Visioning with my family

Though we all had the same pragmatic Episcopal upbringing, I realized that I have become the family Woo…you know that cooky aunt who talks to spirits, hangs crystals on the windows and wears a lot of purple. I think there is one in every family and in my family it’s me.

Around 2006 I started going to this place called the Center for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science. If you’ve ever watched Oprah…and well hasn’t everyone watched Oprah…she talks about the law of attraction and manifesting your dreams. That’s know as “new thought” which is actually a misnomer because when you get more into it, these thoughts are ancient and intuitive. I have always intrinsically known without a doubt that there was a God…my questions, curiosity and doubts have been based mostly on me not fully believing in what other fallible human beings have said about God. I mean am I really going to go to hell for eating pork or wearing pants? Is there even a hell to go to that isn’t already right here on earth? I don’t know for sure, but let’s just say a lot of traditional beliefs have left me skeptical.

I digress. Through my adventures in spirituality I completed a two year course of study and become a practitioner of Religious Science which is a fancy way of saying that I am a professional prayer who sometimes leads meditations or teaches workshops on visioning.

To that end my mom asked me to lead a mini visioning workshop. We had our first session on Christmas after dinner, just me, her, and her new man-friend. They had both done some visioning before so we weren’t starting from scratch. In fact my mom pulled up her board and we did some sifting through magazines to start supplementing her current collage.

A few days later my aunt and uncle arrived from out of town and mom set her intention that I would lead us in some more visioning. Of course then we got sidetracked by taking long walks, playing the slot machines at the Casino, going to the movies, and in general having a really fun and different holiday for us.

So it wasn’t until literally 20 minutes before I had to go the airport that we gathered together in the kitchen so I could explain this whole visioning thing and give the cliff’s notes version of the workshops I’ve hosted. Since I had such little time I wanted to use this post as a supplement, but whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth, I hope this might be of use as you begin 2016.

What is visioning?

Visioning is a creative brainstorm…and when I say creative I mean it in the truest sense of the word. You are using your imagination to create a clear understanding of what you want to see in your life.  This can be done in lots of ways, but an easy and fun way to start is with a vision board, which is a collage of how you want your life to be. So get out your paints, crayons, magazines, scissors, and glue sticks…whatever you have that you want to use. I like to start with a picture of myself really happy as the center of my vision because ultimately my happiness is central to everything else. What is the point of being rich, thin, and married to the Rock if it doesn’t make you happy?

Whether you know it or not, you are using your imagination all of the time. The worst possible scenario often dances through my mind. Oh shit, I’m leaving 15 minutes late to work. I 90 is going to be a parking lot, then when I finally hit the 405 I’m going to be so late I’ll have to speed, then I’ll get pulled over for a speeding ticket. I don’t have time to go to traffic court.  What if the cop is racist and I end up like Sandra Bland? And so on so forth. Where did that come from?

Have I ever experienced shitty traffic or racist cops before? Sure. But I have also found myself miraculously falling in love with the gorgeousness of the pacific northwest while crossing the floating bridge, sailing through smooth traffic to arrive 20 minutes early to work even after leaving at the same time as the previous day.

Why is it that my mind most frequently gravitates toward the negative point of attraction? I don’t know, but just like a dog that leaps out at every stranger that passes through the door, these wild and savage negative fantasies can be trained. It is my mind after all. I’m in the metaphorical driver’s seat.

So what would happen if you started to have positive daydreams? What would happen if you started to set intentions? For example instead of waking up in a panic I could wake up and think: I’m going to have an awesome day today. I’m going to get to work early and find that my boss has made cookies and that we’ve exceeded our fundraising goal and are exceptionally well positioned to start our fiscal year.  Maybe that’s what happens, maybe it isn’t.

What actually happens is that when I prepare myself for good things to happen, I start noticing good things happening. Maybe those things were already happening. Who knows? But the point is that in shifting my mind set I am now more predisposed to noticing the good. Which brings me to something of vital importance when it comes to visioning. Gratitude.

The Importance of Gratitude

When I was a kid my mom used to make me write thank you notes any time I received a gift…often before I was even able to use the gift. Did your godmother send that to you? Did you send her a thank you note? These were common refrains. To that end it has been instilled in me that if you like something and you want it to continue it only makes sense to thank the Universe. You got a new job? Thanks Universe! You got a raise? Thanks Universe! You met some really awesome person who might just be your new boo or your new best friend? Yes. Thank You. I’ll take some more of that.

So you can vision all you want, but if you can’t look around and begin to be thankful for what you already have, how can you expect the Universe to give you more? So even if you are really in a shitty stage of life. You hate your job, you’re broke, friendless, and alone, in poor health or whatever else, look around and find something to be grateful for. Because as your gratitude begins to grow you will notice that your experiences of things you can be grateful for will grow to match. It works. Seriously. If you don’t believe me, take it for a test drive. Spend a week writing down 3 things you’re grateful for every day and by the end of the week 3 will begin to seem limiting.

Advanced Gratitude: Something I started doing this year was being grateful even for shitty things. That’s right. I actually had a gratitude partner and I would write her an email at the end of the day: I’m grateful for the asshole who put a dent in my car and didn’t leave a note. I’m grateful for feeling fat in all my clothes. I’m grateful for having a job I love.

This felt weird at first. I was afraid that bring thankful for the “bad” things would bring more bad things to me, but instead what it did was it cultivated a feeling of non-attachment.  I began to just feel grateful for life. Shit happens, so do miracles…and as an excitable person I’ve been surfing these highs and lows all my life. Something good happens…my life is so wonderful! Something bad happens…why does God hate me? It’s not personal, I just take it personally. So what happens if what happens is just what happens…it’s not a result of me being naughty or nice. The Universe may be all seeing but it’s not Santa.

As I first became more aware of and then detached from this internalized understanding of my life as a meritocracy, I felt freer to vision. Because if no one is out there punishing or blessing me, then maybe no one outside of me is pulling the puppet strings that control my life. Maybe I can control my life…or even better, I can create for myself what I want to see in my life. Maybe I have actually created everything in my life, the good the bad and the ugly…and from that place of accepting my own power I realized I create something different. This is the kind of gratitude that comes with responsibility, but it’s the best kind of responsibility because even if you aren’t where you want to be, you can make different decisions.

