In 1983 June Jordan went to Nicaragua on a solidarity voyage with the feminist organization MADRE and wrote home with a new clarity. In her 1984 article for Essence she explained why it was so crucial for the US to install dictators all over the world and to cover up the revolutionary brilliance and accountability of movements like the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada. She said that if the oppressed people of the world witnessed the dignity and bravery of these revolutionaries “next thing you know, most of us would find ourselves in the middle of a revolution based on self-respect.”

The reality is that the same country that has installed corrupt authoritarian rulers all over the world for economic gain, is now surviving a corrupt authoritarian regime also based on greed. So this is where we are. In the midst of a revolution that is calling us to remember who we are and hold to the lessons of those who have overthrown authoritarian regimes before us. This week after studying the words of June Jordan, especially “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There” and her poem “safe” composed in a dugout canoe on the Rio Escondido on the way back from the Afro-Caribbean and Miskito indigenous region of Bluefields, Nicaragua 20 of us named our current revolution. The workshop “a revolution based on self-respect” was a clarifying redefinition of safety through solidarity. Our group poem is below. I recommend reading it aloud to remember where we are and what we need.

Where We Are

by the participants in “a revolution based on self-respect”: June Jordan and Dangerous Solidarities

“next thing you know, most of us would find ourselves in the middle of a revolution based on self-respect.” – June Jordan in “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There”

In the midst of a revolution based on breathing

In the midst of a revolution based on deep care

In the midst of a revolution based on practice

In the midst of a revolution based on laughter

In the midst of a revolution based on the depth of our roots

In the midst of a revolution based on the wisdom of my ancestors

In the midst of a revolution based on presence

In the midst of a revolution based on interconnection

In the midst of a revolution based on love

In the midst of a revolution based on adventures of the soul

In the midst of a revolution based on dancing and loving

In the midst of a revolution based on falling together

In the midst of a revolution based on  we don’t yet know

In the midst of a revolution based on witnessing the unseen

In the midst of a revolution based on recognition

In the midst of a revolution based on the recognition that we are already, ready

In the midst of a revolution based on what the children deserve

In the midst of a revolution based on ‘becoming the action of our fate’

In the midst of a revolution based on our healing evolution

In the midst of a revolution based on loving the earth back

In the midst of a revolution based on the grounded-ness of the soil

                                                                          and the lifted-ness of the constellations

In the midst of a revolution based on the fierce winds and the gentle winds

In the midst of a revolution based on respecting the dark

In the midst of a revolution based on third eyes opened

In the midst of a revolution based on channeling

In the midst of a revolution based on mutuality

In the midst of a revolution based on joy

In the midst of a revolution based on possibility and abundance

In the midst of a revolution based on bravely walking towards life

In the midst of a revolution based on questions

In the midst of a revolution based on abiding care

In the midst of a revolution based on embodied safety

In the midst of a revolution based on breathing together

If you’d like to participate in the replay of this workshop you can access it here: https://sangodare.podia.com/a-revolution-based-on-self-respect-dangerous-solidarities

In the wake of retail, tech and educational institutions complying with a backlash against the victories of our social justice movements many of us are seeking to strategically divest. I have been frustrated seeing people use social media platforms to shame each other for divesting “wrongly.” I have been sitting here thinking that I know we can do better than that. And then I remembered that I have decades of experience in strategically divesting from, confronting, challenging, building and transforming institutions (especially academic institutions.) So maybe I should share from that place. On this video, scraped from IG live I honestly answered questions about the nuance I’ve found there. It is possible to take our power back. We are not powerless. Our actions matter beyond virtue signaling. Spoiler alert…the keyword is solidarity.

To learn more come to our reflective writing workshop inspired by June Jordan’s poetry in solidarity with Nicaragua—“a revolution based on self-respect”: dangerous solidarities: https://sangodare.podia.com/a-revolution-based-on-self-respect-dangerous-solidarities

This weekend while thousands gathered to protest in Washington DC, 25 people gathered online to redefine power in the face of fascism guided by Audre Lorde’s poem “Dreams Bite.” “Dreams Bite” is one of Audre Lorde’s responses to the murder of MLK Jr. and a testament to her consistent plea for our communities to practice love beyond the scale of one nation and its political ego.

During “Power is Spoken”: Audre Lorde at the Edge of Purpose, we explored political ego death and planetary transformation. The vulnerability and brilliance was palpable. Our group poem is below. May it provide a space of grounding and possibility in this moment and whenever you need it. If you missed the workshop, the replay is available here: https://sangodare.podia.com/power-is-spoken-audre-lorde-at-the-edge-of-purpose

“When I am absolute

at once with the black earth

fire

I make my now

and power is spoken

peace”

-from “Dreams Bite” by Audre Lorde

 speak power

by the participants in “Power is Spoken”: Audre Lorde at the “Edge of Purpose”

power is now

power is ours

power is love actualized

power is love quantumly resourced

power is now

power is teaching us something now

power is practiced in circles

power is here

power is now

power is our refusal of false limitations

power  is no capital

power is our rejection of myths that don’t serve us.

power is now

power is weaving

power is decentralized

power is in the flow

power is now

power is promise

power is embodied presence in the present

power is joy even in sorrow

power is now

power is connection to self and possibility

power is community and in knowing we KNOW what we know.

agency is power rooted in truth

power is now

power is choosing where to direct my attention

power is loving myself

power is being able to return to myselves

power is now

power is an invitation to merge our mightiness with one another

power is beyond validation, beyond approval, beyond vocabulary, beyond capture. 

power is humble

power is now

power is what comes around and within and despite and because of surrendering

power is obsolescence

power is being willing to break apart and reconstitute to meet the NOW.

power is the capacity to vision and dream and act

despite and in spite of all of the intentional and unintentional circumstances

that make us feel incapacitated

power is now

power is radical hope

we may not know what our future will be exactly - our survival or our humanity.

but we know that we will be here. in the now.

power is now

power is now

power is now

Participate and add to the group poem here: https://sangodare.podia.com/power-is-spoken-audre-lorde-at-the-edge-of-purpose

Four years ago Aisha sent me a message on Instagram while the continent burned around her. She told me she was reading M Archive and witnessing the end of the world while politicians refused to respond to and acknowledge the reality of the bushfires raging in what they call Australia. And what was for me numbing powerlessness in the face of climate injustice became a call to remember my own responsibility to write through and to create ceremonies for truthtelling. We gathered across the planet over many timezones to write about this time of fire. By the time we convened earthquakes had taken out the power in Puerto Rico and one divine participant used their remaining computer battery power to be with us in ceremony.

