Shining the Light

Recently I have been really thinking hard about shining the light. Anyone who grew up with any kind of Christian Background has probably heard the song "This Little Light of Mine". Well something I learned kind of early on is to moderate the shine. Some shine is nice, but if you shine too brightly, haterism rears it's ugly head. And this has lead to a lot of self silencing and subsequent self doubt. Perhaps that's why it felt so healing to take part in my little school's talent show...not as the light, but as the light bringer.

This year I was charged with the task of organizing a multitude of talented and energetic little people into a show which meant screening acts and bringing order to the chaos. At my school there are kids who sing, play the piano, the guitar, the violin...there are kids who like to act and one very awesome forth grader who is obsessed with Michael Jackson. When you put it all together it made for a fabulous show. Objectively some kids were a little more skillful in their light shining than others, but just the fact that they all had the courage to get out there and do their thing was inspiring. I was inspired. So inspired that I decided to audition for Jesus Christ Super Star...and I made the cast which means I will be singing and dancing and shining my light on stage at the Center for Spiritual Living on April 2 at 7:00pm. Can't wait!

Fearless Surrender (Step 5)

Be fearless in your pursuit of the light
walk bravely the night at your back
the dawn of surrender breaking across your naked face
morning, like Beloved bloomed anew
fearless, like the warrior
who knows that everyday is a good day to die,
but that today isn't everyday,
it is the day that is meant
for the living
ripe for the choosing
still with the peace
that isn't battle won
but born of forgiving
giving of yourself,
your soul,
living with each breath
the miracle unfolding
that there is nothing to fear
in a life
illuminated.

A Room Full of Sisters: My next show...

"A Room Full of Sisters"
An Exhibit Celebrating the Culture of Women
February 21 - March 28
Artist Reception
First Thursday March 4
5:30PM-7:30PM

C Art Gallery will feature the exhibit "A Room Full of Sisters" February 21 - March 28 with an artist reception Thursday March 4, 2010 recognizing the diversity of women and celebrating Women's History Month. The exhibit presents the work of 17 artists in various mediums and is inspired by Washington State Poet Laureate Mona Lake Jones poem "A Room Full of Sisters".

Artists featured in the exhibit include; Beverly Shaw Starkovich, Sue Gill Rose, Jacqui Beck, Esperanza Grundy, Eric D. Salisbury, Shirley Rudolf, Mary Mac Dahlke, Cheryl Richey, Jennifer Tucker, Jane Mayer, Mimi Boothby, Deborah Espinosa, Karen Champion, Noura El-Kordy, Lita Kenyan, Judith Smith and Reagan Jackson.

C Art Gallery is located at 855 Hiawatha Place South, Seattle. The mission of the gallery is to expose and promote artists of different cultural backgrounds to diverse audiences. Gallery hours are Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday 3pm-7pm, Sunday 12pm-5pm and by appointment. For more information visit www.cartgallery.net or call 206-322-9374.

To love you...

I will build
statues to my anger
monuments of rage
tumultuous wrath,
stone pillared totems
in remembrance
of everything
I had to surrender
to love you...

Today's Spiritual Homework: Forgiveness, letting go, loving even when you don't want to. I'm trying, but there is no try, only do and I find myself at a crossroads. Growing up black in America,especially growing up me in America, a 4th generation outspoken black feminist woman with too much education for her own good, is no easy feat. I still have so far to grow. Maybe I've read to much or lived too much. Maybe I've taken it all too personally, the history, my understanding of when and where I enter, but here I am at this moment in time where I am being called to give up something, something I should be happy to get rid of, something that lives with me always. My challenge is to forgive, to release, to let go and let scars be healed,let myself be made whole, but I don't know how and even as my anger is all consuming and destructive, it is mine, a familiar companion on my life journey. Without it, I don't know who I'll be.

I have a history, a genetic make up and a corresponding story about how I became this black American, and beyond the broader script I have a very personal relationship to my identity. When some racist asshole makes a comment to me, I don't want to forgive him. I want to hate him. I don't want to be the bigger person. And yes, it's fucking personal. How can it not be? But I also know it poisons me and that holding onto pain is why black Americans have higher rates of hyper tension, diabetes, and heart disease than anyone else. We are literally dying from all the hatred we absorb,so logically, intellectually, I know that it is in my best interest to learn how to do this thing, to learn to let it go. But there is some part of me that doesn't want to. Is that crazy?

Today I choose the other part of me...perhaps equally crazy, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting something different. I'm ready for something new. I'm ready to move on now.

The Alchemy of Turning Dreams into Gold

When I tell you I don't want to work anymore,
please don't laugh at me
and say...yeah well who does,
because then I will turn around and tell you the truth
that you do
You must want to work,
even though you bitch about it all damn day,
you must want to
because why else do it?
For the money?
Slavery was outlawed years ago
and yet indentured servitude for medicare
is still socially acceptable
the legal drug of choice
that stunts your growth
and grows this cancer of codependency
Who are you if you aren't your job?
Without your title, your business cards, the fancy nameplate...
When people ask you what you do,
do you ever answer I live?
If you did would it be true?