Mental equivalent

In my mini-visioning workshop with my family my goal was not to complete anything, but rather get them started. To that end I gave them the homework of building a success resume.  A success resume is a list of the times in your life when you felt the most successful or when you succeeded in feeling the happiest or most fulfilled. These can be big moments or small…waking up in the morning next to the person you’re in love with, graduating from school, getting promoted at work, winning an award, or simply feeling great in your body. Whatever does it for you…makes your heart sing, makes your soul shout yes. I swear you have had at the very least one of these moments. In fact if you really think about it, your life is riddled with greatness, evidence that you are absolutely capable of embodying joy and accomplishing the work of having your dreams come true.

The point of creating a success resume is to establish your mental equivalent. That’s a fancy way of saying what you believe. For example I have discovered that in my mind I have a belief that getting a job is easy.  That’s right. I’ve been working since I was 15. People love paying me to do stuff. So when I became unemployed it was not as stressful as it could have been because I knew that I would find work when I needed to and I did.  In that area of my life I have confidence and ease. That is the sign of a healthy mental equivalent, a belief that is serving me well.

In other areas of my life, for example with dating, I do not have the same mental equivalent. Even though I have fallen in love and had relationships before, they have not all been what I would call successful. I’m at an age where I have gone through several waves of my friends falling in love, then getting married and now having babies. And from the outside it all looked so effortless, like figure skating. But when I tried it, well it was a like if I were to try a double axel…medical traumatizing. To that end I have realized that I have inadvertently started cultivating some negative beliefs that are not serving me well.

When a relationship ends I am filled with feelings of I fucked it up again (even when I really didn’t) and oh God I’m never going to find the guy I want (which I know is absolutely not true). Whereas when a job ends (even if it doesn’t end well…which for me, it usually does) I am usually relieved and excited for the next challenge and to make more money. I’m not stuck or holding onto why it didn’t work. I’m already in the flow.

I’m not telling you this to be self-deprecating, but to let you know that just because you are strong in one area of your life does not mean that you are strong in all areas of your life and that is okay. Start where you are. Acknowledge which of your beliefs are working for you (and which ones are not) and see if you can allow this to help boost your confidence. Your strengths are transferrable assets.

For example, if you are awesome with friendships and have deep meaningful fulfilling relationships with ease, but you are a disaster with money and perpetually broke, use your strength to set your new mental equivalent. Take the feeling of ease and prosperity that you experience in your relationships and apply it to start envisioning a new vitality in your relationship with your money. Make money your friend. Sound easy? Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s not, but every time I’ve been successful in upleveling my mental equivalent I’ve been thrilled with the result.

How do you know when you’ve upleveled?

Your vision will begin to manifest. For example, I was born premature and was often sick as a child. In fact I missed 6 whole months of my Sophmore year of high school because I was ill. My parent often said things like “you can’t take Reagan to the corner without her getting sick.” This became my belief. Then one year I had this incredible revelation that my physical health was interrelated with my mental health. I began to notice that when I got sick it was usually because I was tired and overwhelmed. It was like my body’s way of saying sit down and be quiet.

My mind and body had probably sent me this message multiple times, but I wasn’t really listening. When I got sick, I had no choice but to listen. That is a very different story than me just being a sickly kid. That is a story where I have the power to change the outcome. And so I began to make the choice

to pay attention. If I started to feel overwhelmed or tired, I took a pre-emptive day for self-care and rest.

Do I still get sick? Sometimes, but not like before. I used to get strep throat and bronchitis at least once a year. I thought it was normal. It’s not. Just recently I got a letter for my doctor saying she hasn’t seen me for 17 months. Yes I’m overdue for my well woman check up, but WOW I haven’t been sick and needed to see a doctor since 2013. For me that’s upleveling.

So I make a vision board and then what?

So you’ve made your success resume and put together this awesome collage of what you want your life to look like. Now what? There is no wrong way to proceed. Some people put it away and then look at in 6 months like a time capsule. Some look at it everyday. I’m in the look at it every day school of thought. I put my vision board in a place where I see it every time I wake up. I like to meditate with it as a focal point, but that being said, the point is not the board, it’s the vision.

Just through going through the process of thinking deeply about what you want often helps clear out the cobwebs of what you don’t want or at least provides you with a sense of clarity about where you are and where you want to be. To that end, don’t be surprised if your vision changes. Sometimes what you think you want changes.

The power of emotion

In Hawaii there is a word that they use to describe non-native Hawaiians – Haole. It translates to without breath, because when many foreigners arrived in Hawaii they didn’t know how to conduct the native greeting which involved touching noses and breathing in each other’s essence.  Though it’s commonly used when you think about it, the insult is severe, saying you have no breath, no essence, is like saying you are soulless.

Many people are Hoale about visioning. They cut out some pretty pictures. Oh here’s a nice car. Oh I like the picture of that couple kissing. Oh let me cut out this check for a million dollars. But they don’t really believe in their vision. It’s just some magazine clippings. When they look it, there is no spark, no life. When you finish your vision board you’ll know you’re done when you look at it and every part of you says YES! If you aren’t able to feel that either you need to revise your board until you do or you need to cultivate a sense of excitement. If you knew that everything you put on your board would come true, wouldn’t you be excited about it? Wouldn’t you go to bed like it was the night before the best Christmas ever?

Well it’s up to you to make it true and if that feels like too much pressure then at the very least indulge yourself in a little make believe.

Make-believe

Did you ever have an imaginary friend? I had whole imaginary worlds. Now-a-days people might diagnose it as something bad, but when I was growing up as an only child, this was called being self entertained (it’s a life skill!). Give me a my little pony, some tinker toys, and Legos and that was enough to keep me busy for hours. I also think it was the start of my obsession with fiction writing.

Fast forward I have begun to tap back into my childhood creativity to give my visioning a jump-start. Recently I became the teaching assistant for a Live Your Dreams class through the Amazing Grace Spiritual Center. It’s 40 weeks and everyone in the class supports one another to realize our dreams. Something my small group and I have done that’s been super juicy is that we began sending one another “act as if” emails where we wrote to one another from the future in which all our dreams had come true. I got letters from Paris where people were on vacation. I got letters talking about the incredible things they had achieved. One week I wrote an email every day and at the end of it one of the women in my group sent me one back asking if we were still playing or if these things had happened because what I wrote was so real! That’s not hoale. That is breathing life into your vision.