In these times, people like to say “in these times” and in most cases is expresses an urgency too bewildering to call by its full name. But during our writing workshop we decided to listen to fire and what it is teaching us, transformation and what it is making impossible to ignore. Our group poem below names these times in their specificity, power, demand and possibility. For me this listening has led to a set of urgent writing ceremonies in solidarity with people most impacted by the natural and social disasters that are already waking us up for a decade of change as a way to contribute materially and energetically to their leadership.

I don’t have a replay of the workshop we did together in January 2020, but I am offering our group poem below and the replay of our more recent reflective writing workshop The Character of Fire: Writing After the End of the World here: https://sangodare.podia.com/the-character-of-fire-writing-after-the-end-of-the-world

If you are wildfire impacted (today or ever) you can use the code WATER to access this workshop for free. If you would like to be part of our solidarity effort proceeds from your sign up will go to folks impacted by the wildfires. With prayers for water.

In the Time of Fire

by the participants in the Archive of Fire: Climate Justice in the time of the Australian Bushfires writing workshop

 In the time of fire

In the time of firecraft

In the time of broken metal

In the time of smoke-filled lungs

In the time of broken earth

In the time of rising water

In the time of reckoning

In the time of facing undeniable truth

In the time of mourning

In the time of surrender

In the time of deeper listening

In the time of visionary organizing

In the time of ancestral tough love

In the time of eyes being pried open

In the time of upheaval

In the time of open hands

In the time of heart centered movement

In the time of freedom practices

In the time of indigenous practices

In the time of Ifa

In the time of unknowable love 

In the time of Elders teachings remembered

In the time of our roots finding our feet again

In the time of earth sovereignty 

In the time of love screaming her own name

In the time of young people’s brilliance

In the time of liberation

In the time of slowing down

In the time of gently blowing on embers

In the time of learning how to speak without our mouths 

In the time of the coqui calling

In the time of auto-tuned offerings

In the time of prioritizing vibrations

In the time of movement and wind

In the time of joy

In the time of dreams 

In the time of our kin

In the time of returning to right relationship

In the time of sacred balance returned

Last week about 70 of us gathered to listen to ourselves through the lens of Audre Lorde’s poem “Stations.” We wrote about what we are “at the heart of” in this moment, we remembered what we need to remember and we reaffirmed or generated practices to help us remember our power and interconnection. In a time when the dominant strategy is to trigger and destabilize us we are grounding in a power older than any fascist regime. If you missed it and you want to learn more about Audre Lorde’s message to her students (and the beautiful ways they carried this poem forward), or just to benefit from a supportive space to affirm and evaluate how your own practices line up with your intentions for this year, the replay is available here: https://sangodare.podia.com/the-heart-of-now-audre-lorde-and-practicing-transformation

And here is our group poem:

 A Garden of Practice

by the participants in “The Heart of Now”: Audre Lorde and Practicing Transformation

I am planting a life of balance

I am planting my hands in soil

I am planting seeds of wonder

I am planting a body that grows love

I am planting communities of care and resistance

I am planting seeds of regeneration of love and connection

I am planting hope again. Belief again. A little more joy again.

I am planting gorgeous self-trust

I am planting play inside of my practice

I am planting songs of love to travel to you after we win.

I am planting perspectives based on knowing our goodness

I am planting soft and generative touch

I am planting seeds of joy and relations

I am planting my feet on new ground, whenever needed. If I make even one step, I give myself the

opportunity of a new vision.

I am planting belonging, trust, and breath.

I am planting a spark.

I am planting understandings of power

I am planting reminders in my life of what I already know

I am planting stability in self

I am planting seeds of culture of care in play, imagination, pleasure

I am planting love, boundaries and prayers for a ceasefire and justice.

I am planting whispers of trust, grounding, and transformation

I am planting alchemical offerings

I am planting a garden of change

I am planting a future big enough to hold us all

I am planting a love for scattered seeds from packages that promise butterflies and wild flowers

I am planting bodies of flowers

I am planting spaces where ancestral knowledge is revered

I am planting seeds of presence, to accompany the power in and around me, that remembers cracks,

as illegible paths toward life and freedom

If you want to learn more about our online practice spaces to support you in deepening your creativity, listening multi-generationally, and accessing the diving power of every day check out the following:

Stardust and Salt: Daily Creative Practice

Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations

and

The God of Everyday: A Week of Practice

Last night was one of the longest nights of the year. And over 100 of us decided to spend the night with some of Audre Lorde’s most challenging words. Lorde’s poem “Solstice” is a poem about facing failure and contradiction with deep personal transformation and rigor. Her analysis of a collective spiritual bankruptcy leads to a passionate prayer: may i never lose that terror that keeps me brave.

Last night in the dark light of “Solstice” the closing poem in Audre Lorde decolonial ancestral transubstantiation book The Black Unicorn we listened to the warning in our bodies, identified the skins we need to shed and fed our spirits with love and support. A wise teacher participated in the form of a tiny genius who lost her first tooth yesterday, our exemplar, along with Audre Lorde’s chosen monitor lizard and civets for transformation and regeneration. We were elders and babies, soil scientists and witches, heartbroken and healing and the poetic energy that Audre Lorde used to create her own eternal life held us and lifted us up. The group poem we created at the end of the session is below. I think it is best read out loud.

If you want to participate in the workshop, the replay video is here (or click on the image below)

changes

by the participants in “That Terror that Keeps Me Brave”: Solstice Writing Workshop in Honor of Audre Lorde

“I shall be forever”

            Audre Lorde in “Solstice”

i shall be vulnerable

i shall be soft and malleable

i shall be courageous

i shall be FREE

i shall be courageous

i shall be changed

i shall be loving

i shall be brave

i shall be a breathing thing

i shall not be alone

i shall be me

i shall be. that’s enough.  that’s more than enough.

i shall be without this skin

i shall be tender

i shall be recharged

i shall be scooping up our longings and we fulfill them and feeding them to our spirits.

i shall be vulnerable

i shall be a creative child and an a creative elder

i shall be cool breeze harmattan

i shall be open to being changed

i shall be medicine

i shall be like the hummingbird, hardworking and making sweetness

i shall be a mermaid

i shall be singing

i shall be present for the magic that i am

i shall be conduit

i shall be filled with wonder

i shall be revived

i shall be rested and loved on

i shall be momi

i shall be flow

i shall be open to possibility

i shall be rooted in the earth

i shall be meeting house

i shall be ritual

i shall be supported, nourished and connected

i shall be a channel for my ancestors

i shall be alive and well

i shall be radiating love

i shall be flying in the clouds

i shall be putrid like leaf litter

weak and pathetic like the new limb on a sea star

i shall be lazy ike my grandmothers wanted to be

i shall recover

i shall be intentional

i shall be deep as the earth

i shall be flexible,

supple

i shall be cooking

i shall be listening to ancestors everyday

i shall be present and in relationship across times and in all directions

i shall be awed by our power

i shall be healed in ways anyone who’s ever harmed me was not able to

i shall be renewed and grow a new way of being

i shall be sitting with oshun

i shall be attentive

i shall be who i am who i am i am

i shall be connected love

i shall be patient

i shall be iridescent

i shall be of service

i shall be fiercely courageous and deeply connected to our collective liberation

i shall be confident

i shall be alchemizing

i shall be whispering on winds

i shall be available to love

i shall be my home

i shall be in connection

i shall be a place to pour out of and pour into

i shall be holy

i shall be clear at the crossroads

i shall be a baby again

i shall be relishing our brilliance

i shall grow a new limb like a monitor lizard can

i shall be coloring the world pure

i shall be forever  

You can participate in the writing workshop whenever you want here. Or any of our offerings here.

