i was sleeping while you were smiling

i was fat and you were thin and young

we were brown and the sun knew us gently

my ribbon matched your dress

i was fat and you were thin and young

you would be yet thin and young still when you died

my ribbon matched your dress

my hands your hands

yes you will be yet thin and young and gone

when i become the age that you are here

my hands your hands

i would take on the art

when i become the age that you are here

i write and think that means that i can live

i’m taking on the art

you left behind

i write and does it mean that you yet live

brown and gentle in the rising sun

you left us, sleeping

are you smiling now?

(This is dedicated to my beloved godmother Aunt Andie, also known as the great author, journalist and woman of profound faith Andria Hall. She also made the most amazing Sunday breakfasts in the universe. I know that right now she would be making space for compassion and divine love with every word. I also know she is smiling upon the beautiful joyful lives of her children and family. Thank you Aunt Andie. Your life taught me that “angel” was not an idea or a metaphor. Angel is a way of being. The way you be. Eternal love.)

*if you know you know. shout out to Natasha Tretheway.

for soprano, mezzo-soprano or alto voice

am i the one

who looks most like you

in the world?

who looks most like you

eyes or hands

mouth or song?

in this whole world

is there one

as yours as me?

i am the one

who holds your song

inside my skin.

(This love song to all of my ancestors is inspired by this picture of me twinning with my dear Aunt Una, the great opera singer. Right now my aunt and my other relatives in Anguilla are dealing with a complete shut down of an economy seduced and betrayed by tourism. Their food supply, almost entirely imported is a major question. Aunt Una’s voice could break windows, has opened doors. And sometimes she will face the ocean and sing. )

the difference between a yawn and a smile

the small muscles

near the cheekbone

the jaw in its depth

not width

near the cheekbone

there is a yes

not width

a knowing

there is a yes

you have to reach for it

a knowing

stretching your baby face

you have to reach for it

the love you need

stretching your baby face

and grown heart

the love you need

the jaw in its depth

this growing heart

the smallest muscle

(This is dedicated to everyone who is relearning their face after days of not seeing or smiling at strangers in passing. This is dedicated to us, the ones relearning movement in smaller spaces. This is for us, navigating the difference between restlessness and rest. And of course this is dedicated to three of my gorgeous godmothers, three of the sisters my mother chose. Aunt Cecilia, Aunt Rashmi and Auntie Jenny. Divine. And dreamy.)

nana touches the back of my father

the hem of my garment

looks out of the frame

blood red nails

the hem of my garment

white lace stitched by love

at home red fingertips

as well

white lace stitched by love

like this is a wedding

as well

something someone gives me away

like this is a wedding

but my father is holding

something someone give me a way

to hold onto him now

but my father is held

now out of the frame

and yet I hold him here

touch back

(I dedicate this to all of us with the impulse to hold and be held by people who we cannot hold or be held by right now, for reasons of social distance or spiritual plane. I dedicate this to my father who I just wish I could hug, it’s a daily wish and a daily heartbreak. I dedicate this to my Nana who is living, but far away and also who it would not be epidemiologically wise for me to hug at this time. Even this christening gown made by my other grandmother the great designer exists somewhere where we can’t touch it. Towards our transformed relationship to touch. And not taking touch for granted ever. Again.)

at last the people face each other
in the open mouth of a child
greet each other gently
curious about the world to come

in the open mouth of a child
the people find not teeth but questions
curious about the world to come
they raise the high pitch of their voices

the people find not teeth but questions
they make not weapons but water
they raise the pitch of their own voices
to meet the hope they suddenly remember

they make not weapons but water
with their skin and with their eyes
they meet the sudden hope
with salt and fresh renewal

with their skin and with their eyes
the people greet each other gently
with salt and fresh renewal
at last the people face each other

(Part of my curriculum of homeschooling my inner child and balancing this social distance is returning to images of my first social event. My first official ceremony. The ceremony of godparents. A memory of being held. Some of these folks are far away, like my Mama across an ocean now. Some, like my Pop-pop, Aunt Mary -who is holding me here-and Aunt Andie-right next to my mom-are ancestors now.)

Are you homeschooling your inner child? Adapting through rebirth? Finding a ceremony here?

Last week we gathered for the “Set Me Free” ancestral accountability intensive and wrote together not only about our role in elevating and liberating our ancestors, but also about how listening to and learning about them reveals our own current entrapment, by external systems and internal patterns. In honor of my great grandmother Edith Henry who was an organist and spiritual worker in the AME church, and who also died in a mental institution after a mental break caused by the death of her disabled son in an institution for the containment of disabled children in the early 20th century we explored our organs, the breathing of the church organ, the organized chaos of our longings and fears and supported each other in holding space for the rage, love, guidance and clarification of our ancestors.

As I have been building my relationship with Edith Henry and acknowledging her and her son, my great uncle who I never learned about until I found his name on a census record and broke a multi-generational family silence, I think about what it means to be in “our place.” Great grandmother Edith was a Black woman who did not survive the patriarchal constriction of the time in which she lived and the dominating socialization of my great grandfather. And ultimately she was confined in a mental institution. My great uncle was one of the many children with disabilities who was forced out of view. He died within 24 hours being placed in an institution. My great grandmother, who never wanted him to be sent there, died from the heartbreak of losing him. The consequences of Black women being forced to stay “in their place” and of disabled people being forced into backrooms is profound suffering, silence and death. I have had to reimagine the places my ancestors inhabited, constricted in multiple ways as the center of the universe. The place from which wisdom, accountability and impact radiate out even though multiple systems of oppression tried to contain their uncontainable lives.

And right now, many of us are newly negotiating containment. Many abled people are for the first time developing empathy for disabled community members who have to self-quarantine on a regular basis. The conversation about freedom of movement, lockdown and isolation is expanding. And right where you are, right now, is the center of the universe. It is the place where you get to learn about the internal and external limitations that shape your days, and the structures that were already in place. In our late efforts to contain the consequences of a pandemic that the systems that harm us daily have allowed to run rampant, we are learning something new about our “place” or the extent of our displacement, here at the center of the universe.

Our offering to you is the group poem that we wrote together on the first night of our ancestral accountability intensive. We offer what we are placing at the center and what centers us in this time of anxiety and uncertainty. Use it when you need centering. If functions as a repetitive meditation. If possible, read it out loud. Right where you are.

