Triumph: Survival is Not a Theoretical Skill

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.