Some of you have asked how you can gift your loved ones access to the transformational workshops and practice spaces that we have created over the past several years. Great question! It's easy and it is instant (in case you have a kwaanzachristmasbelatedsolsticechanuka deadline). Or you just get one or more of these supportive offerings for yourself.

1. View all the offerings here and choose one: https://sangodare.podia.com/

2. Make sure that you are not logged in as yourself

3. Enter the email address of your loved one and make them a password (I usually use "ILOVENAME" with the person's name. They can change their password whenever they want.

4. Enter your own payment information.

5. THAT'S IT!

These feel like cynical times. Octavia was right. It’s 2024 and climate catastrophe and resource wars are in full swing. But then I look at the faces of the people I love and I am surprised again at my own capacity for love in uncertain times. What if in this moment, when I am terrified and in deep grief, I can still be guided by what Che Guevara called “great feelings of love”? What if I can still surprise myself?

Last week in celebration of Alexis and Sangodare’s 16th anniversary of loving partnership Mobilehomecoming hosted two new moon intention setting workshops for Loveships (committed partnerships) and Lovebirds (people seeking committed partnerships). But it turns out that it is ALWAYS a good time to create and powerfully practice intentional love, so replays of both workshops are available at this link: https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/loveship-workshops

Both workshops are guided by our sacred text, June Jordan’s “The Creative Spirit” which teaches us that Love is Lifeforce!

For a sneak peek of the beautiful energy we experienced check out our Lovebirds group poem below!!!

To Our Own Astonishment

by the participants in “Like Tigerlilies: An Intention Setting Workshop” 

“let us look at tiger lilies blooming to their own astonishment, and learn to cherish their form and orderliness and freedom for our own.”

-June Jordan “The Creative Spirit”

i am the key and the door

to my own astonishment.

i am open

to my own astonishment

i am ready

to my own astonishment

i am present

to my own astonishment

i have petals, stem, leaves and roots

to my own astonishment.

i am both tender and firm

to my own astonishment

i am the echo wreathing the mountains

to my own astonishment

i am still learning to breathe

to my own astonishment.

i still love and care deeply

to my own astonishment

i am free from self-judgement

to my own astonishmeent

i can ask for help

to my own astonishment

i am allowing sweetness

to my own astonishment

i have access to safety, dignity, and belonging

            to my own astonishment.

i am feeling hopeful about the future — my own and the planet’s

 to my own astonishment.

i am moving through the grief

to my own astonishment

i am abandoning empowerment to drop into my pain and heal

to my own astonishment

i am in need of forgiveness

to my own astonishment.

i am somehow still spacious, even while grieving

to my own astonishment

i am committed to my aliveness

to my own astonishment

i am making peace with aging

to my own astonishment

i am an exquisite, aging body

to my own astonishment.

i am abundantly loving with my whole self

to my own astonishment

i am a new person now

to my own astonishment.

i am capacious and persistent

to my own astonishment.

i am gracious

to my own astonishment

i care for what i love

to my own astonishment.

i am present with myself

to my own astonishment

i am certain i am spontaneous

to my own astonishment

i am becoming even more brilliant

to my own astonishment

i am learning and applying that learning

to my own astonishment.

i am stopping to witness beauty every day

to my own astonishment

i am making new friends and local connections

to my own astonishment

i am compassionate and kind

            to my own astonishment

i am being vulnerable and sharing my heart

to my own astonishment

i am seeing and being seen

to my own astonishment

i am reaching to new places

to my own astonishment.

i am in flight

to my own astonishment.

i am rising to my truest self

 to my own astonishment

i am learning to show up as my full self

to my own astonishment

i am unlimitedly and unconditionally loving myself

to my own astonishment

i am romantic

to my own astonishment

i am dancing playfully and deliciously

to my own astonishment.

i am full of curiosity

to my own astonishment.

i am learning to play

to my own astonishment

i am no longer drinking coffee every day

to my own astonishment

i am deeply relaxing

to my own astonishment

i am celebrating my accomplishments

to my own astonishment.

i am joyful

to my own astonishment.

i am barely working but/and still thriving

to my own astonishment

i have manifested a beautiful house to live in

to my own astonishment

i am a waterfall of flowers

to my own astonishment.

i am already held in so much love

 to my own astonishment

i am taking my rightful place

to my own astonishment

i am ready, willing and open to receiving loving partnership

            to my own astonishment

i am worthy of love

to my own astonishment

i am in love, with myself

 to my own astonishment

i am the embodiment of love

to my own astonishment

Collage by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

This week over a hundred people decided to turn our faces away from the people the two major parties representing so-called democracy have foolishly offered as examples of leadership in these times and turn our faces, our hearts and our minds to two actual examples of leadership Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer. We took the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a process through which 60,000 disenfranchised citizens created their own embodiment of collective decision making and the Freedom Farm Cooperative a survival project that responded to the terrible policies of corruptly elected leaders by providing access to food sovereignty, affordable housing and education.