The Center of the Universe

by the participants in the Set Me Free Ancestral Accountability Intensive

“the center of the universe.  her place.”

                        -from “Edict” in Dub: Finding Ceremony

breath.  the center of the universe.

love.  the center of the universe.

joy. the center of the universe.

women. the center of the universe.

mycelium. the center of the universe. 

the seed of what is left. the center of the universe.

grandmothers healing hands.  the center of the universe.

deep knowing.  the center of the universe.

your heart.  the center of the universe.

a heart that gives, receives, holds, gives again.  the center of the universe.

the warmth of strong arms embrace. the center of the universe.

our bodies where we live and breathe.  the center of the universe.

her womb.  the center of the universe.

body to body.  the center of the universe.

water. the center of the universe.

her eyes, looking at me. the center of the universe.

releasing flowing tears. the center of the universe.

a well. the center of the universe.

the grounding rhythm of the drums. the center of the universe.

vibrational healing. the center of the universe.

purple light. the center of the universe.

sacred caves. the center of the universe.

ammonite fossils. the center of the universe.

stone. the center of the universe.

tree. the center of the universe.

fire. the center of the universe.

burnt root and smoke.  the center of the universe.

standing under the moon. the center of the universe.

play. the center of the universe.

organ. the center of the universe.

handwritten notes. the center of the universe.

black feminist brilliance.  the center of the universe.

your beautiful bright smiles.  the center of the universe.  

journey towards the center of the universe.

this. right now.  the center of the universe.

---

If you want to be among the first to hear about April’s online intensive you can join the email list here:  http://brillianceremastered.alexispauline.com/contact/

Our next two online workshops this month are:  

Friday, March 20th  7pm eastern Audre Lorde online workshop “in order to go on living”: an equinox ceremony https://www.eventbrite.com/e/in-order-to-go-on-living-an-equinox-ceremony-in-the-time-of-epidemic-tickets-99715916992

Tuesday, March 24th 7pm eastern Toni Cade Bambara online workshop “Take Care of Your Blessings”: Toni Cade Bambara and a Spell for Mutual Survival  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/take-care-of-your-blessingstoni-cade-bambara-a-spell-for-mutual-survival-tickets-99711794662

 And if you specifically want to be notified as we roll out the Black Feminist Breathing Reboot Upgrade you can add your email here: https://mailchi.mp/c4130ae92edb/keepbreathing

Photo by Dagmar Schultz

Last night some of the lovers of the Lorde gathered to celebrate her birthday. We did what Audre Lorde asked of her communities again and again, we allowed ourselves to meet ourselves newly. We took responsibility for the depth of our longing. We tuned into our ancestral selves and opened ourselves up to receive love from all directions. With dedication to the powerful entities in our lives and in the ancestral realm (especially Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison beaming down on us from that great writers retreat in the sky) we followed the example of Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn and created time travel guides and glossaries to meet our ancestral selves across lifetimes and within this one. We participated in the transformation of a stone machine into a stone museum, releasing what was weighing us down and inviting the power of the sacred stones Lorde invokes in her poems. We found ourselves in each other and emerged renewed. Our offering in gratitude to Audre Lorde for all these lifetimes of love is below. We encourage you to read it out-loud with special emphasis on the lines that also resonate with what Audre Lorde has provided you.

And if you want to learn about Undrowned Sun: An Ancestral Listening Intensive taking place online Feb 29 to March 1, here is the info: http://brillianceremastered.alexispauline.com/2020/02/09/undrowned-sun-an-ancestral-listening-intensive/

Love,

Alexis

Happy Birthday Audre: A Woven Poem

After Audre Lorde’s poem "Sahara" in The Black Unicorn

By the participants in “Ancestor Audre: References for Rebirth”

Weaving: the work that is finally recognized, the work that is necessary an skilled, and soft and wise, joyously celebrated by all.  An honor to offer-thank you Audre.

You is the light Audre.

Love everlasting Audre.

Radical truth Audre.

Take off my clothes Audre!

Powerful and vulnerable Audre.

Grateful for your alchemy Audre.

I vow to listen to you Audre.

Thank you for sharing your eyes Audre.

Thank you for radical self-love Audre.

Keep on beaming, we feel you Audre.

Your gaze keeps me honest Audre.

You make me know I can exist Audre.

I am more expansive because of you Audre.

You came for me in my time of need Audre.

Your words center me every time I spin Audre

Moonlight beams reflecting off ocean waves, Audre.

You have become the ancestor you dreamed of Audre.

You are remembered today and always Audre.

Thank you for helping me learn about who I am Audre.

Dismantling the master’s house because of you Audre.

You keep teaching me how to survive and I thank you Audre.

I am who I am doing what I came to do Audre.

Everpresent wisdom reverberating always

Audre.

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

Wendi O’Neal gathers the people during the Southerners on New Ground Anniversary Celebration in Durham, NC

Nobody in my African dance class wants to celebrate President’s Day. “What is there to celebrate?” We collectively believe that the buildings where we dance should be open to us on this municipal holiday. Because as one wise dancer pointed out “There isn’t a president.” The truth of this is glaring at the moment. And the impulse for us to come together and move is ancient and it is as necessary now as it is has ever been.

Last month a group of us came together to write about coming together drawing on the Black Feminist Precedent of June Jordan’s book Living Room. We wrote about what home is and what it isn’t. We revisited the horrifying clarity of the Greensboro Massacre and the Atlanta Child Murders. We thought about the simplicity and complexity of our basic rights. Clean water. Safe living space. We reflected on the difference between making demands for accountability from systems designed to eradicate us and tapping into the actual source of our supply, that which makes the flower bloom. We reclaimed our blooming y’all.

In 1979 in the face of the Atlanta Child Murders, June Jordan asked her community “What kind of a people are we?” She wanted to know if her community would transform itself to save it’s own children. She wanted to ask about a collective capacity to respond ethically in a flagrantly violent context. And we still need that. Our workshop was dedicated to and inclusive of parents facing violent neglect and environmental poisoning in Durham Public Housing. Our basic needs, our fundamental rights will not come from a president. That type of only love can only be activated by a people. When fear threatens to isolate us further, and when our isolation only benefits those few who seek to control the many, we have to learn to become a people. What kind of a people? Our closing group poem from the Living Room workshop offers an invocation. Again this is best read aloud.