The Recap

• ·      Get clear on what you want.
• ·      Feel grateful for what you have.
• ·      Cultivate your own sense of worthiness.
• ·      Create new beliefs that support you in getting what you want.
• ·      Breathe life into your vision.

Now watch your life bloom into it’s best possible version and enjoy the ride! Feel free to post any questions or responses in the comment section below.

I'm Back!

Not to get all resolutiony about it, I’ve decided to start blogging again or more to the truth to start writing for fun again. A cool thing happened in 2015. I actually made enough money through my writing to pay for my mortgage for the first time. It was pretty momentous and a F@#! you to all the haters who ever insinuated that writing isn’t a real job and could never pay the bills. In fact writing can and did, but somehow my writing for fun time disappeared or more accurately was replaced by writing for money. Not to say that writing for money isn’t fun. It is a beautiful alchemy of two things I enjoy very much, and yet there is something about writing at my own pace, without a deadline or an editor that feels good. So here I go…

Saying Goodbye to Barbara James

Kaka with Coco

My grandma, Barbara James, passed away early yesterday morning after a long battle with an array of illnesses. She was one of the strongest and most stubborn people I've ever met and for the most part lived life on her own terms. When I was little girl I named her Kaka because I couldn't pronounce the word crackers and I had begun to associate her with the saltines she would give me when I visited. We shared a lot of mutual interests especially books and hard candy. One of my favorite memories is of her reading me the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull (still one of my favorite books). Through that book we began a lifelong conversation about perseverance. Like Jonathan we both had goals in our life that others told us would be impossible given who we were. She instilled in me from a young age a sense of self confidence and a rebel spirit. 

Mostly we spent holidays together, including the Christmas she, her friend Frances, and my mom came to visit me when I lived in Spain. Kaka was the one who taught me how to stuff a turkey. As a kid I would assist her in preparing our special holiday meals until I learned how to do it all. Then she would sit in the kitchen watching me cook, leaving me pieces of fudge on napkins and pouring sherry for my mother and I. One of our shared passions was putting decorations on the Christmas tree. During one of our last Christmases together we lost the boxes of ornaments we've been using for years (I still have no idea where they went), so we improvised. I found some silky ribbon long enough to wrap the tree and when I was finished she pronounced it the prettiest tree ever. 

 In 2010 Kaka became ill and I had the opportunity to live with her for two months while she recovered from a surgery. It was the longest time we'd spent together alone and I learned a lot about her. She didn't much care for vegetables and accused me of trying to broccoli her to death, but we both liked ice cream and Oprah. Sometimes when she was up to it she would tell me stories about her life, about meeting my grandfather and the challenges of trying to pursue a career in a place where black women were not welcome. Sometimes she was cranky and we argued, but mostly what I came to understand is that it is difficult to make a transition from being a person used to persevering and doing everything for yourself without having to ask for help to a person who needed support. Through this experience I learned compassion and grew to respect her even more for the woman she had been and the strength she still embodied.

Here is the official version of her obituary.

Barbara James, 88, of Des Moines, Iowa passed away April 2, 2015. She was born on May 21, 1926 to Pauline Humphrey and William Brown. An only child, she raised by her mother who founded Crescent Beauty School, the first black beauty school in the four surrounding states.

Barbara and Lewis on the their 25th anniversary

Barbara graduated from East High School then passed the state boards for her cosmetology certification before attending college. She completed her Bachelors of Science Degree in Physical Education and English at the University of Iowa where she met the love of her life Lewis A. James Jr. D.D.S.  They were married for 35 years before he passed away.

During her tenure at the University of Iowa, she lived in a home provided by the Iowa Colored Women’s Club because African Americans were not yet permitted to live in the dormitories.  She was the only black woman to graduate from the College of Liberal Arts in June of 1947. Upon graduating, no Iowa public school would hire her because of her race, so she moved to North Carolina where she spent a year teaching at North Carolina A&T.  Upon returning to Iowa, the field of public education was still closed to her, so she became a social worker at Polk County Welfare. She went on to receive her Masters of Science Degree in teaching from Drake University and completed further post Masters Studies at Drake University and the University of Wisconsin.

Grandma with Desmond Tutu

Barbara became an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of Teacher Corp. She spent 10 years training others to become better teachers before the Des Moines School District relented and hired her to teach junior high school English. Upon retiring Barbara continued to lead a very active life.

A very spiritual woman, Barbara was an active member of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s. She

served on the Diocesan Commission of Ministry and the Episcopal Standing Committee on Ecumenism for the National Church and was a delegate to the National Council of Churches. Barbara was a consummate bridge player, a world traveler, an avid reader, a huge football fan, a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and a writer.

She is survived by her three children, Stanlie M. James, Lewis A. James Jr., and Julie B. James, her four grandchildren, Jordan James, Reagan Jackson, Lewis James the fourth, and Kellan Michael James, and two great grandchildren.

Back row: Lewis 3, Janice, Bernice, Julie, Geraldine, Lewis 2
Front row: Barbara, Pauline, Stanlie

Her motto, given to her by her grandmother Julie Diggs was: “One monkey don’t stop the show.” Faced with many adversities Barbara was a strong willed woman who put her faith in God and always found creative ways to live her purpose and provide for her family.

A visitation and viewing will be held on the evening of Monday, April 6, from 5-7pm at Henderson Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held on Tuesday April 7 at 11am at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul 815 High St., Des Moines, Iowa 50309. Shortly preceding the funeral there will be an Omega Omega service open to any members of Delta Sigma Theta at 10am in the chapel at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. 

Another year of Reagan

It's official I am 34. This is actually day 4 of my 34th year of life. Part of me feels lucky. People ask me if I am a birthday person and I always say yes, because I always think of the friends I've lost and know that having a birthday is much better than never having one again. But another part of me wonders why my life has outpictured so much differently than I imagined it. When I was a kid I had notions. I was going to go to Spelman like my mom, and get a PhD too, maybe write some novels and become president. Something like that. And get married and have kids.I did write some books. That has to count for something right?