It's official. I've signed my written notice of intent, the intention being to leave my beautiful little school to venture out into the unknown. Why? Because I no longer feel like I'm serving my higher purpose in this job. It's not like last time. I am not in an untenable position in a job that is robbing me of my soul. I love where I work and I love the people I work with, most especially my kids, but I also feel like I'm ready for something new. I want to write and paint and travel. I want to finish my novel and visit new countries. Usually at this point in my "I want" list someone interrupts me to say "That's great, but how are you going to afford it?". Answer: I don't know. I haven't discovered the magic behind the trick that turns dreams and vision into gold...but rather than commit myself to another year of wishing I had more time to do the things I love, another year of not working to my potential, another year of not serving my highest good, I am committing to figuring out how to really live, and live well. Crazy? Maybe....but then again isn't it crazy to spend 30 years committed to something that makes you miserable, so you can save up money and then retire and be too old to do all things you dreamed you would in that distant 'one day'...my 'one day' begins on July 1, 2010.

In the meantime, my books are now available at several Seattle store including Not a number of 45th, Open Door A Poem Emporium also on 45th,The Center for Spiritual Living Bookstore at 75th and Sand Point Way, and soon Santoro's bookstore...plus on line at amazon.com.

God, Hair, Love, and America.

My word for 2010 is fruition...to bear fruit, realization. And so my last act of 2009 and my first of 2010 was to finally complete my first book! It's called God, Hair, Love, and America and you can get it at www.amazon.com or if you're in Seattle at the Center for Spiritual Living Bookstore.

God, Hair, Love, and America is a collection of poetry written over the course of 2008/2009, during which time I was still slamming and in general moved to write. It includes 24 full length poems and 6 haiku and is divided into four themed sections...hence the title. God, Hair, Love,and America are often the inspirations fueling my creative works.

Last Saturday, at the Hidmo, during Ladies' First, a monthly fundraiser for the Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), my book was released. I read 6 poems to a packed audience and it was absolutely an amazing experience to look out at a room full of people, many of who I love dearly, who had come to hear what I had to say. 2010 for me is all about using my voice. I'm here, I'm ready, and finally those dream seeds planted so long ago are coming to fruition. Thanks to everyone for all the support.

What's next? This is the year I finish my novel....stay tuned for details.

On my mind...

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be who I am. There are so many ways to define me. I am a black woman, a feminist, an educator, a writer, a painter, a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a friend, a lover, an activist, a singer, a life-longer learner, and so much more.Like everyone, I walk around with this layered cacoon of who I think I am, who I think you think I am, who society says I am, who my friends and enemies and coworker say I am...and then there is that spiritual side of me who likes to think that there is a piece of God in me also defining me. But until recently this in-dwelling spirit was just a theory, something I wanted to believe, had even professed as a belief, but that hadn't quite sunk in.

Then something happened to really change my heart. Shortly before Christmas, my grandmother suffered a massive stroke. She had just arrived to visit my mother...we had planned on spending Christmas together, and we did, but it was not the trip any of us had in mind. The stroke hit her in her speech center. I arrived a week after the initial stroke to find a person I barely recognized. Her face had fallen. Her eyes were dull and there was no spark of recognition what so ever. She didn't know me. She didn't look or act or even talk like the person I've known since I was born, she was this stranger, a terribly ill stranger in intensive care. She couldn't really speak well either. Sometimes she would become upset and she would start to talk, but the words that came out were unrecognizable.

I didn't know what to pray for. I wanted my grandmother back. I wanted her to just wake up and snap back into herself, but she wouldn't...couldn't. So we sat and waited. We read her Christmas cards and rubbed Shea butter on her feet. We watched tv and took turns trying to engage her, trying to remind her of this person we each knew and expected her to be.

Sometime during this horrible nightmare I had this epiphany that there has to be something greater, some unexplainable, undefinable part of a person that isn't what you check on the census or fill out on your taxes, that part of you that is more than your job or your personality of even the double helix of your DNA. Even though this person had become foreign to me, there was something in her, a spirit that kept her living, and even when I could barely recognize her, I could still love and connect to that spirit...so I began to pray for and from that spirit. I began to call upon a divine health and wholeness that had nothing to do with her condition. And it worked. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with my prayers, maybe my Grandmother is just a really strong willed person with a desire to live, but just last Friday, she was released from the hospital.

She's not in perfect condition, but she knows who I am. She can talk and eat and walk with the assistance of a walker and she is very cranky...which means she is regaining her personality. What almost losing her has helped me understand is that there is a part of her that I will never lose, just like there is a part of me that I will never lose and that everything else is cotton candy. I have a life and I will live it to the fullest and enjoy it every way I can, but I'm not hanging onto all the little stuff anymore. When it's all said and done, the external identity you create is just ash waiting to happen, only spirit last forever. Like the say in Ghana, gyname...everything is temporary except for God.