. It invites those willing to rise above distraction, deception, & societal conditioning, to reclaim their voice, vision, & light.

Ultimately, this is a covenant with self, ancestors, & humanity: to embody truth, courage & balance; to illuminate paths for others while honoring one’s own sovereignty & to steward life personal, communal, & cosmic, with wisdom, compassion, and responsibility. It is a vision of a world where power is tempered with care, action is guided by ethics, and the human spirit thrives in alignment with both cosmic law and ancestral memory.

By dutchess @deldeyoch