For what it's worth...

One of the most revolutionary ideas I'd ever heard was that my job wasn't the source of my income. I always thought that  the whole purpose of having a job was to have an income. But just that simple idea, that God is the source of my income, not my employer was so radical, so empowering. I had been unhappy in my job for nearly two years, before someone told me that and within two weeks of hearing it, I was able to transition into a position that was much better suited to what I wanted to do (and paid better too).

Lately I have spent a lot of time thinking about money and worth. Part of this is because I have been charged with organizing all the Walmart solidarity actions for the state of Washington during the Bentonville Strike. In leafletting Walmart I was met with a myriad of responses. Some employees were very receptive and excited that other employees were banding together to make change and to demand better working conditions. And some were very hostile. One woman in Mt. Vernon made a point to tell us we were way out of line and that it was none of our business how Walmart treated it's employees. She was the first lower level store employee I have ever heard defend their wage and it kind of threw me for a loop. Some of the managers make really great salaries, but for the most part the hourly employees are at or slighly above the minimum wage. Here in WA we have the highest minimum wage in the US, $9.19 which is still barely enough to make ends meet.

I don't mean to keep harping on Walmart, actually this post is not about Walmart, but rather about what people think they deserve. What I am realizing is that everyone has a different idea about what they are worth. Salaries are just one way that it's expressed. What is "good enough" for one person might be wonderful for someone else, or insulting. I once interviewed for a position where I would be running programs for a non-profit. The salary was competitive and the programs were very compelling, but then the funding for the position dried up. I was then invited to reapply for the position, but as an AmeriCorp volunteer. Sure the job itself would have been the same, but I couldn't imagine getting up everyday and working my ass off just to be eligible for food stamps. That is certainly not why I got my MA degree. But isn't that reality. Do the people who work low wage jobs work less hard? Is 8 or 10 or 12 hours of their time away from their families really worth so much less? Just something on my mind...

Why This Fight is My Fight

Month 5 of being a community organizer. It’s well past quitting time for the day and I’m in a cramped conference room at the library in Federal, Way with a bunch of Walmart associates who are getting ready to get on a bus for a cross country road trip to Bentonville Arkansas. There is an air of excitement mixed with a buzz of electric anxiety. Striking is a total “oh shit” moment. Jobs are on the line. It’s a moment of overcoming fear and anchoring the deep conviction that what you believe in is more important than what you have been taught to be afraid of. For most of the people who work at Walmart there is no huge financial safety net to fall back on. So this is serious.


At the end of a round of introductions, one woman raises her hand and asks: “For those of you Community Organizers who never worked for Walmart, why are you here?”

Strangely this is the first time I’ve been asked this question. Almost 10 years ago I watched the High Cost of Low Prices and I have been a staunch Walmart hater ever since. The more I’ve learned the more I’ve been disgusted. No one in my circle of friends or family even batted an eye when I told them I would spend the next 6 months taking on Walmart. I’ve never had to justify it before and don’t know where to start. Luckily another organizer starts to answer.

She talks about all of her family having similar poverty wage jobs and growing up and being treated poorly in her job. One by one the other organizer tell the same story. They talk about this fight being a fight for their family and friends, for themselves.

This is my fight, but this is not my story. I never worked at Walmart. In fact I grew up in mostly urban communities where there was no Walmart. I haven’t had a minimum wage job since high school and after getting two degrees, I haven’t even had an hourly job for several years. I make a good living and so do most of the people in my family. But when I wake up in the morning lately Walmart is on my mind.

In the end I didn’t have to answer the question for the group, but I can’t escape needing to answer it for myself. Why is this fight my fight?

I could talk to you about the facts. I could tell you that the average Walmart super center is costing tax payers $1 million dollars a year because the employees there get paid so little that they rely on welfare and foodstamps to get by. I could tell you about the numerous lawsuits that Walmart has had to settle when women and particularly women of color have been faced with systemic discrimination and not been able to advance in their careers. I could talk about the $81 million dollar settlement Walmart just had to pay out because of their crimes against the environment in California. I could even talk to you about meeting Sumi Abedin a survivor of the Tazreen Fashions Factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers that supplied clothing for Walmart.

But really what I would be trying to express is that there are some things that cannot be ignored, some injustices that can not be allowed to continue and for me Walmart’s standard business practices are beyond deplorable. No I don’t work at Walmart. I don’t even shop there, but I am still impacted every single day whether I admit it or not. Walmart has become the new business model that others want to replicate, but in doing so they are perpetuating a trend of poverty wage jobs that keep people stuck. This is not the world I want to help create. I want the legacy of my generation to be that we leave behind a prosperous economy where workers are valued and treated with the respect that they deserve.

So why Walmart? Because Walmart is everywhere, in countries around the world. They set a standard that others follow. What gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I can also help to set a standard that others will follow. I can put my skills and degrees to use as an advocate for self-empowerment. Standing up to live better may sound like a clever catch phrase, but to me it has become so much more. There is a light that comes on in someone’s eyes when they realize that they are worth more, that they deserve to be treated well and to work in jobs where their work is valued and respected. And once that spark catches, it spreads and it creates transformation. Sometimes it is a fragile fire. People let their fears stamp it out. Who wouldn’t be afraid when you have a family to feed? These jobs aren’t hobbies, many associates depend on Walmart for their livelihood and I never want to jeopardize that for anyone. But once associates take that first step and face their fears, everything begins to change.

Change is the nature of life. If you don’t change you die, but the way that Walmart has been changing lately has brought about several deaths both literally and figuratively. Literally if you’ve been watching the news about Bangladesh you know the death toll grows daily from the factory collapse to the numerous factory fires in locations where Walmart has not taken responsibility for creating safe work conditions. But the other murders are also insidious, the death of sustainable wage jobs, of employment with dignity, or fair treatment from management. It is truly time to stand up to live better and if standing beside someone helps them to have the courage to speak up for what they deserve, then I am honored to contribute to this fight.

Sumi Abedin, Me, Kalpona Akter at End Death Traps Rally Renton, WA

Bangladesh: Why should we care?