We were real about what we are “sick and tired” of (in the words of Fannie Lou Hamer. We shared our complicated and urgent relationship to the light we need to shine at this time and to close we stepped into the field of freedom Ella Baker activated with her speech at the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Convention that hailed all of us past, present and future who “believe in freedom.” Here is the poem we created together. I advise reading it outloud! (If you missed the workshop you can participate in the replay here: https://sangodare.podia.com/is-this-america-survival-and-creativity-in-the-face-of-electoral-foolishness)

We Who Believe in Freedom

by the participants in “Is this America?”: Creativity and Survival in the Face of Electoral Foolishness

we who believe in freedom find our light

we who believe in freedom are enough

we who believe in freedom spread sanctuary

we who believe in freedom act. again and again and again.

we who believe in freedom are devoted to practicing freedom

we who believe in freedom speak our truth

we who believe in freedom allow ourselves to be fully present in love as action

we who believe in freedom breathe deep

we who believe in freedom love and are loved

we who believe in freedom keep going keep going keep going rest keep going

we who believe in freedom trust our visions

we who believe in freedom imagine hard and strong and deep

we who believe in freedom practice the world you say is impossible

we who believe in freedom return so that we may remember and reclaim

we who believe in freedom give light and give name

we who believe in freedom must slow down enough to receive the medicine of the present moment

we who believe in freedom will loosen our own constrictions and hold others as they soften theirs

we who believe in freedom listen to the ancestors

we who believe in freedom are attuned to the resonant frequency of solidarity, listening for songs of transformation

we who believe in freedom sing

we who believe in freedom shall rest whenever necessary

we who believe in freedom tell the people, show the people, live the truth

we who believe in freedom hold each other tightly and softly and all the ways in between

we who believe in freedom are not afraid to dream and reshape reality and ourselves

we who believe in freedom move towards life together

we who believe in freedom are the ones we’ve been waiting for

we who believe in freedom are the ones we’ve been waiting for: we show up imperfect with our whole selves ready to embody change and revolution

we who believe in freedom are inventing on every level

we who believe in freedom know what it means for a tree to lose its leaves and change

we who believe in freedom are here inside of freedom now, led by the light of our past and future ancestors

we who believe in freedom cannot rest…at one time but the multitude who believe in freedom gives space for the weary and a place for sacred restoration

we who believe in freedom compost domination and plant seeds of collective joy

we who believe in freedom cry together towards softness and safety

we who believe in freedom bring forth our collective flourishing and liberation through our wisdom and love in action

we who believe in freedom stay curious

we who believe in freedom understand that discipline is a choice

we who believe in freedom are able to feel tenderly

we who believe in freedom hold each other as sacred and interdependent

we who believe in freedom are our ancestors wildest dreams

we who believe in freedom find strength in community

we who believe in freedom hold it with many hands

If you want to participate in the whole workshop, the replay is available here: https://sangodare.podia.com/is-this-america-survival-and-creativity-in-the-face-of-electoral-foolishness

Last week we gathered for a heated and healing session attending to the fire within us. Today as people around the US who have felt despair as their representatives ignored their pleas for peace prepare to vote in a primary election, we remember that our nature is not just choice, but transformation.

In our workshop we drew on the “Archive of Fire” in my book M Archive: After the End of the World especially the deep teachings of candle calisthenics, inspired by my beloved mentor M. Jacqui Alexander’s “Anatomy of a Mobilization” in her book Pedagogies of Crossing. We looked closely at the fire within us, what air sustains it, what purpose do we burn for, what messages can we hear when we attune ourselves to our light?

Every message was a message of substantive change. Below is our group poem. May it nourish the fire within you.

This Fire

By the participants in “The Character of Fire”: Writing After the End of the World

“The feel of fire is strong, not hot.”

-M. Jacqui Alexander in Pedagogies of Crossing

This fire is complete.

This fire is gold thread in every cell

This fire is sacred

This fire is liberating

This fire is organizing.

This fire is informative.

This fire is hot

This fire is young

This fire is everything

This fire is needed

This fire is nourishment

This fire is churning

This fire is beauty.

This fire is nascent.

This fire is Underground

This fire is all

This fire is earthquake

This fire is a begining

This fire is tender

This fire is going to keep burning

This fire is guidance

This fire is teacher

This fire is hungry.

This fire is next time

This fire is clearing

This fire is me

This fire is memory

This fire is changing

This fire is justified

This fire is healing

This fire is for us

This fire is renewal

This fire is beyond time…it is difficult to distinguish and impossible to extinguish

This fire is spring

This fire is starlight

This fire is thunder

This fire is joy

This fire is silly

This fire is an honor

This fire is forever

This fire is sprouting

This fire is growing

This fire is here

This fire is flow

This fire is intuitive

This fire is ancestral love

This fire is communing with ancestors and descendants

This fire is painful

This fire is beloved

This fire is the sun

This fire is enough

This fire is liquid

This fire is maddening.

This fire is intense

This fire is silence

This fire is blue

This fire is wet.

This fire is a portal

This fire is purple

This fire is surface and depth

This fire is golden

This fire is beloved

This fire is deep black

This fire is healing

This fire is us

This fire is a companion

This fire is steadfast

This fire is translucid

This fire is ancient

This fire is flower

This fire is green

This fire is now

This fire is a cat

This fire is crying.

This fire is flow

This fire is irridescent

This fire is cackling

This fire is waiting

This fire is laughing

This fire is obsidian

This fire is patient

This fire is also ocean.

If you want to support our work, engage the workshop through the replay and do the writing exercises we did at your own pace you can find the recording here: https://sangodare.podia.com/the-character-of-fire-writing-after-the-end-of-the-world

Despite everything and because of everything, this is a time of gratitude and prayer. Audre Lorde’s birth week also known as the high holy days of my Black feminist faith. Join me on Twitter (@alexispauline) where I am resharing last year’s residency on Audre Lorde, the Caribbean and the complexity of sisterhood and love. The transnational ethic Audre Lorde embodied is compelling me even more now.

Audre Lorde spoke out against politically imposed famine and the US’s participation in violent repression all over the world, including in Palestine and we must too. I love you. Always.

There will be cake at this beautiful event created by the Black Unicorn Library Project if you come in person! And my keynote lecture will be livestreamed. More info her: https://carnegieart.org/event/litany-for-survival-the-life-and-work-of-audre-lorde/.

I'm also honored to be a featured speaker at this 4 hour Audre Lorde Read-a-Thon birthday celebration in Atlanta at my favorite bookstore Charis Books & More! You can attend in person or register for the virtual read-a-thon here: https://tr.ee/KjEuJr2Y-0

And last, but actually chronologically first, over on Twitter as @alexispauline (or instagram same handle) I am reposting my Journal of West Indian Literature residency on Audre Lorde. Read some details of Audre Lorde's last book, her status as a Caribbean writer, sisterhood and diaspora that I haven't shared anywhere else! Day One is up right now!: https://twitter.com/alexispauline/status/1757355745161408914

Also, speaking of multi-generational presence, remember that the Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations practice space is open.

Love,

Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Last night about 70 people gathered last night in the love ethic of June Jordan. We wrote about what we want and how big our wants are and how small are wants are and how it feels to have to demand over and over again the very basic dignity we want for everyone. We wrote about what we commit to and how we feel about commitment and how it feels to create our own forms of commitment when patriarchal capitalist commitment has been extracted from us in so many ways. We wrote about our emergent beliefs and the possibilities love is making us brave enough to recognize in ourselves and each other. And then we made this group poem about what we mean when we say we want peace.