P.S. Tomorrow is Audre Lorde’s Birthday aka High Holy Black Feminist Rebirth-day you can sign up for our celebratory workshop Ancestor Audre: References for Rebirth here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/93658770905

And my new book Dub: Finding Ceremony came out last week. On Feb 29/March 1st join us for an intimate 12 person online experience: Undrowned Sun: An Ancestral Listening Intensive. Learn more here: http://brillianceremastered.alexispauline.com/2020/02/09/undrowned-sun-an-ancestral-listening-intensive/

Invocation: For Becoming a People

by the participants in the Living Room: Housing as a Human Right Webinar

“What kind of a people are we?” – June Jordan in “The Test of Atlanta 1979”

 a people who put love first

a people who change the world

a people who collectively protect our children

a people who uplift one another

a people who say what they need to say

a people who follow through

a people who seek out all the forbidden lost histories

a people who will not sit idly by

a people who make good food

a people who will give a glass of water

a people who rest

a people who know the material power of dreams

a people who use joy as resistance

a people who use love as our weapon

a people who renourish the soil

a people who drink as we pour

a people who warm each other

a people who ready for birth

a people who sing to our babies

a people who honor our elders

a people who pay attention to the moon

a people who LISTEN TO BLACK WOMEN

a people who engage in sustainable support and care

a people who actively heal generational trauma

a people who remembers our medicine

a people who know we need each other and say it out loud

a people who abolish the prisons

a people who restore and repair

a people who love learning

in the living room

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

Like an endowed chair, but you were chained to it. Like a long-term artist residency with minimal chores and access to an historic New England house except, you belong. Except you cannot belong. I often think about you Phillis Wheatley, first of our kind, the only reason we remember the name of a particular slaveholding family Wheatley, a particular profitable slaveship Phillis, and whoever the boat was named after. You were named after the boat, and the family that bought you before your front teeth came in. Those who would imagine themselves as your benefactors, make themselves more interesting than their neighbors because dinner at their house meant you, not only serving the table, but creating poetry, performing on the spot, offering hosts and guests alike a chance at immortality. And they live now through your words. Like the names on buildings, endowed funds or attached to the salaries of my mentors. Like the names of the fellowships some of us apply for every year. Names that ring with our desire to be chosen. I think of you, first of our kind. Arriving without your front teeth. Which means what? Are your baby teeth among the bones of those who did not survive the journey with you, washed out of the hold with so much blood and matter?

Yesterday I found out that one of my teeth is dead. Way in the back, a molar, like those teeth you didn’t have yet, when John and Susanah named you when they claimed you on the dock. It will stay there in my mouth though. What they call a natural implant, deep rooted and about to undergo a root canal. No, I don’t have dental insurance anymore. That was only for the short time that I was a named chair at a midwestern university. A time when I was far from home and cold. I know you know enough about that. How after Susanah died and freed you, you could not afford the heat to live in a harsh New England climate. And no one would publish your second book without their esteemed names to frame your bio, your biology. You couldn’t afford anymore to get sick. But you did get sick again and died. Free. First of our kind to follow love, be the brave the first, the free the independent scholar. I love you. And I wish I knew your name.

I made this collage, a revision of the frontispiece from your book. You know my books too have the name of a slaveholder on the front inside page. What happens next? I wanted to make your bonnet into a feathered crown and so I did. I wanted to make your writing plume plush and purple so I did that too. I wanted you to have so much more than the bare minimum. When I was seven years old I played you in the Black history month play at a school that was all white except for me. They put gray construction paper chains around my wrists. I made you this collage with scissors and with glue. I put black glitter all around your face. I offered every form of printed fabric, like there could be a relationship to print that was worthy of you and us, that was soft and supported you, a fabric that linked you to me by choice, that supported you as if you could be at home. This collage (I keep changing the title of it) is a ceremony where I insist, with not a little bit of desperation that I can rename your chair, reclaim the place you sit from thieves. What is your name?

The frame of your frontispiece portrait says who owns you, calls you servant, I want to serve you and I want to break you out. So the one place where I break the frame it is with teeth. Yes, the same teeth you didn’t have. With teeth no one can see. The smile of a of a young black girl, but her mouth is closed. And I pray that no one steals whatever she might say to call themselves the coolest white person in history. And her smile, let it break the frame that now encircles you. Closed mouth, the smile of knowing something no one knows, and if you tell me I won’t tell them either. This smile can hold your freely given name.

P.S. Prints of my collage for the artist provisionally known in capture as Phillis Wheatley and 20 other ancestral collages are now available in multiple sizes as an ongoing fundraiser for the transformation of independent scholarship into communal abundance known as Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind. Click on the images below to see the range.

And Thursday is our workshop inspired by June Jordan’s Living Room on Housing as a Human Right. Relevant to artists and to all of us. The artist provisionally known in capture as Phillis Wheatley died as Phillis Peters, a black mother in unlivable housing. June Jordan’s essay “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America” was the subject of my first ever essay in college. You should read it. And sign up for the workshop here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/living-rooma-writing-workshop-on-housing-as-a-human-right-tickets-89969484149

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

*photo by Dagmar Schultz

Last Thursday, some of us, those of us who could access electricity and battery power gathered for a digital writing workshop on energy and transformation. We gathered to remember Audre Lorde’s wisdom on the relationship between natural and social disasters, based her experience revising her whole lifetime of poetry by candle and kerosene lamp and listening for the generator to cut off in the months after Hurricane Hugo when St. Croix, a colonial territory of the United States, had no electrical power, just one demonstration of an ongoing lack of accountability. We gathered with Puerto Rico on our minds. During the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, Audre Lorde was terminally ill and we gathered with disability justice warriors on our minds who raised awareness about the impact of California’s pre-emptive power outages during the wildfires on those members of our communities who depend on electricity to live. We were vulnerable with each other and explored the rawness of the interruptions not only in our access to utilities, but in our relationships, our practices, our interrupted sleep, our anxiety. We cataloged our longings and following the lead of Audre Lorde, engaged revision. We moved through the past tense, subjunctive, tense, present tense, inspired by Lorde’s practice later in her life of putting line breaks within lines, we made space for ourselves to breathe. We let ourselves learn about the relationship between interruption and reconnection. Space between, and space to generate something new and necessary. Some interruptions are sudden, some are recurring. Audre Lorde reminds us that “wind is our teacher,” in the forms of elemental changes that prove the illusion of the status quo, the structures that operate as if the world is not changing right now.