Last week I spent the afternoon with seventh and eighth graders at Pinehurst Alternative School. I was invited, along with the Executive Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition to talk to the youth about the End Death Traps Tour we coordinated last month. For those of you who missed the article, Seattle was privileged to be one of the 12 cities visited by former garment workers and activists Sumi Abedin and Kalpona Akter.


Sumi is a survivor from the Tazrene Fashion’s factory fire that killed 112 last November. Kalpona is a long time labor activist and the Director of the Center for Bangladeshi Worker’s rights. You might have seen her picture in the New York Times standing in the burnt out remnants of the factory and holding up the fade glory label jacket as proof that Walmart clothing was produced there (they denied this initially). We shared some video footage of the forum that took place at the University of Washington last month where Kalpona talked about the fire and also about the labor challenges in Bangladesh.

Why should we care about what happens in Bangladesh? We asked the students to take a moment to look at the labels on their clothing. Just within one classroom there were labels from Vietnam, Honduras, China, Indonesia, and yes Bangladesh. Bangladesh is second only to China for the amount of clothing it produces for export. In the world we live in, globalization is the norm. We are a part of a supply chain that links us together with a wide variety of exporting countries. The question now becomes are we responsible for each link of the chain or just what happens in this country?

Since 2006, over 600 people have been killed in factory fires in Bangladesh. That number does not include the body count from the fire that happened just hours ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/world/asia/new-fatal-fire-at-bangladesh-clothes-maker.html?_r=2& ) or the more than 1,000 people who were killed in the building collapse two weeks ago. At the end of our presentation, one of the seventh graders raised her hand to say that while she had learned all this information before, seeing Kalpona speak gave those numbers a face. I hope you will take a moment to think about the people behind the numbers, because when you do, I think you will come to the same conclusion that those seventh and eighth graders did…that yes, we are responsible.

There are many things in life that we can’t change, but these fires are preventable. People do not need to die in order to make our clothes. Moreover they don’t need to work in poverty either. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is $37 per month, which works out to roughly 18cents per hour. Now there is a difference in the cost of living, but even still most Bangladeshi’s would need double that to survive. How much do jeans at the Gap cost? Clearly there is money in the industry that is not trickling down to either the garment workers or towards building safety standards. We, as consumers have the power to advocate for change. Kalpona and Sumi were very clear in stating that they do not want us to boycott Bangladeshi clothing because even poverty wage jobs are better than no jobs at all. But there is one thing we can do. We can call for Gap, Walmart, and all the other major corporations to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement.

United Students Against Sweatshops and other organizations have already begun pressuring the Gap locally in Seattle with the support of many important community allies. They will be continuing throughout the summer, just as we will be continuing to work on Walmart. Next week Walmart associates from around the country will be caravanning to Bentonville for Walmart’s annual shareholder’s meeting. To follow their efforts check out the Making Change at Walmart facebook page. Also to find out more about what USAS is up to check out http://gapdeathtraps.com to learn about our national efforts.

Day 17 of my 30/30

Dear Random Man dancing on the corner of Orcas and Beacon Ave S.,


Hallelujah! I thought I was the only one to hear the music. No one else tapped a toe, snapped a finger. They waz all spines vertical and hips horizontal, bearing stoic crosses on the trudge towards coffee. But me, I woke up to disco balls flashing glitter against the blacks of my eyelids, and they didn’t dissipate in the bright tangerine of dawn. The beat grew stronger, a robust and complicated rhythm jiggling through my thighs, fluffing up my hair. I felt maracas in my kidneys, tambourines in the slap of my heels, trumpets in my pancreas, trombones down the line of my shin bones. I woke up with violins in my liver, not that mopey longing stringing things, I mean mariachi staccato leaps. My toes were wiggling piano keys. Thank God you can hear it too! Feel the marimbas fluttering up through shoulders. Shake it. Pop and lock it. Shimmy like a Christmas jello mold. Let the vibe wail out like a joy siren. Are we the only two people who got the memo? We can’t be the only ones on earth to wake up to this miracle. Keep dancing Sir and I will too and maybe they’ll start to hear it. Maybe it’ll sneak up on them, their mouths curled up at the corners, getting all crinkly around the eyes, that tell tale sign that this beat is contagious.

Power of My Word Poems

These poems were written as a final project for a class called the Power of My Word. Power of My Word was the second to last pre-req before I can begin practioner studies through Amazing Grace, a church of Religious Science (not the same as scientology). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and it was an awesome place to grow up. I am not like my recovery Catholic friends. I don't wake up in a cold sweat freaking out about all the things I am doing to write my one way ticket to hell. But I did hit a point with the Episcopal church, where service didn't feel the same. I began to become numb. The words that held so much value to me as a kid lost some of their magic and all those question that I never really felt got answered...well they were still there for me.

Fast forward several years. I found myself at the Center for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science and after that one service it took me 6 months before I was ready to go back. I like it. It was powerful, but it was also kind of overwhelming. So over the last few years I have been easing my way into the church and into a deeped understanding of the teachings of Ernest Holmes. One thing I love, is that I am encouraged to question, to find my own answers, to wrestle with what I believe. These poems are expressions of what thoughts I've been working through lately.

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner
she said of what?
and I answered Religious Science
and there was a silence
that filled the spaces between us like a canyon,
a breath that rattled days, whole seasons
of inhale and exhale
a stillness etched in rock and color
river water and wind,
with a sky on time lapse,
night and day of slow dancing clouds
gathering and releasing rain
for the simple gentle beauty
of completing another cycle
before she asked:
But what does that mean?
I’m going to be a professional prayer
I told her.
And there was again the loving silence
of a parent whose child
has just expressed an improbable dream
like being the first Black American Queen of England
or a democratic president of the NRA.
No one wants to say
No Sweetheart, you can’t fly with paper wings,
on the off chance that just this once
they will lift and bend beyond law
to the higher nature of children’s dreams
but no one wants
to be the parent that didn’t explain gravity well enough
to keep their child from leaping from the roof.
I had seen this look before,
the measured belief tempered with a healthy skepticism,
a mommy pragmatism
that is always followed up with gentle reminders
about mortgages to pay and how health insurance
is really a great thing to have.
I felt the weight of doubt then,
What is this thing I have been called to do?
Do I even understand it enough to achieve it?
The intersection of mind and spirit,
law, word, and speaking truth into experience.
I imagine myself like Oprah
praying forth new cars and dream vacations,
the squeal of elation,
the jumping up and down
of my own captive audience,
or a Houdini
disappearing need
with flashy hand claps and tambourines.
I might need a theme song
and a roving band of musicians,
at minimum a chorus of Hallelujah girls
to punctuate the miracle
of every shimmering, gold star treatment.
But what happens is very quiet.
Within the canyons of gentle space surrounding
the field of my dream,
the No is carefully withheld
a deep swirling measure of glitter swells
with the in breath
before my mother tells me:
Well that’s cool.
If you blinked
you might have missed it,
but I didn’t.
Another answered prayer to check off the list.