Love and gratitude to everyone who participated last night. If you missed it and you want to write along with all the prompts, the recording is here: https://sangodare.podia.com/i-said-i-loved-you-and-i-wanted-genocide-to-stop-a-reflective-writing-workshop-on-revolutionary-love

I recommend reading this poem outloud or even better, TOGETHER.

we love you.  we want genocide to stop.

by the participants in “I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED GENOCIDE TO STOP”: June Jordan’s Revolutionary Love Ethic

we say good night and we want all of us to make it until tomorrow

we say good morning and we want you to be alive

we say good morning and we want everyone to eat

we say these are unprecedented times

and we want unprecedented love to meet it

we say intifada and we want land back

we say we want the genocide to end - and we mean it

we say we are radical and we want a revolution

we say NOW and we want CEASEFIRE

we say it’s time and we want it now

we say ceasefire now and we want it now, now!

we say ceasefire and we want you to know that’s the bare minimum

we say ceasefire and we want olive trees too big too wrap our arms around.

we say none of us are free if Palestine is not free and we want everyone be able to see.

we say now and we want sooner than now. 

we say now and we mean immediately.

we say now and we mean ALWAYS.

we say we all have a right to be here

& that means the mangroves and the coral and the parrot fish too.

we say we aren’t afraid to die and we want to live fully

we say we say we want to be free & we want you to be free too.

we say to love thy neighbor and we want that love for ourselves

we say we love each other and we want genocide to stop

we say amen and we want peace

we say peace and we want all of us to feel it

we say we want peace and we want space to grieve

we say pa’lante and we want love that sets us free

we say freedom and we want to create new ways of being

we say we want liberation and we want love

we say love, we want love’s liberation

we say we want freedom and we want to experience nothing but pure pleasure

we say “love us” and we want to be seen for all we are

we say friendship and we want the critters too

we say please & we want our power back

we say “power!” and we want our children to know love without fear

we say children are our future & we want them to have a future to be our future in

we say we love the water and we want it clean for everyone, for every living being

we say we love the water and we want it clean and free for every whale, every whale

we say love is here and we want bridges

we say the world is loving and we want a loving world

we say we are sure and we want to believe

we say we are already worthy and we want to believe it

we say we are enough and we want to believe it

we say there is enough for all of us, and we want all of us to have enough.

we say “enough” and we want every living being to be honored always and in all ways

we say Fannie Lou Hamer and we want to come back to our folks with EVERYTHING

we say all our relations and we want well fed human dignity

we say we believe in all of us, and we want our actions to show it.

we say another world is possible and we want to be believed

we say another world is possible and we want no wars, no nato, no borders, no america, no thirsty child dying hungry beneath the rubble

we say we know and we do!

we say WE KNOW WE ARE FREE and we want ALL to know it and act like it

WE SAY WE ARE ALREADY FREE AND WE WANT OUR WORLD TO LOOK LIKE IT

we say we believe that maybe, just maybe, our love is enough to make the world we all want and deserve, and who wants us

we say maybe and we want it sure.

we say we are falling through the cracks, and we want a different way.

we say we are lonely and we want the loneliness to have a door

we say a new world and we want safe space to dream it into reality.

we say LovE LOVE LOve and  we want Belonging

we say trans lives matter & we want you to live in your body like us

we say “hello, beautiful!” and we want everyone to feel hailed

we say dive deep and come up for air.

we say no and we want love

we say fuck off and we want help

we say nothing and we want, so often, so much more

we say nothing because our words are insufficient to capture all of the grief and rage

and we want freedom and love and peace NOW.

we say tricksters are present, and we want them to help.

WE SAY WE LOVE HARD AND WE WANT KILLERS STOP KILLING

WE SAY WE CAN LOVE OURSELVES AND YOU AND WE WANT YOU TO STOP HATING

we say love is bigger than easy and we are mapping and learning its edges

we say we feel the dark feminine’s return and we want Patriarchy to take it’s final breath NOW.

we say this hurts, and we want competent protection.

we say it’s been hurting for too long and we want justice.

we say we're tired and we want to be heard

we say we are tired and we want the freedom to rest

we say i am tired and we want to the world to make a bed

we say rest and we want soft hands and loving arms to cradle us.

we say we are scared and we want our fear to make us bigger not smaller.

we know that’s not how it works.

we want the workings to be inverted.

power subverted.

we say “here we are” and we want to provide alchemical healing

we say peace words and we want them to soften your heart

and expand your mind

and grow your heart

and tingle under your skin

we say we want the warmth and stillness of the ocean

to be a balm and a peace that washes over

spirits suffering the lies we tell ourselves

we say we need to be safe and we say we need to gather and we want both for all, at all times.

we say our bodies are sacred and we want intense love

we say t4t & we want bodies like flags to nations without borders

we say we need refuge, and we want to dance, dance and dance.

we say “let’s gather” and we want to dance and drum

we say “guess what?” and we want everyone to recognize that capitalism is not inevitable nor permanent

we say butterflies and we want to hear the vibrations of all our wings fluttering soft and sure

we say Shhht and we want to listen to the birds

we say nothing and we want to hear the bees

we say nothing and we want to know our ancestors are speaking in the silence

we say peace and we want peace

we say freedom and we want freedom

we say love and we want love

we say we and we want we

We love you. Come write with us!

“When will we seize the world around us with our freedom?”

-June Jordan in “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There”

Last night hundreds of Durham residents gathered in City Hall and aligned and sang in peace and unity our urgent desire for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. “Ceasefire” a song by beloved sister adrienne maree brown held the multitude as mothers, children, and community members of all generations found peace within and made it audible and visible holding roses, demanding a more loving world and a ceasefire resolution now.

Image and song by adrienne maree brown

Many of those gathered were the same people who came together 15 years in response to sexual violence lift up June Jordan’s words in “Poem About My Rights” that WRONG IS NOT MY NAME. In "Poem About My Rights” June Jordan teaches us that sexual violence and colonialist violence are devastatingly interconnected and that our responses must be as well. The violence of occupation impacts our very breathing which is why the intentional measured practice of singing together helps us to bring our highest intention for peace, regulating the trauma responses within us when we know this violence is related to every form of violence we have survived. You can read the poetry zine that some of us created 15 years ago here to reclaim our names here.

Earlier yesterday evening 50 folks of all ages from around the world also gathered online in June Jordan’s name to support each other in being as brave as June Jordan was when she connected the imperialist violence she was witnessing in the world to the oppression she learned at home. In “and before that it was my father”: reclaiming our names we looked at the fears that have been passed on through generations of embodied trauma and committed to what June Jordan calls “daily and nightly self-determination” also known as the practices through which we can embody a different reality. In “Poem About My Rights” Jordan moves from embodying fear to embodying a self-love that makes her dangerous to colonialism. The beautiful thing is that, like Jordan’s poem, our love and transformation is non-linear. The very same night that we addressed our intergenerational fears committed to embodying courageous love, so many parents in my community brought their children to witness a different embodiment, teaching the next generation that in the face of genocide we sing, we love each other deeper, we remember how powerful we are together.

