Sometimes, it is very difficult to focus. It is hard to believe what you see. But, I've been seeing it for a while now.
And now it is really here.
I've been through many elections and I've always quickly embodied the spirit of transition. I have always said, ok, now I have to find a new way to live.
After a restless night, time spent with friends virtually, sitting with and crying with people, I am still trying to transition.
We have to breathe. All warriors breathe. They breathe and concentrate on each breath so they can have a calm mind. With a calm mind, a warrior can sense disturbances and react in ways that the warrior has practiced. What have you practiced? What have you learned? What are your principles? Those must come through in both your reaction and responses. Take a breath. Focus. It's time to practice our principles.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Backlash, Regression, Progression
I want to cry.
I just want to get on my knees and cry.
And I want to pray to God and my ancestors who have come before to please make a way ....
This is nonsense.
Hair.
We are really fighting in schools in the United States, in South Africa. We have always been fighting this battle though. The court decided that a Black woman- most likely of African Descent was not discriminated against when they asked her she could have the job if she cut her hair.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/appeals-court-rules-dreadlocks-work_us_57e0252ae4b0071a6e08a7c3
No problem. It's just hair right?
Black people, since landing in America have been abused into making hair palatable to White people.
I can't write further. . .
400 Hundred years without a comb
- https://youtu.be/fKczhyA2u6Q
- https://hairtobeauty.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/400-years-without-a-comb/
- https://issuu.com/sdwoprepress/docs/400_years_books
- https://vimeo.com/12446029
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Revival or Descent
I once wrote a song called Thankful everyday. I sang it at church.
I made it up. I made it up. . .
It was about my gratitude for being well in the face of homelessness, the capacity to contribute to the world and have friends. I have no recording of this song. I sang it a few places. And I've really got to get better at keeping my songs and recordings of them.
There is something about singing a song for me that is really cathartic. I learned sometime over the years that the low notes have to be slow and they come from a deep place. I like to think that that deep place is in the location below your navel. In Hindu terminology, this would be called the second chakra but just think of chakras as a places of specific energy in the body.
This specific location below the navel can contain some painful energy. So, even though my song was about being grateful, it had its notes of sadness. What the song did not articulate in words was the empathy I felt for the need to have a place to belong, to feel loved and cared for.
There are many songs and genres of music that I enjoy and the ones I like to sing are always the songs that not only talk about painful experiences, but the music resonates in my whole body.
I think that that is the reason that I have chosen to call blues and folk music my own.
I suppose some might think that it is my own- upon first glance- for phenotypical reasons and then after more thought. . . well perhaps because of growing up singing gospel music in the Black Church.
Hmpf.
While that is true for a lot of famous and new singers that is not the case for me.
I was an integration baby. . .by circumstances that were derived from a long history that is the subject of another blog.
Just accept it. You don't have to like it. And I did not say that these social facts or circumstances make me better than anyone. Definitely, I have a particular if not somewhat dubbed peculiar perspective by some.
Either way, the Christianity in my religious upbringing cannot be denied. Nor would I deny it.
While I recall my parents as intermittent church goers, one was Pentecostal, the other was Baptist. In the 21st century, this yields one Muslim and one Unitarian Universalist- my brother and me.
The religious upbringing I claim is rich with a long heritage of musical influences that I am just beginning to understand. While I took a 101 college course on jazz in college, I received my first informal education about gospel music in my late twenties in a Unitarian Universalist Church from a beautiful middle aged African-American woman.
Not only did she have perfect pitch but so did all her children. So incredibly awesome!
She taught a group of us about Thomas Dorsey the Father of gospel music. She taught us about how he traveled to sell his music, about how gospel music is taught by rote because people may not have been able to read. And she learned about us too.
What I recall which my memory may be foggy about is that she taught something about improvisation. It might also be -as referenced by some of the young people I know- "getting the feels" so much in a song that you have to shout and jump up and ask people if they have the "feels" too.
Anyway, a person goes off script. . Did I mention that we were learning by rote?
We were not so much able to improvise. People who are used to reading music and following the notes exactly can be challenged with improvisation and sometimes putting feeling in music.
