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The thing that I feared and the thing that I love

So we got 6-8 inches of snow today and at about the sixth inch my husband and I decided to go shovel the driveway and clean off the cars. It was good snowball making snow and so I began to make and throw them at him. I promise you it transformed me into a girl. I would make one and throw it then continue cleaning off the car until he turned his back and I would hit him again. I was so delighted, I just laughed and threw another. My laughter felt so light and free it lifted me into another perspective.

After we finished shoveling he went on inside but I wanted to pursue this elevation of spirit. There was no one on the street from one end to the other. I walked out into the middle of the street and watched the snow fall. I stood there transfixed until it dawned on me.

There were no sounds. It was silent and still except for falling show and I entered a meditative state as I walked to the corner. On the walk back I heard the sound of something falling. It was snow falling from the branches on various trees. Then the branches beckoned me to come closer to them. They wanted to reveal something to me so I went and stood under a tree, it only took a moment before I understood. As if to validate my insight a single wren flew out from his hiding place right past me. I took note of the location for feeding later but ohhh those trees. They were crystal clear in their message.

I tried to capture it in a video and share the message rather clumsily. But enough so that I hope it reaches you. We must remember the power we do have and that is not to fuel the fire of fear.

Let me share the video with you. It will be on my Facebook page near the share of this blog post.

December 5, 2016 0

1st day of the last month of 2016

As I was saying this is the first day of the last month of 2016 still basking in new moon energy. Beginnings and endings look more and more like a spiral rather than that straight line I once envisioned.

I have had so many amazing experiences this year. I have been at the height of excellence and the depths of despair. I’ve been recognized and demonized. Loved and despised. Laughed so hard I got the hiccups and cried so hard I had to call some friends because I couldn’t stop.

I’ve lived this year seizing every opportunity to be myself, express myself, share myself, push myself, examine myself, be pissed with myself and to love myself.

This year this is my best thing.

I took 20 people to the White House most expenses paid,all paid for the young people (30 and under). It is one of the highlights of my life. I had gone there about three months before the trip and had a meeting, I said “I want to bring some young Black kids here that would not ever have imagined they could be here”. They thought it was a great idea. I had to come home and get it figured out. And I did I figured it out and got it done thanks to Fedex and my savings, I got flights, hotel, transportation food and our White House Angel took those kids all over the place. When I look now at the bell Julie Davis gave me that is inscribed with my name, Thank You, The White House Kidz I get so filled up.

I think, YOU DID THAT!!!!

2016 I am gonna ride you all the way out making new plans, dreaming new dreams and believing the best is yet to be…for me and thee

December 2, 2016 1

When a woman’s fed up

November 30, 2016 0

Why I am here hoping you are too.

This is my first blog post as a seriously committed womyn. I have begun blogs, websites, newsletters, even a newspaper but I never could commit to writing regularly because I couldn’t believe myself to be an artist who was bound by the virtue of artistry to do the damn thing I have come here to do without reservation, permission or acknowledgement.

But today I read something by James Baldwin in my Brain Pickings weekly newsletter that cemented me to the truth. I have suffered. I have survived. I have a voice. I must tell my story. Not for any reason other than I came here to do this. Just look at all these composition books, journal, brown paper bags, envelopes and Microsoft Word documents in my room, my office, Yemaya’s room, my husbands study because sometimes I walk through the house crying and clutching my writings like some deranged haint.

I am a double Leo and I tend toward the dramatic naturally. Just work with me. I am that vase and I suspect you are too. We are beautiful and wounded. We are warriors and cowards. We are deeply spiritual, talk to birds and have on occasion said, shit gotdammit this motherfucker is driving me crazy. But we are good as gold and filled with shine. Aren’t we?

So. I will write here to ease my soul, to tell my truth, to fight, to organize, to hold church, to lay down my life so that you may walk across it to higher ground. So what did James Baldwin say that got me all fired up? This.

Well, one survives that, no matter how… You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less. Then, you make — oh, fifteen years later, several thousand drinks later, two or three divorces, God knows how many broken friendships and an exile of one kind or another — some kind of breakthrough, which is your first articulation of who you are: that is to say, your first articulation of who you suspect we all are….JAMES BALDWIN

November 28, 2016 0

The Soul Garden Oath

I learned this in jail..don’t ask. I loved it though, I had to memorize it in order to be admitted to the Gateway Foundation Drug Treatment Program at CCJ. I never forgot it.

We are here because there is no refuge finally from ourselves. Until a womyn confronts herself in the eyes and hearts of others, she is running. Until she suffers them to share her secrets she has no safety from them. Afraid to know and be known she is struggling in the dark. Where else but in our common ground can we find such a mirror? Where here, at last, a womyn can appear clearly to herself- Not as the giant of her dreams Nor the dwarf of her fears – As a womyn a part of a whole and in this ground we each take root and grow. Not alone anymore as in death but alive to ourselves and to others. Shake a hand Make a friend.

That’s it. That’s all I had to say and they let me in.

Featured post

November 27, 2016 0

I read earlier today that Tina Turner had her 77th birthday on Nov. 26. The site I visited has very nice photos and captions to go with..here’s the address- http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/celebrity/tina-turner-life-in-pictures You’ll have to copy and paste until I figure out the link system.

Those who have known me a long time…Know the deal. She scratched my head when I was ailin. With Love Happy 77th Tina, may it be your best year yet…

I knew of Tina Turner even as a young girl. My father and his friends would call her the Colored Betty Grable because of the length and shapliness of her legs and the story that some film studio had insured Ms. Grable’s legs for a million dollars. They all agreed Tina’s legs should have been insured as well. I saw her once at the movies. She was singing Rolling on the River and dancing furiously. I was fascinated by her moves, voice and her joy, it was a sight to behold.

I didn’t think of her for years until What’s Love Got to Do With It, the song, came out in the eighties. I was too busy dodging fists, working unmercifully and having children. Like I said I graduated from Tina Turner University. When the movie came out I had been in recovery from nearly everything that had plagued me during my twenties. Nearly everything.

It was a new turn on the spiral of life and I was knee deep in the underworld. It was so dark down there sight was useless besides I was so depressed by the struggle I didn’t care to see anyway. I had done a thing for all the right reasons and it had become the biggest nightmare of my sober life. One day after a whole morning of worrying, my friend took the children out to the movies. I crawled back into bed and decided to watch What’s Love Got To Do With It on VHS. It broke me open in a way I thought unimaginable.

It happened when she was rewarded for her efforts at trying to record a song while he partied. He had her by the throat and he raped her. She was doing her best and he beat her up and raped her. I began to howl, claw my face and pull on my hair. I got down on my hands and knees and screamed WHY???? WHY???? WHY???? I rocked myself in the fetal position until I caught my breath and fell asleep.

I returned to finish the film and to be inspired by her triumphs. I was emptied out and so her successes filled the space and I thought I saw a dim flickering light at the end of the tunnel.Don’t give up she whispered, cajoled, shouted and ultimately convinced me to not give up. I had my relationship to the Divine. I had my gifts, my heart, my soul and I realized the light indicated I still, despite my current state of affairs, I still had my dreams. I remember 10 years she played those small hotels. Even after Ike was gone there was work still to be done…and then I understood and I began to imagine again.