Our offering to you is a group poem we created inspired by Audre Lorde’s poem “The Winds of Orisha” a reflection on what the edges of our experiences are teaching us about expansive contradiction, persistence and adaptation. We invite you to read it out loud.

P.S. There are still some spots in next week’s online workshop Living Room: Housing as a Human Right, inspired by June Jordan’s poetry collection Living Room and the work of Black mother’s in Durham and the Bay Area to create a homeful reality. More info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/living-rooma-writing-workshop-on-housing-as-a-human-right-tickets-89969484149

And check out the video below to learn about next weekend’s Black Feminist Speculative Documentary Intensive in Durham: https://documentarystudies.asapconnected.com/CourseDetail.aspx?CourseId=215629

Even This

by the participants in “Of Generators and Survival: Listening for Audre Lorde When the Power’s Out”

“When the winds of Orisha blow

even the roots of grass

quicken.”

-from The Winds of Orisha by Audre Lorde

(revised by Lorde for Undersong in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo when the power was out for months)

even the hands of children bleed

even the humility of hero is fault 

even the perfection of the rose fades

even all that is most true dies

even the bark of the tree feels the mycelium

even the trunk of the tree buckles

even the generator power needs

even the atoms feel the interruption

even the full-bellied laughter tells us stories of pain

even the depths of frustration teach

even the waves of grief dance

even the heart of freedom fights

even the love of the world laughs

even the voices of those unheard scream 

even that which breaks us heals us

even the divinity of healers expands

even the dreams of the enslaved unfold

even the sleep stolen dreams

even the faces of the dead smile

even the facsimile of your face soothes

even the possibility of peace heals

even the sound of breathing blesses

even the mountain lion teaches

even the wounded dog kisses

even the soil of stolen land holds promise

even the soil of war feeds

even our bodies contain the memories we cannot feel

even the broken bodies grow

even the frozen water moves

even the lashes of eyes soften

even the eyes of a foe protect

even the eyes of new life see

even the end of the day wakes

even the edges of space sing

even the blast of the explosive rebuilds

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

On the King Holiday, a group of folks gathered online to write together and to listen to our ancestors and our dreams. We honored the birthday of the Black lesbian feminist poet Pat Parker and her critical and crucial stewardship of the dream of feminism. We poetically gathered the artifacts of “our people” as we claim, remember and create them. We began to inventory our dream archives, both our night dreams and our daily aspirations. And we were inspired by Mahalia Jackson’s demand to Martin Luther King Jr. to “tell them about the dream” an important historical interjection that made a night dream King had shared with Jackson into a collective aspirational dream for beloved community that we still gotta create. In our group poem we wrote about what it means to honor what our own ancestors are telling us to do, and how we can speak their ancestral wisdom with our actions. As usual, I recommend reading the poem out loud. You may even decide to choose a line or stanza that particularly supports the dreams you are making real in 2020.

And speaking of what’s coming up in 2020 there are still a couple of spots in tomorrow’s workshop “Of Generators and Survival”: Listening for Audre Lorde When the Power’s Out: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/of-generators-and-survival-listening-for-audre-lorde-when-the-powers-out-tickets-89086513159

Next Thursday we are gathering inspired by June Jordan to write in honor of housing as a human right: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/89969484149

Our second LOVEBIRDS Cohort for LGBTQ BIPOC who are opening themselves up to love starts this weekend and there are a few spots left: https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/lovebird-registration-application/

AND my partner Sangodare and I are facilitating some in-person and online activities for Queer folks in love with each other check it out here: https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/loveship

And in also Durham first weekend of February I will be teaching a 12 hour weekend intensive for artists who are interested in how the idea of “speculative documentary” (an ancestor accountable future) supports the art, writing, and intellectual work they are doing. You can learn more here: https://documentarystudies.asapconnected.com/CourseDetail.aspx?CourseId=215629

With Love

After Mahalia Jackson who said “Martin, tell them about the dream.”

by the participants in “Who Taught You How to Dream” an ancestor accountable writing ceremony

tell them with a knowing

tell them with your voice bold and quivering

tell them with your well-hydrated days

tell them with humor

tell them with song

tell them with your laughter

tell them with the rhythms of drums and dances

tell them with a deep bellowing roar

tell them with the vibrations of all your sacred sounds

tell them with sweat

tell them with dreaming

tell them with your most generous breath

tell them with your whole spine and every rib you breathe with

tell them with bold truths that will shake the others

tell them with a gentle nudge or a hard shove depending 

tell them with a whisper to “keep going” when the day is dark

tell them with the depth of your relationships

tell them with an invitation to dinner, laughter and leftovers to take home 

tell them with a love note

tell them with giggles

tell them with your eyes

tell them with compassion

tell them with fire

tell them with food

tell them with baked bread right out of the oven

tell them with books

tell them with a hug that was hard to accept

tell them with clear boundaries

tell them with unexpected moments of grace when we think we can’t keep going

tell them with open breezeways 

tell them with hand over heart

tell them with your heartbeat

tell them with infinite curiosity

tell them with patience

tell them with forgiveness

tell them with your misshapen sculptures 

tell them with relaxed shoulders

tell them with soft eyes

tell them with the ebb and flow of the ocean waves

tell them with a “keep on going”

tell them with organza, tulle, silk and satin

tell them without expecting to hear anything in return

tell them with luminous silence

tell them with a yawn before a nap

tell them with the momentary dissolve of the lines of your self

tell them with bees dancing where the sweetest flower is

tell them with prayers to the water, to the land defenders to the sleeping

tell them with water whispering thank you I love you it’s safe now 

tell them with fierce love

tell them with your deep practices of self-love

tell them with your heart as loud as you can

tell them with your fearless energy of unabashed love

tell them with love

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

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.