On Praying
There is a part of me that is afraid of getting what I really want. Call it superstition. Knit evil eye covers and toss salt over left shoulder. Genies are never to be trusted. And wishes, carefully meted. No one wants the Midas touch, or to pray for rain from drought only to call in floods. And yet there is a want in me, a river I shade with palm fronds to muffle the rapids, to make it look smaller than it really is. But this water is deep within me and never still, a rushing of please and yes. I don’t want to want too much, don’t want my need to run naked through the streets flashing all my insecurities. To pray is to admit to longing. I would rather these unpleasantries be handled discreetly in back alley way deals with devils and demigods, with contractual agreements that mitigate things like miracles, place reasonable limits to what you can expect so that no one can say you didn’t know what you were getting. I’m not sure anymore if I am more afraid to be surprised by my good or by my bad, it is the never knowing that haunts me. The best surprise is no surprise, but that is the one that never shows up. Do I wade now? Baptize myself in the truth of what is missing then call on sun to dry me on the shores when I am made new and ready to receive? Or do I stay in the forest of my discontent another season? Place my bets on just enough to get by.
Some thoughts on God
How I wish you were a vending machine
filled with Tahitian vacations and diamond chokers,
a huggable life-sized Snuggle bear
that would pull me into your embrace on bad days
or better yet, a magical remote control to stop and pause
rewind and recreate my life until it is just right,
movie perfect and Hollywood happy ending worthy.
But you are God with a capital G
and I neither understand you
nor feel your hand in mine.
I might have seen you before,
from the corner of my eye,
the flint of you,
felt the warmth of your breath
at the nape of my neck.
You have made the hair there raise up in surprise,
But every time I turn to see you
You are not where I think you will be.
I am tired of hide and seek.
You win.
Ollie Ollie Oxen free,
Come out and explain to me
What this all means,
This messy hodge podge of miracles and disease,
Of free will and destiny
Can you just tell me
PLEASE
I promise I won’t be pissed
At the spoiler.
The Release
Letting go is the hardest part,
I think I am,
but hands and mind and heart are sticky with want
gooey with greed for things un-promised.
I can name and claim
with the best of them,
stand in knowing and gratitude abundant,
but I don’t want my prayers to disappear.
Once they’re out of eye sight
I get nervous,
like a babysitter with roving toddlers.
There are sockets to stick fingers in,
fragile plants to knock over.
Every time I close my eyes
I know my prayers are
falling down stairs or wandering into traffic,
swallowing bleach and playing with matches.
I need to gather them back to me
to make sure they’re okay
then I might venture to send them out again
when they are a little older
a bit more developed.

Joy...

My poetry is always kind of gritty. The Leader of my spiritual community recently described it as something that will make you laugh, cry, and sometimes want to punch somebody in my face. I took that as a great compliment, though I would like to expand my emotional range to the other side of the spectrum. It's not always easy to talk about dark things, to be sad, angry, or hurt on paper, but harder still is trying to capture and translate joy, happiness, elation. Maybe it's because I understand happiness less, whereas I am intimately familiar with depression, rejection, and rage...plus it makes for compelling writing. But as I explore the power of my word, I have learned how to purge. I have learned how to use my writing as a forum to release my demons, but now I would like to start invoking my good. I want joy to resonate. I want peace, fulfillment, a sense of happy expectancy to vibrate out...so I guess I have to get to writing.

Being a Plus-Sized Diva

Where I work we have cubicals. I know this is a somewhat standard practice, but I don't think I've ever worked in a place with cubicals before. I sit in a block of six. There are three of us Organizers and three Reps. Store reps, by the nature of their job aren't at their desks very often. They are the people who visit the stores and make sure workers are being respected by management...actually I am discovering that they do way more than that, but I digress. The reps come and go and we say hi to each other when they are around, but it has been a very slow process getting to know them, given their schedules.

The Rep closest to me is a black woman too. We've discovered that we live near one another and have some things in common. She is a person who really cares a lot for her members. Sometimes she gets sad. I watch her fight for them. I see her struggle. Sometimes she goes all day without eating because she just keeps working. I have taken to leaving fruit on her desk from time to time, just to remind her to eat. A few days ago I left a poem on her desk to remind her to breathe...it's a poem I wrote a few months ago after the Oscars when the Onion called a 9 year old black girl a cunt. It was a bad day for me as a black woman. I took it really personally, so I wrote a piece called On Being Black and a Butterfly which is kind of my homage to self love. Well she really liked it, and instead of rushing off to work, she lingered to talk to me.

Somehow we got on the subject of weight. She is a self proclaimed Plus-Sized Diva. I have always been weird about my weight. It exists, but I would prefer not to talk about it. I was like that 40 lbs ago, even when I was in shape and practically lean and I am certainly like that now that I am growing into my roundness. I have never once considered myself a plus-sized diva. I've seen Monique on tv making her jokes and wearing her fabulous clothes and while I admired her, I never really thought about it as something I could relate to. But when my friend said it, when she claimed it the way she did, I thought well why not? Why not celebrate where I'm at today, the beauty I am rocking this moment as opposed to holding my breath, sucking in my stomach and saying well I'll be a Diva once I lose that 40lbs. What if I never lose weight? Will I forever be waiting to feel good about my body?

I guess before I thought when women said that it was like a defense mechanism, but when she said it, it didn't feel defensive, it felt peaceful, like she was really the person who should be leaving poems on my desk to remind me that self love is an iterative process, and ongoing initiative that I have lots to learn about. So today I am a Plus Sized Butterfly (Diva still doesn't quite resonate with me-I don't think it will in 40lbs either, so I claiming my own terminology). I am a woman of consequence, a beauty of grand proportions, thick and curvy...and beautiful.  