The answer to June Jordan’s question “When will we seize the world around us with our freedom?” is NOW.

In honor of this reality we created a group poem in honor of our new and reclaimed names. Can you sing this poem?

P.S. If you want to write into a new embodiment the recording of last night’s workshop is available here.

daily and nightly self-determination

by the participants in Reclaiming Our Names in honor of June Jordan

My name is song.

My name is breath.

My name is a portal, a catchment, a window.

My name is carnival.

My name is beautiful and none of your damn business.

My name is unavailable to anyone besides me.

My name is unapologetic.

My name is for myself.

My name is primordial.

My name is memory.

My name is a journey with no end in sight.

My name is bold.

My name is restoration.

My name is water.

My name is water carves rock.

My name is created from the songs carried on the wind.

My name is homecoming.

My name is one of endless containers with which to hold (parts of) my being.

My name is gratitude.

My name is patience-in-real-time.

My name is infinite opulence.

My name is yes.

My name is love.

My name is love.

My name is courage.

My name is peace.

Last night’s writing session "irreversible as light years traveling to the open eye": witness, world-making, June Jordan, Palestine and South Africa was full of love, bravery, grief and deep listening. We practiced clearing what is blocking us, we examined what is moving us and how, we held space for falling apart and we called on generations of solidarity to power us in this moment. And we lingered…we stayed even beyond the scheduled time of the workshop to create this group poem, our portal back to each other, and our open door for you. May these words (read them aloud) strengthen the endurance of our love.

It’s Us

by the participants in “Witness and Worldmaking: June Jordan, Palestine and South Africa”

“And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open
eye”

June Jordan “Poem for South African Women”

We are the ones we call ancestors

We are the ones our sittis (grandmas) sat with

We are the ones our tay-tas (grandmothers) held in their cells

We are the ones who are holding up our hearts

We are the ones who breathe and listen

We are the ones that know the language of love in all fields of time

We are the ones who come in twos and threes and become we

We are the ones who bring peace

We are the ones who wake each other up from sleep

We are the ones who embrace tender tethering.

We are the ones hoping to know intimacy with grief

We are the ones who linger a little bit longer in love; we never hold back our love.

We are the ones who play and scheme to create abolition

We are the ones who say yes to the unscripting, unmapping, unmaking.

We are the ones who will snag and scrap the colonizers language while reweaving the tapestry of our collective belonging.

We are the ones who laugh and weep with forces that shape us.

We are the ones who get to stay and leave at the direction of our wise choice.

We are the ones who scream and in so doing, create a song that births the world anew.

We are the ones who come before and come after.

We are the ones who get us all free.

The recording of our workshop is here: https://sangodare.podia.com/irreversible-as-light-years-traveling-to-the-open-eye-witness-world-making-june-jordan-and-south-africa

Last night participants in the Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations practice space gathered and our ancestors gathered too. We found our questions and our gifts. We meditated and we wrote this poem together about repetition and practice.

Rainbow Somewhere

“And almost every day somewhere over Anguilla if you look, you’ll see a rainbow.”

                                                                        -Three Tries

By the Repetition is Sacred Practitioners

And now everyday we’ll see the sun meeting the waters.

And now everyday we’ll see the sun meeting the earth.

And now everyday we’ll see the sun meeting the plants.

And now everyday we’ll see the sun meeting the living and the dead.

And now everyday spiders creep along and do their business.

And now everyday I know that there is a flow flowing somewhere.

And now everyday the river will carry me where I need to go.

And now everyday we attend to our mourning.

And now everyday we meet in the meadow, I miss you, whether or not you come back

And now everyday I will remember and celebrate my child self.

And now everyday we wash ourselves in the ocean, whether or not we are near the ocean.

And now everyday we know the power of our tears.

And now everyday I look upon my face with love. 

And now everyday I look upon your face with love.

And now every day we stretch endurance into thriving.

And now everyday I have compassion for myself.

And now everyday we generate movements.  

And now everyday we embrace our vastness

and our intimacies to replenish the wells of possibility.

And now everyday we return home.

If you want to join the practice space, find out more here.

On Tuesday January 9th over a hundred of us gathered for the reflective writing workshop “Survival is Not a Theoretical Skill”: Releasing Institutional Harm. I decided to hold this space after seeing my community of scholars, especially scholars of color, reeling from the recent use of a national bullying campaign to push the president of Harvard University out of a job. However, we gathered to release institutional harm in general and participants came with their minds set on freedom from the harms we have experienced in academic, corporate, medical, non-profit and arts institutions, and also in relationships and the institution of the family.

The bravery, generous listening, interconnected reflection, revelation, liberation and love we experienced was healing and it was powered by the critical gathering energy of Audre Lorde’s “A Litany for Survival.” We considered who was with us on the shoreline. We examined our education into fear. We looked at the intentions of the institutions that have manipulated our basic desire for safety and we celebrated “this instant and this triumph” that our love for ourselves and each other has outlived what was supposed to destroy us.

Below is our closing group poem, our affirmation of our survival and our clarity in the face of institutional harm. Feel free to share it. I recommend reading out loud because it feels really good!

And if you want to watch the whole recording and do all of the reflective writing prompts you can do that here.

Triumph

by the participants in “Survival is Not a Theoretical Skill”

“So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.”

 “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde

So it is better to answer the call.

So it is better to answer the call.

So it is better to heal.

So it is better to make myself.

So it is better to be whole.

So it is better to be true to myself.

So it is better to be me.

So it is better to live.

So it is better to LIVE!

So it is better to return.

So it is better to write a poem.

So it is better to write poems and sing them to each other.

So it is better to sing from one shoreline across the ocean to greet the next.

So it is better to sing out as a collective dream.

So it is better to sing with the fierce clarity of love.

So it is better to hum like the hummingbirds do.

So it is better to breathe in breathe out with all our feelings even our fears.

So it is better to leave and try something new with love in my heart.

So it is better to let heartbreaks to open portals to new worlds.

So it is better to chart a path to another world, to a better world.

So it is better to get still and listen for the next step, knowing you are a channel for divine creative intelligence.

So it is better to ask “What are we dreaming about? How are we dreaming? And where do we get our encouragement from?

So it is better to remember and imagine.

So it is better to forgive & remember.

So it is better to remember we are eternal  and transforming.

So it is better to believe believe believe.

So it is better to try.

So it is better to cry.

So it is better to stay soft.

So it is better to be tender.

So it is better to care.

So it is better to trust.

So it is better to stay open.  

So it is better to keep trying

So it is better to acknowledge those on the shoreline and dream.

