Embodied Knowing: One Black Woman Grandmother’s Way of Knowing

By Camea Davis

I hear my maternal grandmother Roxie J. Johnson, in a stern yet soft voice, utter, “I know that, I know, that I know.” She was more than likely telling a story of certainty, truth telling, articulating through repetition a knowing that was indescribable yet specific. It’s a phrase African American church goers from her generation often used to testify - give public admission of a supernatural triumph in their lives. Often when testifying, people say they can’t explain how or why but, “they know, that they know that they know” God did it. 

I came to call this type of knowing “embodied knowing” a feeling that one feels in their spirit/soul/deep inside. Some might call it intuition. Others say the spirits are informing them of something. Still others say it's a gut feeling. I just use the words my granny did, “I know, that I know, that I know.” 

Usually it’s a knowing rooted in lived experience and an expertise only life can provide. Some call it wisdom. My granny was a wise woman. As we got older and spoke in our secret, long distance chats on the phone, she would admit to me she knew a family member was telling a “bold-faced lie” but she wouldn’t embarrass them by acknowledging the lie. Instead, she would play her part of the loving affirming grandmother and listen to the myth of their sob story. She and I would laugh about this. She is the person I would call to get a solid confirmation about a decision in my life. I would tell her the details and wait to hear her response. Her knowing validated my own. 

Roxie J. Johnson transitioned from this side of heaven in January 2021, leaving a chasm of certainty. 

I relish the opportunity to publicly share about my granny Roxie. She was a powerhouse of a woman who taught me to be. Yes, just to be. She taught me that embodied knowing was the best course of knowledge I could access. She taught me, if I didn’t have that kind of knowing, I should likely stop, sit down, and wait “on the Lord” as she would say. 

This way of knowing is knowing about who you are and whose you are. 

My relationship with my grandmother, who possessed a willing knowing inside herself with access to a higher power, gave me permission to seek inside myself and beyond myself to know exactly what I needed to know. I’d argue this knowing is more important than anything I learned in all my years of graduate education. More important than all the years I spent teaching middle school students and later teachers what they needed to learn.

The ability to access embodied knowing is a daily practice that requires quiet, focus, and for me the stillness of a grandmother’s certainty. I’d argue regardless of your spiritual beliefs or practices, the connection to one’s inner lifeworld is a worthwhile investigation. To be still and listen to what’s present inside the body and heart of a generation busting at the seams with busyness, might be a worthwhile investigation for all of us. What do we know that we know that we know? What can we be certain of? 

Lastly, one thing I know for sure is that we - those of us that are millennials and younger – must be careful not to throw out the wisdom of our ancestors, as we work to rectify all the isms and injustices they survived, tolerated, or perpetuated. 

We have to pay attention to the ways of knowing that got them over and sustain those practices for our own lives and those in the future waiting to know.