But gospel music comes from blues, comes from people singing work songs to get through the day, comes from disenfranchised Americans of African heritage who were enslaved and forced into a certain kind of life we would rather forget.
But it comes up in the music over and over again. It is undeniable. Nor should it be denied. It is American history that has influenced many musicians.
I do enjoy listening to what I call white boy blues. . . .
I made it up. I made it up. . .
It was about my gratitude for being well in the face of homelessness, the capacity to contribute to the world and have friends. I have no recording of this song. I sang it a few places. And I've really got to get better at keeping my songs and recordings of them.
There is something about singing a song for me that is really cathartic. I learned sometime over the years that the low notes have to be slow and they come from a deep place. I like to think that that deep place is in the location below your navel. In Hindu terminology, this would be called the second chakra but just think of chakras as a places of specific energy in the body.
This specific location below the navel can contain some painful energy. So, even though my song was about being grateful, it had its notes of sadness. What the song did not articulate in words was the empathy I felt for the need to have a place to belong, to feel loved and cared for.
There are many songs and genres of music that I enjoy and the ones I like to sing are always the songs that not only talk about painful experiences, but the music resonates in my whole body.
I think that that is the reason that I have chosen to call blues and folk music my own.
I suppose some might think that it is my own- upon first glance- for phenotypical reasons and then after more thought. . . well perhaps because of growing up singing gospel music in the Black Church.
Hmpf.
While that is true for a lot of famous and new singers that is not the case for me.
I was an integration baby. . .by circumstances that were derived from a long history that is the subject of another blog.
Just accept it. You don't have to like it. And I did not say that these social facts or circumstances make me better than anyone. Definitely, I have a particular if not somewhat dubbed peculiar perspective by some.
Either way, the Christianity in my religious upbringing cannot be denied. Nor would I deny it.
While I recall my parents as intermittent church goers, one was Pentecostal, the other was Baptist. In the 21st century, this yields one Muslim and one Unitarian Universalist- my brother and me.
The religious upbringing I claim is rich with a long heritage of musical influences that I am just beginning to understand. While I took a 101 college course on jazz in college, I received my first informal education about gospel music in my late twenties in a Unitarian Universalist Church from a beautiful middle aged African-American woman.
Not only did she have perfect pitch but so did all her children. So incredibly awesome!
She taught a group of us about Thomas Dorsey the Father of gospel music. She taught us about how he traveled to sell his music, about how gospel music is taught by rote because people may not have been able to read. And she learned about us too.
What I recall which my memory may be foggy about is that she taught something about improvisation. It might also be -as referenced by some of the young people I know- "getting the feels" so much in a song that you have to shout and jump up and ask people if they have the "feels" too.
Anyway, a person goes off script. . Did I mention that we were learning by rote?
We were not so much able to improvise. People who are used to reading music and following the notes exactly can be challenged with improvisation and sometimes putting feeling in music.
But gospel music comes from blues, comes from people singing work songs to get through the day, comes from disenfranchised Americans of African heritage who were enslaved and forced into a certain kind of life we would rather forget.
Slavery?
But it comes up in the music over and over again. It is undeniable. Nor should it be denied. It is American history that has influenced many musicians.
I do enjoy listening to what I call white boy blues. . . .
The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Elvis Presley, Jack, Black, John Mayer, they cut their teeth on blues music... Ledbelly, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Lawns are a sign of good citizenship.
I just bought 15 bags of grass seed😳
This is not who I am. I buy plants and grow food. In fact, I learned that having a lawn was supposed to be a sign of good character for the working class. I've heard that a nice lawn can also symbolize wealth, because it shows that a person can own land and not need to grow food on it.
Lawn is a sign of prosperity and good citizenship and being middle class.
Also, the first man to mow their lawn on the block, wins!
I don't know what he wins, but he wins.
So I have made it my duty to not only make half of my yard a garden, but also to mow my grass before the man who lives down the street. I think in fact, that this is what the neighborly over the fence discussion about cutting grass is about. It's about what place you plan to be in in the olympics of neighborhood lawn mowing. It's a boy's club, though, so it probably doesn't count when I've mowed my lawn before the men on the block. But also, make sure you trim it.