So it is better to water myself and those around me.

So it is better to build and steward a sanctuary for all living things.

So it is better to dissolve false comforts for the liberation of all.

So it is better to find the poetry in your spirit and ask all the damn questions.

So it is better to read these verses and walk all over their rules.

So it is better to create through anxiety, express through doubt.

So it is better to express than to be understood.

So it is better to be misunderstood than to be silent.

So it is better to be a killjoy and fully experience joy.

So it is better to love your own voice so that you may move closer to liberation.

So it is better to write a new narrative.

So it is better to listen for what really feels real.

So it is better to protrude fullness and envelope self

So it is better to disappear and fly on purpose, on my own terms, instead of disappearing into the heavy-footed.

So it is better to wear moccasins and walk gently.

So it is better to be playful and walk in a path of dignity.

So it is better to trust our hearts, create worlds of possibility and uplift our people in dignity joy and audacious love.

So it is better to listen to Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone.

So it is better to break the parts of us that need liberation. 

So it is better to be true to self.

So it is better to plant and reach for joy inside each other and ourselves.

So it is better to eat food made with love!

So it is better to play daily!

So it is better to rest.

So it is better to create, write, play, rest, love and experience pleasure.

So it is better to make community with others with dance, laughter, food, and the LOVE that flows from there.

So it is better to go on loving and singing, and eating and writing and planting seeds for the next generation to find and harvest.

So it is better to BE in Blackfullness.

So it is better to live with community.

So it is better to be a we.

So it is better to find each other over and over again.

So it is better to make the world with others.

So it is better to dream.

So it is better to radically hope and dream.

So it is better to dream and imagine otherwise.

So it is better to live whole-hearted.

So it is better to remain present.

So it is better to remain free.

 Missed the workshop? Don’t worry! The recording is here.

Pop-pop and his “E-lexis”

I don’t have any picture of my grandfather as a child. He never saw a camera. My grandfather who grew up under colonial rule on a so-called desert island grew up hungry. By the time he was an adult and had found a way to leave Anguilla the governmental authority made their plan to “starve the people of Anguilla” explicit. They bragged about it. These were the conditions that inspired my grandfather to come back and participate in the Anguillian Revolution in 1967. A grown man who had scraped through his education, upgraded a coal and ice business in New Jersey into a heating and air-conditioning company came home to fight for clean accessible water, food, autonomy for whom? For his people. But also for the starving child he had once been.

In this moment, in my grief and shock at how many young children, intentionally starved by an occupying colonial force have suddenly become ancestors far too soon in the past weeks because of incessant bombing and displacement, I am reaching for the revolutionary child. The child in myself who knows that none of this actually complex. The child self who knows the stakes of survival. And I reach Jeremiah Gumbs, whose face I wouldn’t let go of once I met him. Whose beard I held to as if it would transfer his wisdom. But instead of the wise grandfather who recited me his favorite poems and let me record him sharing his memories, I need the little boy.

Here is a journey I took last year to imagine one week in the life of that little boy in seven different ways. And each time I learned something new about myself, my longing, my ethics, my beliefs. You can read “Three Tries” that ancestrally co-written experiment here:

“Once upon a time in Anguilla there was a little boy named Jeremiah Gumbs. He was the youngest of nine children and they never had enough to eat. One day while little Jeremiah was out fishing with his friends he saw a beautiful rainbow fish. Beautiful, as in, delicious-looking. And big.

The rainbow fish wasn’t big for no reason. The rainbow fish was wise and had grown large over the years by avoiding the hooks of the people who fished in the cove. The rainbow fish stayed safely beneath the edge of a rock watching. Keeping guard.

But little Jeremiah was hungry. And he had a vision. He decided he would catch the rainbow fish and bring it home to his mother to cook for dinner. He prepared his pole and his line and his hook and tempted the rainbow fish with the most delectable bait he could charm from the grown fishermen. When he lowered the bait near the rainbow fish’s home rock he just knew he would be victorious. The rainbow fish smelled the bait and got curious. You know, fish get hungry too. The rainbow fish peered out from the edge of the rock, but the sun glinted off the edge of the sharp hook. The rainbow fish quickly swam back under the edge of the rock. No way. Not today.

Jeremiah went home hungry. His mother fed him and his brothers and sisters with grease, salt tears, and hard flour rolls left over from what she’d baked for the workers that morning.

But Jeremiah was hardworking and patient and he believed that he would prevail. So the next day he went and told the fishermen his story about the sneaky old tricky rainbow fish and how HE would be the first one to catch him. The fishermen laughed and laughter was worth something. So they gave him an even bigger piece of bait… (continue here)

I end up telling the story seven ways based on the contradictions in our intergenerational conversation. For example sometimes my grandfather said his father taught him to fish, but when I asked more about him he said he didn’t remember his father who I learned from other family members was abusive to him and my great grandmother. When I centered each of these contradicting “truths” in the story and gave them their own space instead of allowing them to cancel each other out I saw that the longing in each revision of his story had something different to teach me and that I needed every lesson. My prayer is that our journey (which ends with an important question for you) can accompany you in this time where we need all our lessons and where the complexity of the moment, or the stories we are hearing need not stop us from acting on behalf of all children, including the children within us, including the children who raised us…seeming like adults.

And if you want to go deeper on this journey and access my guidance and love in a journey of reaching for your own ancestral stories, your ancestors as children and your child self, you can sign up for 2024’s first self-guided course “Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations” which is based on what I learned from this ancestral experiment. The course goes live on January 1st and offers seven units of videos, meditations and journal prompts that you can engage at your own pace. I’m recording the videos right now and there is a good chance that you’ll see my crying, but I’m okay with that. Early in the year we will also have a live webinar only for participants in this course to that we can support each other and gather our collective ancestral support. Your offering for the course will support us in making a monetary offering to the ongoing work to save and protect children suffering from occupation and war right now.

Prayer for All Our Children

group poem by the participants in “they have already learned to dream of dying: audre lorde and an intergenerational imperative for peace”

*

“I’m speaking here not only about those children we may have mothered and fathered ourselves, but about all our children together, for they are our joint responsibility and our joint hope.”

- Audre Lorde in her Keynote Speech for the National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference, Oct 13, 1979

May our children play at the edges of the world that was

May our children play a new world into existence.

May our children play undulled by the sharp edges of the world

May our children play with the skulls they are given until they are not skulls anymore

May our children play with flowers, with grief

May our children play with their dreaming

May our children play in the light of the amethyst crystals

May our children play beneath the light of the full moon

May our children play in the web we are always spinning together.

May our children play until their hearts are full.

May our children play amongst kittens running.

May our children play in the most gentle of tenderness

May our children play brightly and safely

May our children play without fears without borders

May our children play without shame.

May our children play without any forced gender determining how they play.