Absolution

Forgiveness. Yes. It's a concept. It exists. My recovering Catholic friends tell me that Jesus will absolve you of all your sins if you just admit them and say you're sorry. And it's not a one time thing. You can do the same bullshit over and over again and still get right with the Lord. Though I am not sure if they even really believe that. And Jesus is usually not the person I feel like I need forgiveness from anyway.

Here is my deep dark secret. I have hurt people, really cool people, people I love. And I realize that intent is irrelevant. I realize it because they have hurt me too, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident and the end result is exactly the same-total suckage.

So now what?What happens when you have confessed your sins and apologized? How do you move forward? How can you trust those other people not to hurt you again? How can you trust yourself not to hurt them either? They say scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body, but no one talks about the fact that it is rigid, that it doesn't bend the way the unwounded areas do, and there is strength in flexibility. So I have started to pray, as though this might stretch my scars. I pray for true mutual forgiveness, for freedom from suckage, for protection from future hurts, for unicorns, and winning lottery tickets. And so far, no lotto.

How long does absolution take? Is it coming? Can I put my ear to the rails and listen for the rumble like an oncoming train? Just wondering...

Love and Guatemala: The Launch

Thanks again to everyone who came out for my book launch. It was an awesome experience to be able to share my work and little of what went into it. Love and Guatemala is a collection of poetry and one not very short story written over the course of several years. The Guatemala section was written as a part of one of my five trips to Guatemala. The love section are just my from time to time poems. The story was inspired by David Levithan, one of my favorite authors and editors. Here is the video of my launch. Special thanks to Jeff Jordan for filming and of course to Rev Allen Mosely and the Amor Spiritual Center for hosting not only my launch, but also my monthly writer's group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2vCH4AkpgE

My Evening With The Missionaries

Last night I went to a friend’s house and met some missionaries. As a rule, I tend to avoid any situation that involves religious proselytizing, but I really wanted to see my friend and her baby and if that meant hearing the spiel so be it. It was actually very interesting. The missionaries were a husband and wife who had “so much love in their heart for the Cambodian people” that they moved to Cambodia 12 years ago to spread the message of Jesus. This is usually the time when my more sarcastic, social justice self righteousness kicks into hyper drive and I am internally sermonizing about the objectification of brown people and the fallacy of the great white savior come to heal the brown heathens. But as I said, I was in the home of a friend, so I chose to suspend my skeptical annoyance long enough to really consider the merits of what this couple had chosen to do with their life.


They started by trying to help Cambodian Christians strategize for how to get the word out about Christ, but through their work they realized that there were other pressing issues facing the Cambodian people, such as lack of literacy, basic hygiene standards, and the proliferation of human trafficking. They talked about how other White people had visited areas of rural Camobia theoretically to provide the community with food and clothing, then they asked the villagers to sign letters verifying they had received the donations. Being illiterate, they were allowed to simply ink their thumbprints, but in doing so they were not signing the documents that had been explained to them, they were signing away their land rights. A few weeks later, they were forcible removed from their homes by White People using their very thumbprints as evidence that their land did not belong to them anymore. Familiar story?

So the couple began hosting literacy classes and eventually started their own orphanage. They also teach adults how to lead groups and they prep Cambodians to educate other Cambodians about the dangers of sex trafficking.

While I may not agree with their need to Christianize Cambodia, I have to admit that I was touched by their sincerity and also it sounds to me like they might actually be making a difference. They are following a calling, but I suspect it is one that is much deeper than spreading religion. They are spreading literacy and self empowerment, which to me seems even more important and special.

Why is it so hard to see your own footprint? To have a genuine understanding of the ripple you are making on the world? As I am preparing for my book launch tomorrow, I have been in long conversations with a number of supportive friends. I have come to realize that what I am doing, in choosing to self publish my work and teaching others to self publish, has already had a much greater impact than I ever anticipated. People are telling me that I am inspiring them to follow their dreams. I don’t know about all that, but it is my hope that I can walk through my life with some measure on integrity and that even my mistakes might somehow make sense in the long view of things. I guess we’ll see.

Wal-Mart: Seeing evil for what it is

I start my morning most days by reading everything that has been written in the last 24 hours about Wal-Mart. Needless to say it's often not the most upbeat way to start the day. This week it's been bribery scandals in Mexico, empty shelves here in the States, and of course their lawsuit against UFCW for helping workers to stand up for themselves. The articles change, but the core thread the runs through all of them is that here in our country exists an entity, a multi-billion dollar company that is so vast it has literally saturated the US rural market and additionally become such a huge part of the supply chain that it actually dictates what standards of pay and condititions will be set internationally. That is almost unfathomable power. And to quote Uncle Ben from Spider Man "With great power comes great responsibility."

Here lies the problem. Wal-Mart does not take responsibility, not for it's workers stateside, and certainly not for it's workers internationally. My grandma and I have often argued over the fact that she shops at Wal-Mart. She says as a senior citizen on a medicare budget, she simply cannot afford to shop elsewhere. This makes me sad, partly because Wal-Mart's brand is so strong that my own grandma, a highly educated woman will not do the research to discover that prices are comparable at other stores, but also because in shopping there she has become complicit in maintaining a class of working poor. Wal-Mart markets itself an advocate for the working class...a place where the fiscally challenge can find everyday low prices, but at what costs.