Coming Up:

Online

Monday (MLK Day) 1/20 2pm-4pm Eastern

Who Taught You to Dream: An Ancestor Accountable Writing Ceremony

Thursday 1/23 7pm to 9pm Eastern

Of Generators and Survival: Listening for Audre Lorde When the Power’s Out (benefiting the Maria Rapid Response Fund and with a free option for folks in Puerto Rico)

Thursday 1/30 7pm to 9pm Eastern

Living Room: June Jordan and Housing as a Human Right (benefitting DHA vs. Everybody and Moms 4 Housing

In Durham

Sunday 1/19 Indigo 2020 Vision: Black Queer Feminist Sunday Service at Northstar Church of the Arts

Saturday and Sunday Feb 1 & 2 After: Black Feminist Speculative Documentary Intensive

See you soon.

Love,

Alexis

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

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

Last week at 6 am Pacific Time and 5:30pm Iran Standard time a group of people gathered to write about peace, about the possibility of peace in the face of intergenerational trauma and loss. About the triggering harm of multiple forms of war. About what we wanted about who we loved. This happened because Tala Khanmalek, a child of Iranian immigrants asked to use a chant I had offered before using June Jordan’s phrase and theory “Love is lifeforce” at a protest against the sudden escalation of war in the first days of the year. Tala has written more about this here. Inspired by Jordan’s poem Intifada Incantation, which is a love poem, and also her poem “Moving Towards Home” to work through what we “do not wish to speak about” what we “need to talk about” and who have have become and are becoming in the face of our impossible desires for peace. We are sharing with you (one arrangement of) the poem that we created out of our time together. It is best read aloud. Like June Jordan’s poem it is in all capital letters because we insist.

P.S. I have just added a new writing workshop for January 30th in solidarity with the Black mothers of Durham and the Bay Area who are facing violent neglect and armed eviction drawing on June Jordan’s concept of living room. Living Room: A Writing Workshop on Housing as a Human Right.

Sign up remains open for Of Generators and Survival: Listening for Audre Lorde When the Power’s Out (January 23) and Who Taught You to Dream (on King Day aka Pat Parker’s Birthday)

I SAID I LOVED YOU

By the participants in the “I SAID I LOVED YOU”: June Jordan and the Insistent Poetics of Peace workshop 

“I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

GENOCIDE TO STOP”

-from Intifada Incantation by June Jordan

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

HOME

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

WATER 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

DIGNITY BREATHING 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

SPACE TO NEED

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO BEND TIME 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

MOVEMENT 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

CONNECTION

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TOUCH

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

GRACE

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

HEALING 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO BE SEEN

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO SPEAK ESPECIALLY WHEN MY VOICE WAS QUIVERING

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU TO ALWAYS KNOW IT 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU TO NEVER DIE

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU TO HEAR 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU TO SAY IT BACK 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

BACK WHAT WE HAD COST EACH OTHER 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO RETURN

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU TO NEVER BE TORTURED IN PRISON

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

THE VIOLATION TO NEVER HAVE HAPPENED

TO NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

US 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO PROTECT US

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO PROTECT YOU 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO BE PROTECTED

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

THERE TO BE NO NEED FOR PROTECTION

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

EVERYONE SAFE AT HOME 

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

EVERYONE TO FEEL SAFE WHERE THEY SLEEP

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

TO BE BETTER WITH YOU

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

WE

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

YOU WE US TO FEEL GOOD TO FEEL JOY

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

EVERY SUNRISE

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

THE WHOLE SKY

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

This weekend a beautiful multitude, generations of people inspired by June Jordan’s work, including some of her beloved students and collaborators gathered to write together and celebrate the 50 year anniversary of Jordan’s still very timely book Some Changes. We reckoned with how much in the current moment, in our lives and in this world doesn’t make any sense and then we played with form, listened to the darkness and the ocean and opened ourselves to multiple forms of guidance from June Jordan’s powerful work and legacy. Multiple times I was so overwhelmed with gratitude I completely forgot my own curriculum. I am grateful for the power in the space and the vulnerable, hopeful, wise words shared. Please enjoy our group poem below.

The power of this weekend’s workshop opened a portal for me and I have also been motivated by the urgency of June Jordan's poetry to create two other "emergency" workshops for THIS WEEK in response to both the Australian Bushfires and the war against Iran. 

Tuesday 1/7: Archive of Fire: Climate Justice in the Time of the Australian Bushfires was inspired by a sister in Melbourne who reached out to me that she was reading my book M Archive: After the End of the World while witnessing her continent on fire amidst the lies and excuses of local politicians. If you cannot attend, please do spread the word to your loved ones and colleagues in Australia, they have the option to participate for free and I timed it to be during their waking hours. Proceeds will go to the Fire Relief Fund for First Nations Communities which you can also donate to here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fire-relief-fund-for-first-nations-communities

Sign up is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/archive-of-fire-climate-justice-in-the-time-of-the-australian-bushfires-tickets-88472929915

Wednesday 1/8 (morning) I SAID I LOVE YOU: June Jordan and an Insistent Poetics of Peace was inspired by my dear sister Tala who is a child of Iranian immigrants who asked if she could use a chant she heard me use of June Jordan's words "Love is lifeforce" in an anti-war speech she gave yesterday. Again please help by spreading the word to loved ones and colleagues who are in Iran or who are part of the diaspora. They have the option to participate for free and I timed it to be after work Iran-time.  