My neighbor offered to come over and trim up my lawn real nice. I took it as a threat! 😱
How else could I take it?🤔
He wouldn't have offered to trim some other man's lawn down the street.
Seriously, though, I have been hyper organic with the yard thing. I mean, I have three composters, a vermi bin, another that looks like a space ship that can be rolled around, and one that's just passive. And I've bought all kinds of real organic fertilizer from fish emulsion to chicken poop. I've used vinegar and hot water to kill weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk. I've stood outside for hours just pulling weeds by hand and I
never
watered
the grass.
And my grass and clover was always green. It was only fertilized by the dog. 😳 In fact, it might be healthier than a mono crop of Kentucky Blue Grass. But who cares?
See this mess.....
Yeah, that's what city folk call a nuisance property. You might say, why don't those people take care of their property?! Well, it's vacant, owned by I don't know ? the city? a bank? an absentee landlord?
But you know, I live in the city, so you are right, who cares! Poor and working people who live in the city are probably all renters who don't give a shit so they leave mess like this around.
But you know, I live in the city, so you are right, who cares! Poor and working people who live in the city are probably all renters who don't give a shit so they leave mess like this around.
It's just that simple isn't it?
.😡
Just as simple, as buying a 15-pound bag of grass seed. 🤔 Maybe, weed and feed and petroleum- based fertilizers that turn the water green with algae is next. I'll show you who a good middle-class citizen is..... Right????
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Losing My Faith
I think the beginning of letting go of my faith started upon meeting a woman with a similar name. Still, I continued to plant seeds. And I thought that where I lived mattered. I thought that where I worked mattered, I thought that who I served mattered. And yet, no matter, the world churned on and on and on. Just the same as when a person dies. You know, how that is. Your heart is breaking and yet poverty continues, inequality continues, bigots still breathe and misogynists still ask you to smile to make them happy.
But I didn't really notice it slipping or that it had slipped until I couldn't kneel down and bury another seed. Sowing and watching, and nurturing the tiny little plants that grew. And that is how people knew me. It gave me something to talk about with people I did not know.
It's the witching hour again and I am awake. I think what woke me was the need for comfort from the shame I have felt from having "failed" as a community organizer. From having failed to make real objective changes in the lives of black people in a city neighborhood. Twenty ears ago, I had 20 people from a low income neighborhood protest and demand that the slumlords, banks and the city address housing issues.
- Stop buying houses and flipping them and feeding people into the subprime lending market.
- Stop leaving the neighborhood and provide banking products that meet the needs of people.
- Stop allowing abandoned houses to stand so drug dealers and prostitutes could do their deeds.
It was 12 hour-days and harder work than I knew. My mind would reel from what I saw when I was door knocking. I walked through drug deals, past the skeletons of Victorian homes, and yes, I had the audacity to ask poor people to fund an organization of their own to improve their neighborhood.
Because why shouldn't any people come together and pool their resources to improve their lives.
Perhaps, I am the perfectionist that my mentors told me I was. The work took a toll on my spirit though. And one night after a house meeting, I went home and bought a 6-pack of beer with the intention to forget about all the poverty, dirt, weeds and cracked sidewalk I saw.
That was hard.
And, now, the same streets I walked on look worse than before. Top that off with my nagging thoughts that we were right. Because we were like the canaries in the coal mines before the housing crisis.
I can't stand to believe that folks are still wondering what the hell happened.
That's what woke me again at 4 am.
It was a strong need to express to my to my white liberal friends that they must understand their whiteness and privilege and use it to make justice.
Perhaps, I am the perfectionist that my mentors told me I was. The work took a toll on my spirit though. And one night after a house meeting, I went home and bought a 6-pack of beer with the intention to forget about all the poverty, dirt, weeds and cracked sidewalk I saw.
That was hard.
And, now, the same streets I walked on look worse than before. Top that off with my nagging thoughts that we were right. Because we were like the canaries in the coal mines before the housing crisis.
