My Spirit is Choosing: Thank You Audre Lorde

On the first day of this month over 200 people decided to let the Lorde take the wheel. In the midst of back to school readjustments a conservative backlash and a an aggressive co-optation of our most radical beliefs we turned to Audre Lorde whose prescient insight in “A Song for Many Movements” and other poems is as relevant as ever. In the wake of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, Audre Lorde, working as an educator and a co-founder of Black Studies in the US academy wrote about the shift she saw happening in the way oppression worked. In the face of mass awakenings (did someone say woke?) it had become to cumbersome to keep assassinating oppressed people expressing critiques of the status quo, instead the move became to incorporate those people, and even some of their language without significantly changing the deadly impact of the existing oppressive system.

This is what brought us together. So why was there so much love, joy and purpose in the gathering? Because Audre Lorde’s energy continues to turn us toward each other with passion and possibility. We started by breathing and dedicating our participation to our teachers (I dedicated to beloved Jacqui Alexander) and took a moment to revel in the abundance our teachers (of all species and ages) have given us. We continued by remembering our intergalactic assignments, beyond the specific situations of our livelihoods. And then we got into the deepest part of the Lordean work, addressing the fears that greet us in the very places where we seek to practice our purpose. We supported each other to listen to our inner knowing (and our inner knowing kept it real and very blunt in some cases!) and closed with a collective poem of witnessing.

Here is our poem as an offering to all of us who are engaged in our divine assignments in contexts that are sometimes raggedy, sometimes hostile, sometimes suffocating and always in need of transformation. Read out loud and notice the repetitions here. Our spirits choose each other. We have never been alone.

P.S. If you missed it an want to do the workshop via the recording you can do that here.

My Spirit is Choosing

by the participants in “Our Labor Has Become More Important Than Our Silence”: A Reflective Writing Workshop in Honor of Audre Lorde

“In a classroom on the 17th floor my spirit is choosing…”

-Audre Lorde, Blackstudies

            My spirit is choosing truth

            My spirit is choosing freedom.

My spirit is choosing to be seen more fully

            My spirit is choosing me.

My spirit is choosing expression.

My spirit is choosing activation

My spirit is choosing liberation

            My spirit is choosing to take the risk for love.

            My spirit is choosing sovereignty.

            My spirit is choosing pleasure

My spirit is choosing peace

            My spirit is choosing my peace and the preciousness of it

My spirit is choosing care

my spirit is choosing care

            My spirit is choosing to surrender, let go, be carefree

            My spirit is choosing REST & RESOURCES

My spirit is choosing being, not doing.

My spirit is choosing belonging no longer in question.

My spirit is choosing choice

            My spirit is choosing to notice.

My spirit is choosing ornate complexity

            My spirit is choosing to love anyway.

My spirit is choosing joy.

My spirit is choosing joy.

My spirit is choosing joy.

My spirit is choosing joy

My spirit is choosing the risk of connection

My spirit is choosing bravery

            My spirit is choosing balance

            My spirit is choosing honest communication

            My spirit is choosing to trust the love

            My spirit is choosing an unknown soon

My spirit is choosing emergence

My spirit is choosing trust

            My spirit is choosing to listen

My spirit is choosing fortitude for my own sake

My spirit is choosing courage for my own sake

            My spirit is choosing to not to invisibilize myself, despite others wanting to

            My spirit is choosing love

My spirit is choosing love

My spirit is choosing self-love

My spirit is choosing tenderness and doing things slow

My spirit is choosing release

            My spirit is choosing to let go

My spirit is choosing to recognize my usefulness

and to tap into the covenant I made with my ancestors in the dungeons — love

My spirit is choosing my, OUR collective Self, OUR wholeness,

leaning unto our aliveness.

            My spirit is choosing to ride constant heartbreaks

like gentle waves that teach me to move in new ways.

            My spirit is choosing sweetness

            My spirit is choosing rest

My spirit is choosing movement, always movement

            My spirit is choosing is choosing rest, choosing play, and choosing to play ah mas.

            My spirit is choosing courage

            My Spirit is choosing transformation

            My spirit is choosing art and creativity

My spirit is choosing to lean into, maybe love, what I do not know

            My spirit is choosing the soil

            My spirit is choosing magic

            My spirit is choosing to listen to the walls of caves

            My spirit is choosing surrendering to your rage.

            My spirit is choosing the power of listening

            My spirit is choosing healing as a way of being differently

            My spirit is choosing to jump through the portals past fear.

            My spirit is choosing it's particular place in the constellation of all

            My spirit is choosing bare feet in grass

            My spirit is choosing the power of listening

My spirit is choosing to remember the miracles

My spirit is choosing to honour instinct and the honing of the craft

My spirit is choosing to practice the art of discernment

            My spirit is choosing the nurture cycle of creation and destruction

            My spirit is choosing to dance through the feelings, any and all

            My spirit is choosing connection

            My spirit is choosing to grow like the trees, with an inner knowing

            My spirit is choosing an approximation of stillness, and the quietest melody

            My spirit is choosing to commune with my spirit

My spirit is choosing to be free

            My spirit is choosing to speak and be known

My spirit is choosing the possibilities of nuance

My spirit is choosing be unapologetic

            My spirit is choosing life.

My spirit is choosing excitement!

My spirit is choosing you!

My spirit is choosing us

my spirit is choosing you and us as we are, as we were, as we will be

            My spirit is choosing to be moved by y'all

My spirit is choosing

 We love you! Again if you want to do this reflective writing workshop you can access the video here. Or check out our other workshops here.