Sign up is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/i-said-i-love-you-june-jordan-and-insistent-peace-in-the-face-of-war-tickets-88473670129

And sign up is also open for our regularly scheduled workshop on January 20th:

Who Taught You to Dream: An Ancestor Accountable Writing Ceremony

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/who-taught-you-to-dream-an-ancestor-accountable-online-writing-ceremony-tickets-88281597635

For Beautiful Us

by the participants in Some Changes: June Jordan and the Decade We’ve Been Waiting For

“you will be god to bless you”

            -June Jordan in “For Beautiful Mary Brown: Chicago Rent Strike Leader”

we will be power to bless ourselves

we will be constellations to guide us

we will be dreaming to sustain us

we will be healed to reach our roots

we will be courage to live in truth

we will be fierce to liberate ourselves

we will be water to slake our thirst

we will be together to heal us

we will be fearless to love ourselves

we will be love to feed ourselves

we will be fire to warm us

we will be joy to sustain us

we will be joy to sustain revolution

we will be love in the space of want

we will be infinite unveiling to us

we will be matches to spark us

we will be iridescent to activate us

we will be movement to change the unthinkable

we will be legacy to re-member our heritage

we will be voice to name us

we will be call to sacred in all

we will be arms to hold us together

we will be air to lift our wings

we will be the air we float away on

we will be the salt that floats us

we will be the ocean to liberate our existence

we will be luscious to incubate liberation

we will be laughter that reverberates through darkness

we will be darkness to be known

we will be free to be ourselves

we are the darkness they cannot penetrate

we are the thank you we give ourselves

i will be darkness to wade in myself

i will be moon to reflect me

i will be ocean to free myself

i will be fierceness to protect you

i will be listening to presence you

i will be ears to taste your hope

y’all will be voices to breathe truth

babies will be conscience to lead us 

they will be patterns to guide you

they will be models to move our hearts

they will be candles to light the way 

guides will be speaking to direct us

she will be here to guide us

you will be heartbeat to guide us

we will be the ones June was waiting for

we will be more than anyone has ever imagined to create an entirely new world

we will be everything we need to be free

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

It is the first day of a new year and a new decade. And for some of us that comes with anxiety and pressure. What will be the first phone call or text, the first meal, the first outing, the first poem of the new decade and what will it MEAN about the trajectory of the next 10 years and the rest of your LIFE!!!!!!!?????? During our last Brilliance Remastered writing intensive of 2019, “Cycles: The Unlearning Intensive,” we did some work to displace the “fear of firsts” that can often stall us in our process and send us into an overthinking loop that brings back our least helpful default stories and actions.

What if instead of turning a new beginning into an opportunity to judge and prove, we could celebrate the very practice of beginning? What if we could honor any of the infinite things we might do that would remind us that we can always start again? And then do that again and again and again. In the Unlearning Intensive, as we wrote and explored the ongoing conversations in our minds and turned things backwards and inside out, one of the things we noticed is that while systemic oppressions and family patterns of trauma have done a lot to shape the stories we tell about our own lives, we are also powerful storytellers with the possibility of creating new stories, and shifting and turning around old ones. And some of the practices that we want to prioritize allow us just that, opportunities to rewrite and invent our relationships to the people, institutions and processes in our lives. So as a gift on the New Year’s Day we offer you an abundance of firsts. Our abundance of firsts in the group poem that we created together. You can read it aloud as a way of remembering and recognizing that impulse to begin as it’s own miracles. And embrace that, like life embraces you. Happy and/or Reflective and/or Sweet and/or Slow and/or Pondering New Year Loves!!!!

P.S. And if you want a supportive space to write through some of these changes (during a meteor shower!) Sign up is open for Some Changes our online writing workshop this coming Saturday based on the brilliance of June Jordan’s FIRST book of poems, published 50 years ago at the dawn of the 1970s. Info here.

First

by the participants in Cycles: The Unlearning Intensive

First I will listen

First I will love

First I will love myself first

First I will ask questions

First I will look up and reach down

First I will stop knowing 

First I will dive

First I will float

First I will hold my own hands

First I will let go

First I will let go of trying to understand it all before becoming it

First I will rest

First I will lift my head

First I will pour my weight

First I will breathe deep despite congestion

First I will grieve loss

First I will have sweetness

First I will remember laughter

First I will feed you

First I will snuggle you

First I will ask the ancestors 

First I will rest in our wins

First I will sense the winds

First I will expect trauma-informed care in all power influenced interactions

First I will lay hands on myself, singing healing into my own blood

First I will knit something new and re member your hands with mine

First I will feed myself and others

 First I will smile with recognition

First I will exist

First I will ground to balance

First I will trust

First I will surrender

First I will ask my body

First I will have apple pie a la mode

First I will talk to the trees

First I will hold myself and then hold you 

First I will love myself

First I will sing it to the whales

First I will sink my feet into the soil

First I will breathe

First I will let myself receive

First I will leap although there is fear

First I will make offering

First I will plant seeds

First I will thrum my healing song

First I will scream and cry

First I will affirm love

First I will drum and dance

First I will center practices that open my heart

First I will tell the truth

First I will rest

First I will light the fire

First I will look around

First I will pulse

First I will be peace

First I will know myself

First I will listen to my dreams

First I will pray to ancestors

First I will dance

First I will be here now

First I will say thank you

First I will say yes

First I will say no and build in a pause

First I will adorn myself in the sacred

First I will tremble

First I will wait in the dark

First I will chant the sunrise

First I will say I love you

First I will ask

First they will call to me

First I will listen for my true name

First I will see it in my dreaming

First I will listen

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

P.S. What’s the first online writing workshop of the new decade? So glad you asked! Sign up is open for Some Changes: June Jordan and the Decade We’ve Been Waiting For. More information here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/some-changes-june-jordan-and-the-decade-weve-been-waiting-for-tickets-87614833325

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Today is Joseph Beam’s birthday! i love celebrating Joseph Beam’s birthday as we bring the year to a close because his visionary magic and medicine, the bravery diligence and love that helped him create the first anthology of Black gay men’s writing is exactly what I (and can I say WE) need moving into a new year, and in this case a new decade. Among other inspiring affirmations, Joseph Beam said “I dare myself to dream.” And I believe that his lasting contributions have made generations of us more daring, more willing to invest our time and energy in our dreams for more loving communities.

i call the collage I made in honor of Joseph Beam “BrainBeam” because of the sunlight coming out of his head and his powerful way of making ideas real in our communities. As I look at the collage, it is of course not only his brain but his overflowing heart (with rays of color emerging from his right breast pocket) that shines upon us even now. He made it very clear that his work in the world was motivated by a deep love of his community. He was the one who explicitly taught us how revolutionary “Black men loving Black men” could be for everyone, and particular for the healing and growth of Black communities.

