Welcome to four, yes, I am, despite the lies I've been told, I still am, yes, it may seem a bit bold, I am. Welcome home, cojourners.

I'm glad you're here for another episode.

And I am excited to share with you on today,

Living Purposefully.

Living purposefully.

We're going to start today's episode with a poem, and the poem is

Ego Tripping by Nikki Giovanni, one of our newest ancestors who passed on this week. We

celebrate her life, her work, and her writing. The poem Ego Tripping will be recited by Efei Davis.

Efei Davis is an actor, a writer, a director, and my daughter. Let's listen now to the poem Ego Tripping. Ego tripping. There may be a reason why.

By Nikki Giovanni. I was born in the Congo. I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx.

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every

one hundred years falls into the center, giving divine, perfect, light. I am bad. I sat on the throne,

drinking nectar with Allah. I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe to cool my thirst.

My oldest daughter is Nefertiti. The tears from my birth pains created the Nile.

I am a beautiful woman. I gazed on the forest and burned out the Sahara Desert. With a packet of goats meat and a change of clothes, I crossed it in two hours. I am a gazelle, so swift, so swift, you can't catch me. For a birthday present when he was three, I gave my son Hannibal an elephant.

He gave me Rome for Mother's Day.

My strength flows ever on.

My son Noah built Newark, and I stood proudly at the helm, as we sailed on a soft summer

day.

I turned myself into myself and was Jesus. Men in tone my loving name. All praises,

all praises. I am the one who would save. I sewed diamonds in my backyard. My bowels deliver

uranium. The filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels. On a trip north,

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