Here are somethings I have learned from my daily Wal-Mart briefings:

• The average wage of a Wal-Mart worker is $8.81 an hour. (compare to Costo which pays $11 starting)
• The majortiy of employees are part time.
• Scheduling is done by favoritsm and is not transparent making it difficult for people to arrange childcare or attend school.
• Wal-Mart has lost of settled lawsuits totalling in the billions from employees who have been discriminated against on the basis of their race and gender. (Side note: Just yesterday I met a man who was a manager a local Wal-Mart for 2 years and was asked to fire a black female employee who has been exemplary in every way, and even sold $200,000 worth of jewelry the week prior. When he refused, he was pulled into an office and berated. The employee he refused to fire was attacked with racist epitaths. They both quit.)
• Wal-Mart has also been sued (and lost) by customers who have been racially profiled...there was a case in one Alabama store where Mexican American customers were being asked to produce docements to prove that they were legal residents before being allowed to shop at Walmart.
• The majority of Wal-Mart employees are not eligible for healthcare due to their part time status and those that are can't afford it due to astronomical premiums.
• Wal-Mart employees make up the greatest population of people draining our social resources within the state of Washington. That's right, they are paid so poorly that they qualify for federal assistance. This is actually a national issue, not just local.
• Workers internationally are paid even less and do not have OSHA regulated working conditions as evidenced in the Tazrene fire that killed 112 Bangladeshi workers whose families have still not received one dime of remuneration...not to mention those who survived.

I could go on at length, but the picture is pretty clear. So now what? We have the David and Goliath battles. There are employees and organizations not affiliated with Wal-Mart who are coming together to try to raise awareness about these issues, but change is hard fought and not easily obtained. Every few days I read something positive about Wal-Mart. They are bringing grocery stores to food deserts, hiring Veterans, buying products from women owned businesses, but I can't erase the rest of it. Because while these things are happening, Wal-Mart has invested more money in frivilous lawsuits and meaningless PR than in listening to it's employees. While Costco and Trader Joes are advocates for a higher minimum wage, Wal-Mart has done everything it can to lobby against it.

And what it all comes to down to for me is compassion. Behind every organization or corporation, no matter how large, are simply people. Wal-Mart was started by one man, Sam Walton, who had a vision of helping people save a dollar. And it is being continued by his family and the board of trustees. So just this once, I want to put aside the adversarial tone and implore that we get beyond greed and defensiveness to the basics of human necesities. We all need food, water, and shelter...and in this wealthy country, we have the capacity to provide this for every single person. Moreover the majority of us aren't asking for these necesities to be free. We are willing and able to work. But another basic right that often goes unstated is respect. The members of OUR Walmart, more than asking for just economic compensation for the work that they do which makes the Waltons their daily billions, are also asking that they be treated like human beings. And the evil I see, the sadness of my morning reading is that they have not been met with compassion. They have not been met with basic humanity. They have been severly mistreated then told that if they don't like it they should just get over it because that is the cost of low prices.

I guess, for me, it's just too expensive to shop at Wal-Mart.

Lessons learned from my magnolia tree

Last week we had that one sunny day. In Seattle this is akin to Jesus coming to visit. There is that kind of buzz. People don't even say hi to you, they say "Oh my God isn't it beautiful," as a greeting. And if you glance around the office, you will notice that you are probably alone or stuck with some pretty miserable people, because everyone else is outside. It's seriously that deep.
And then it went back to that colorless sky, on again off again chilly rain that is our perpetual default. I would be annoyed except, if you've ever been here you know it's not an ordinary gray. Seattle is too beautiful even on a blah day, that perfect alchemy of green with water and mountains and a killer cityscape skyline. I digress.

So it was another one of those gray days when I stepped out onto my back porch juggling all my work crap, trying like hell to make it to the car, when I noticed my Magnolia tree. Just the day before it had been barren. Now suddenly it was decked out with porcelain looking buds, silky white but blush wine colored at the base. It was enough to pull me out of my morning mania. When did that happen? How did I miss it?

One day it was winter and now, my grass is growing again and the blackberry bush is puffing out, threatening to take over my whole back yard. And I wonder about the comparable processes in my life, all the unseen unfelt evolution within me. I want to wake up tomorrow budding, ripe to bloom. I want to wake up with so much beauty within me that it can no longer be contained by any semblance of barreness. Rumi says flowers celebrate by falling apart...I don't want to get that far overjoyed, if anything I am hoping more to fall together, connect all the pieces of what I want, what I love, who I am and what I do to make a perfect blossom of divine right purpose and soul prosperity.

Satisfaction Guaranteed?

I get to this point in my day where all my meetings are finished, my high priority tasks are complete, and there is still work to be done, but it’s nothing that I can’t do tomorrow. That’s when I get into trouble. Idle hands you know…and internet access. But today instead of spending the next two hours killing brain cells on facebook, I’d like to pose the question: Is this all there is?

Seriously. I finished high school, then college, and kicking and screaming even made it through grad school, all with the mantra looping in my head that this was what I needed to do in order to have a successful career. I mean unless you’re Bill Gates or Kanye West, drop-outs tend to have some tough prospects. But here is the thing, maybe there is one thing they got right, both Gates and West made a choice to pursue their passions.

Me, I made the choice to go to school, even after years of re-discovering all the ways in which being a student is not my passion. But it was all worth it right? Just out of grad school I landed a prestigious job with a nice title, an office with a window, and even an assistant. But it was terrible and at the end of two years I transitioned into a less prestigious, but better paying job, which was great, for a while. But then I got bored and I got this nagging voice in my head that said “Is this really why you spent all that time and money on grad school?” So I went on my big vision quest, took 7 months to travel and lounge, meditate, eat good food, visit friends, work on my novel, and really decide what to do.

I came back and landed my “dream job” with better pay, a better title, free trips to Guatemala, and a chance to really be that international education nerd I had studied to be. In some ways it was awesome, in others it was not, and for the longest time I worked hard to really make it work. And it did, until it didn’t. And then once again I walked right into another job. And I like it. I’m learning a lot, I love my co-workers, and I have a lot of opportunities to meet different people. BUT. There is always a but.

Is this what the next 30 years is going to be like? Get up, go to the gym, eat healthy, go to my job, sometimes love it, sometimes be bored out of my mind, live for the weekends, get melancholy on Mondays. Repeat until retirement. Um, I might need some Prozac or a mojito…or a case of mojitos and some chocolate cake. I don’t know what it would take to make me feel better about this. But that’s life right? That’s what everyone says it’s supposed to be.

Still there is a part of me that keeps crying out for more. Not just more money or less time at work, just more…more joy, more excitement, more fulfillment. I want to make a difference and I feel like day by day I do things that resonate. I contribute to my community, but somehow even this isn’t enough. Am I the only one out there with this insatiable need to live a life that isn’t just about struggling to make it to 5:00pm?