When I was a graduate student researching at the Schomburg Black Gay and Lesbian Archives curated by Steven Fullwood he told me that Joseph Beam’s mother Dorothy Beam was the person who ensured that his legacy of love would continue by working to organize and donate his personal archives. She also supported Essex Hemphill, who actually moved in with Mama Beam for a time, to complete the work Joseph Beam had started on the second anthology follow-up to In the Life, the crucial Brother to Brother. Steven Fullwood also told me that Joseph Beam’s father’s name was Sun Beam. What an amazing name. Joseph Beam’s middle name is Fairchild, and I wonder if his father’s was too. I haven’t been able to learn much about Sun F. Beam besides the fact he was a Philadelphia Security Guard and that he proudly attended the Philadelphia reading at Gay bookstore Giovanni’s Room for In the Life along with Dorothy Beam, offering an early (and for many community members the FIRST) example of what it looked like for Black parents not only to accept their gay Black children, but also to be committed and proud of their work on behalf of the larger Black gay community.

And so when I think of Joseph Beam I often think the phrase “son of the Sun Beam” thinking not only of the name (Fairchild hmm) but also of the love of parents who realized that their son was “bright” and who honored his light even after he passed away. I noticed a detail earlier this year in an article honoring Dorothy Beam upon her passing that she kept an archive of bow-ties for much of her life. And late in life she donated her bowtie collection to Frasier Dasent who, inspired by the healing quilts Dorothy Beam made over the years for babies with HIV, used the bowties at a quilting camp for young girls. My ceremony of recognition and love for Joseph Beam goes beyond the accomplishments of his accomplished and short life. It honors the love that flowed through him, from his parents and community, from his brother-comrade Essex Hemphill, for Steven Fullwood, Charles Stephens, Yolo Akili, Lisa C. Moore and other stewards of his legacy. I see the strips of color, wood, fabric and gold that come out of the top of his head, the back of his neck, his pockets as material sunshine. May our actions on behalf of our communities, may our honoring of the people we love become material sunshine on this planet, nourishing love.

To learn more about Joseph Beam and to participate in his powerful legacy please do:

Read In the Life and Brother to Brother both republished by Lisa C. Moore at Redbone Press. (Perfect reading group material!)

Read Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call edited by Steven Fullwood and Charles Stephens (I have an essay in their too based on the correspondence of Joseph Beam and Audre Lorde in his archival papers in the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive).

Visit the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive at the Schomburg Center in Harlem founded and curated by Steven G. Fullwood.

Support and participate in events by Counternarrative Project which builds community and power for and as Black Gay Men and intentionally embodies Joseph Beam’s vision of “Black men loving Black men,” every day.

Support, celebrate and collaborate with BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health) founded by Yolo Akili in the legacy of Joseph Beam’s bravery to talk about the revolutionary possibility of intimacy in our communities.

Also now, “BrainBeam” and all my ancestral collages are available online as prints in different sizes. All proceeds go to the ongoing work of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Speaking of daring ourselves to dream, you can sign up for Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind’s first online “Some Changes: June Jordan and the Decade We’ve Been Waiting For” right here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/some-changes-june-jordan-and-the-decade-weve-been-waiting-for-tickets-87614833325

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00

Last night’s solstice prep deep dive was a miracle. I am so grateful to everyone who participated in the quieter darker, less on camera way that felt so right for last night. We practiced silence. We investigated our rib cages. We pondered what are we doing to protect our hearts? What do we want to open our hearts up to in this new decade? What are the practices and beings that support our openness. It was a journey. Trust came up again and again and I am grateful for the folks who decided to trust ourselves and each other by participating in the space in whatever ways we did. I am grateful for your participation right now. Below is a poem we created of the affirmations that we want to ground and hold us as we navigate these darkest days. As usual, this poem is wonderful to read aloud. See if there is a particular line or set of lines that you want to meditate with this solstice.

Oh and our last writing intensive of the year “Cycles: The Unlearning Intensive” is next weekend. More info here: http://brillianceremastered.alexispauline.com/2019/12/16/cycles-the-unlearning-intensive/

Love,

Alexis

What. Me.

by the participants in Brilliance Remasterd’s Deep Dive Solstice Prep: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals

“deep in the ocean there is pressure. a lot of pressure. it will press on your chest and your lungs will collapse. you call it heartbreak. it is not. it is how what made you embraces you. reshapes you. welcomes you back. let it happen.”

-from Seven. Dive Deeper. (APG)

what breaks me births me

what collapses me expands me

what softens me keeps me fierce

who breathes with me loves me

what teaches me acknowledges me

what loves me strengthens me

what sees me knows me

what knows me builds me

what pleasures me nourishes me

what creates me enjoys me

what enjoys me will recall me

what moves me motivates me

what leaves me returns me

what abandons me frees me

what empties me opens me

what opens me strengthens me

what breaks my heart transforms me

what has been lost to me shapeshifts me

what dreams me confirms me

what calls me will keep calling me

what scares me stretches me

what stretches me opens me

what reminds me centers me

what comforts me holds me

what inspires me sustains me

what intrigues me humanizes me

what connects me teaches me

what hails me hushes me

what heals me loves me

what nourishes me finds me

what lulls me can wake me

what wakes me knows me better

what feeds me deepens me

what calls me deepens me

what i desire roots me

what grounds me fruits me 

what ruptures me transforms me

what abuses me shames me

what poisons me takes me

what poisons me exits me

what angers me motivates me

what oppresses me agitates me

what concerns me organizes me

what kills me reveres me

what judges me forgives me

what shames me falls before me

what broke me was not the end of me

the love of god made me

the love of god embraces me

what hears me answers me

what whispers to me ignites me

what challenges me sharpens me

what captures me lifts me

what breaks me perfects me

what speaks to me writes me

what me what me

what is me

what was me

what will be me

what feels me is me

what terrifies me is me

what destroys me rebirths me is me

Image from Whale and Dolphin Conservation

It’s the last solstice of the decade. Here in the northern hemisphere it’s a winter solstice full of dark days and urgent hungers. There are shallow ways to mark the passing of time, like lists on social media of best and worst ________ of the decade. And then there is the depth work we can’t avoid no matter how much we scroll, asking us what we want to take with us into a new decade and what we need to finally leave behind.