I can't stand to believe that folks are still wondering what the hell happened.
That's what woke me again at 4 am.
It was a strong need to express to my to my white liberal friends that they must understand their whiteness and privilege and use it to make justice.
Understand that whiteness is a social construct, surrender to that idea and use it so that we can all have justice.
When folks were wary of confronting a slumlord, because they said he don't like black folks, I said so? And there was one white person in the group. I said so let John speak to him. We all agreed on what we wanted the slumlord to do, right? Heads nodded.
But we still, for the most part, lead segregated lives and know better than "the others."
We help or try to fix... without ever realizing that the bondage that black, brown, white, every and all are interwoven. We forget that all groups of people of every ethnicity have given up some thing to become middle class Americans. Or have you forgotten when the Irish were called black?
But we still, for the most part, lead segregated lives and know better than "the others."
We help or try to fix... without ever realizing that the bondage that black, brown, white, every and all are interwoven. We forget that all groups of people of every ethnicity have given up some thing to become middle class Americans. Or have you forgotten when the Irish were called black?
Our struggle is interwoven in this United States.
If you came to help me or fix me, I don't need it; because it causes a cycle of prey and predator - a circle of false superiority and inferiority.
However, if you come because my liberation is tied to your liberation, then you are my siblings in this struggle to create a beloved community. And that kind of liberation and struggle causes pain: pain of giving up power and privilege and pain of learning how to use and share power and privilege equitably.
Dreaming in twilight hours, I am in the pulpit shouting. . . .
I've come too far in this struggle to accept being quiet and telling you what you want to hear in order to feel good or guilty about whiteness, blackness, brownness, wealth, poverty or anything else.
If you came to help me or fix me, I don't need it; because it causes a cycle of prey and predator - a circle of false superiority and inferiority.
However, if you come because my liberation is tied to your liberation, then you are my siblings in this struggle to create a beloved community. And that kind of liberation and struggle causes pain: pain of giving up power and privilege and pain of learning how to use and share power and privilege equitably.
Dreaming in twilight hours, I am in the pulpit shouting. . . .
I've come too far in this struggle to accept being quiet and telling you what you want to hear in order to feel good or guilty about whiteness, blackness, brownness, wealth, poverty or anything else.
We don't get justice until we all have justice.
We can't just fix or help bodies floating down a river. We must go upstream to undo the cause of bodies floating down the river. And that journey is one where we will lose things- self-righteousness and the self-satisfaction that we know the answer and can fix it for someone else.
When I was younger I sought to change the world, but as I grew older I knew I had to change myself.
It is time for a more mature faith. It is time to change ourselves and do the hard painful work that is truly justice.
Not Just us.
That's not the end, though... You must be the change and that disrupts the social order. And you disrupt the social order, because you no longer can stand the constraints that have been put upon you.
Do you know why the caged bird sings?
If your faith makes you feel comfortable and self righteous, you must be doing it wrong. Because in the Greek sense of it we all miss the mark. We are all sinners. We don't have enough experience and abstraction to see it all.
You must find out why that caged bird is singing. Risk losing the sweet song. Set that bird free.
And now, I'll step away from the podium. . . maybe now I can sleep.
We can't just fix or help bodies floating down a river. We must go upstream to undo the cause of bodies floating down the river. And that journey is one where we will lose things- self-righteousness and the self-satisfaction that we know the answer and can fix it for someone else.
When I was younger I sought to change the world, but as I grew older I knew I had to change myself.
It is time for a more mature faith. It is time to change ourselves and do the hard painful work that is truly justice.
Not Just us.
That's not the end, though... You must be the change and that disrupts the social order. And you disrupt the social order, because you no longer can stand the constraints that have been put upon you.
Do you know why the caged bird sings?
If your faith makes you feel comfortable and self righteous, you must be doing it wrong. Because in the Greek sense of it we all miss the mark. We are all sinners. We don't have enough experience and abstraction to see it all.
You must find out why that caged bird is singing. Risk losing the sweet song. Set that bird free.
And now, I'll step away from the podium. . . maybe now I can sleep.
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