May our children play in safety and amidst abundance.

May our children play fearlessly

May our children play without being seen as a threat

May our children play outdoors in the rain.

May our children play past sundown

May our children play up middle white oak holler

May our children play loudly

May our children play with abandon

May our children play every string, beat every drum, and sing aloud every sound that arises with in them.

May our children play with their voices, and loudly.

May our children play alongside all the brightest colors.

May our children play the songs we dreamed we could

May our children play their way into the worlds we dreamed for them

May our children play held in community

May our children play with self-permission knowing it is core to power.

May our children play knowing they are whole magical and loved

May our children play knowing the world is abundant and built for them.

May our children play in safety and creative abandon

May our children play imaginatively and without limitation

May our children play, backhavers abundant around them.

May our children play and remind us of who we are, not who we’ve been conditioned to be.

May our children play in the roots of our trees while they are simultaneously lifted into the branches, warmed by the sun.

May our children play with each other, having learned- or having taught us, love across difference.

May our children play in co-creation with all our relations, catching sounds, songs and rhythems that connect us all in consciousness and joy.

May our children play in this intergalactic moment that transcends all timelines,  in the heavenly spiderweb of our ancestral prayer, in the healing balm of their own futuredreams.

May our children play with the impossible with ease.

May our children play like flowers freely flying in the wind.

May our children play and remember and remember.

May our children play unendingly.

May our children play with us.

May our children play within us.

May our children play as children

May our children still play when they are elders

May our children play so that we may remember that once we were children and our elders prayed for us to play.

May our children play play play

May our children play!

If you are interested in healing generations, sign up is open for next year’s practice space Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations. Practice starts on New Year’s Day!

photo by Dagmar Schultz

We Are Ready

A poem by the participants in “The Difference Between Poetry and Rhetoric: Audre Lorde and Using Our Power” after “Power” by Audre Lorde

My power is within my words

My power is my community

My power is my possibility

My power is my radical black feminist lineage

My power is in my queer family

My power is my tender, childlike heart

My power is my voice, even when it trembles, even when it’s shaking

My power is my yes, and my no, and the space in-between

My power is a language of love

My power is in the songs I sing and cherish

My power is my love that gives me courage because I trust my ancestors that walk with me

My power is my feistiness

My power is my faith

My power is my sight

My power is my intimacy as illumination

My power is my desire to love you regardless

My power is trusting in wholeness - in me, in this moment, in you

My power is the reminder that more important than the “what” is the “how”

My power is my imagination

My power is my vulnerability

My power is my giant and my small

My power is my ability to hear the smallest voices, in me and others

My power is hope

My power is my humility

My power is my love of listening with an open heart

My power is in my ability to say the truth

My power is my ability to name and shame state violence

instead of blaming individuals for what the state has done to us

My power is learning to love this land without having to claim it

My power is my clarity

My power is my remembering

My power is trying

My power is my connection to my love

My power is my Black Southern heritage, my ability to rest and fight at the same damn time

My power is my humanity

My power is my refusal

My power is my evil being public domain, co-opted, collective, perpetrator and victim

My power is our entangled roots, always connecting us, always sending bursts of poetry

My power is my spiritual calling to love humanity

My power is my connection to all beings

My power is in my sacred solitude

My power is mine

My power is real

My power is my capacity to hold contradiction

My power is my capacity for love, my soul-deep rage, my embrace of both

My power is feeling my feelings

My power is my connection to spirit

My power is the breath of life

My power is my knowing is my faith is my surrender

My power is yet unknown to me

My power is my love

My power is my love

My power is my listening

My power is my belly

My power is my breath

My power is my uncanny intuition, my big heart,

and my fierce desire to protect my people near and far

My power is my ability to nourish my community

My power is my ancestors who hold me

My power is my Mother, guiding me to the peaks of my values,

so I may see the expansiveness of my Self and feel the winds of her Love

My power is the tenderness of my heart that keeps me present

and refuses to harden or go numb

My power is my heart, broken into a greater wholeness

My power is my connection to the divine

My power is my capacity to feel

My power is being present

My power is in both my tears and my rage and not numbing to either

My power is water medicine, the tears that flow and transcend the limits of words

My power is my creativity, my tenderness, my vision, my loudness, my connectedness to my people - both living and passed

My power is my unrelenting, deep love for the earth and all the living beings within it

My power is the dance that keeps me connected to the earth and all her beings

My power is my learned sensitivity to slowness in relationship to holding that space for others

My power is my joy, my dreams, my energy

My power is my song, my voice, my love

My power is my sexual energy unleashed and expressed

My power is my dead people who want more

My power is my deep knowing

My power is a holy well

My power is my strength

My power is my gentleness

My power is my practice

My power is my art and the endurance and stamina of my love

My power is in resonance , powerful togetherness.

My power is when I’m not my own

My power is my grace even when confronted with rage

My power is colorful, just like my soul

My power is my desire - delight - intuition – curiosity

My power is listening for the memory and medicine I have inherited

in my bones and in my blood

My power is my soul’s love for love

My power is my poetry

My power is my prayer being felt across time and space

My power is to believe

My power is knowing there is another way to be

My power is my love

My power is our power

My power is ready

If you missed the workshop you can still access it here: https://sangodare.podia.com/the-difference-between-poetry-and-rhetoric-audre-lorde-and-using-your-power

Becoming

"I was born a Black woman

 and now

 I am become a Palestinian"

-June Jordan “Moving Towards Home”

"High

above this desert

I am

becoming

absorbed"

 -Audre Lorde "Sahara"

a poem by the participants in “Black Feminist Becoming: Sand, Solidarity and Practice”

we are becoming our breathing

we are becoming focused

we are becoming the ways in which we belong to one another

we are becoming awakened to the world

we are becoming our fire

we are becoming ceasefire

we are becoming porous

we are becoming unafraid of play

we are becoming a chorus, singing solidarity

we are becoming free

we are becoming led by inner truth

we are becoming our legacy

we are becoming the ones we were always meant to be

we are becoming dangerous to empire

we are becoming the full embrace of our anger and our love

we are becoming soft and unguarded in our hearts

we are becoming breathing miracles

we are becoming liminal

we are becoming together, now, regardless

we are becoming our care

we are becoming wind

we are becoming our joy

we are becoming the leaders we need

we are becoming the sacred medicine for the world

we are becoming a balm for ancient wounds

we are becoming one name

we are becoming ready to bloom again and again and again

we are becoming unashamed

we are becoming militant lovers

we are becoming courageous

we are becoming the step forward

we are becoming free

we are becoming each other’s harvest

we are becoming who we are

we are becoming whole

You can revisit this workshop or engage it for the first time here. For more opportunities to practice see: https://www.alexispauline.com/classes