For me this has been a saltwater solstice, not because I am at the beach (I wish) but because it has been an immersion in familiar and new layers of grief, serious cravings for french fries and my mama’s macaroni and cheese and major decisions about my creative and community practices. So, of course, I turn to marine mammals, kindred experts in navigating salt, immersion and breath. Tomorrow night I will be facilitating an online writing solstice prep workshop called “Deep Dive” which will engage a seven step process inspired by mile deep diving whales for how we can go deep this solstice without getting lost, how we can get in and out of our own heads, how we can let our breathing reshape our lives and more. You can sign up for the workshop here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/deep-dive-solstice-prep-session-black-feminist-lessons-from-marine-mammals-tickets-86291166201

And some of the words that will be guiding us are below.

Deep love,

Alexis

Seven. A Guide for Diving Deeper.

(from Cachalot aka Phyester Macrocephalus aka the Sperm Whale who can dive more than a mile deep translated by APG)

one. breathe.

(we sperm whales can replace 90% of the air in our lungs with one breath. we can blow our breath 17 feet high. however deep you are breathing, breathe more, breathe deeper.)

two. take responsibility for your forehead.

(we, for example, have a head full of wax we can solidify like a weight to go deeper, we can melt it to become lighter than water and float. what is going on in your head? be intentional with it.)

three. hush.

(we stretch out our bodies 60 feet long at the surface and then arch our backs facing down, our tails come with us "barely creating a ripple." we are saving our energy for depth. this is not the time to splash.)

four. be flexible.

(deep in the ocean there is pressure. a lot of pressure. it will press on your chest and your lungs will collapse. you call it heartbreak. it is not. it is how what made you embraces you. reshapes you. welcomes you back. let it happen.)

five. be specific in your actions.

(when your lungs collapse you will need the oxygen in your blood. it is deep in your muscles. it was put there by practice. let your practice facilitate depth. it will be there when you need it.)

six. listen.

(we listen underneath our throats, not with our ears. we listen across the planet. we can hear each other click from opposite sides of the globe. though we may seem alone, we never are.)

seven. come back.

(you will know when it has been enough time in the deep. it can vary. attune to your need. account for your nourishment. direct your thoughts, melt them down make them light. and return.)[1

[1]

Image Credit: Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Direct quote from Smithsonian Handbook on Whales Dolphins and Porpoises

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Still from Pahokee

Audre Lorde had an eternal sense of her own being. When she was writing The Black Unicorn her first poetry book for a major press, she felt like she was in conversation with an “Ancestor Audre.” When she wrote Undersong a book of revisions of her earlier poems, she felt that she was being the teacher, older sister, mentor that her younger poet self would have always wanted, and when she spoke to Mari Evans in the interview that would become known as “My Words Will Be There,” she predicted that after she died, her words would continue to be part of the conversation, words that future Black women might agree with or disagree with, but whose presence would impact what they (as in we) did. Indeed, Audre Lorde’s work is prologue for so many of us, the ways we understand multiplicity and navigate institutions, the grace and complexity we offer to herself. I know for a fact that since I found Audre Lorde as a teenagers, my writing has always been in relation to hers. In fact, every essay I wrote for the rest of high school had an epigraph from one of her poems.

We certainly felt Audre Lorde’s presence during our intensive writing time together in the “My Words Will Be There” online intensive. We felt ourselves answering the call Audre Lorde made to fill what she saw as a vacuum around her, but she called across time to create the community she felt her work deserved and here we are. It was beautiful and poignant to notice that as we did our own healing, did the work of calling in what was missing in our own stories and journeys through this life, we were also in communion with Lorde. In a direct way, loving ourselves rigorously is fulfillment of and participation in the prophecies Audre Lorde made to save her own life, to speak her own truth, to source her own bravery, which is now collective in many forms. During the writing intensive we traveled backwards and forwards, speaking life to our younger selves and reaching beyond our lives to our relationships with what we hope will long outlive our breathing. Please take a deep breath and enjoy this poem that we created together, inspired by Audre Lorde’s “Prologue.”

P.S. If you want to sign up for our last writing intensive of the decade, “Cycles: The Unlearning Intensive” the information is here: http://brillianceremastered.alexispauline.com/2019/12/16/cycles-the-unlearning-intensive/

If you want to participate in this week’s Solstice Prep Deep Dive (Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals) sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/deep-dive-solstice-prep-session-black-feminist-lessons-from-marine-mammals-tickets-86291166201

Past Noon

by the participants in the “My Words Will Be There” Intensive

“Somewhere in the landscape past noon/I shall leave a dark print/of the me that I am/and who I am not…

And the grasses will still be/Singing.”

-Audre Lorde “Prologue” (1971)

And the children will still be dancing.

And the spirit will still be shining.

And the oceans will still be undulating.

And the blue will still be deep.

And the guides will still be pleased.

And the air will still be laughing.

And the vibrations will still be accessible.

And the truth will still be here.

And the poems will still be sung.

And the image will still be changing.

And the analyses will still be valued.

And the children will still be growing.

And the babies will still be free.

And the dreams will still be manifesting.

And the love will still be here.

And the soup will still be on.

And the love will still be infinite.

And the listening will still be happening.

And the breathing will still be happening.

And the healing will still be happening.

And the laughter will still be present.

And the oracle will still be everywhere.

And the joy will still be profound.

And the kisses will still be fierce.

And the she wolf will still be howling.

And the sound will still be creation.

And the ancestors will still be delighted.

And the sky will still be sky.

And the joy will still be manifest.

And the flowers will still be blooming.

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

“Act Like You Know” for Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker

Today is Ella Baker’s birthday, and I wonder what they call her in the ancestral realm. Goddess of the Grassroots? Archangel of all Activists? More than anything I wonder, is Ella Baker at rest? My devotional collage “Act Like You Know” in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker is based on one of my very favorite images of all time: documentary evidence of Ella Baker’s divine work on this planet and her partnership with Fannie Lou Hamer and many others to create the Freedom Democratic Party. The Freedom Democratic Party was a visionary intervention into electoral politics that didn’t wait for racism to no longer be a factor in national electoral politics (they would in that case, still be waiting now) but instead went ahead and created the multi-racial class equitable delegations that grassroots organizing could create and placed them alongside the segregated and rigged delegations that US electoral politics as usual generated. Simply put, what would an actual “democratic” party look like if the people were free and democracy wasn’t a code word for racial capitalism? Well, short answer? It would look nothing like the Democratic Party. This national work, with its epicenter in Mississippi was a performance of the possible, demonstrating the presence of another mode of governance right alongside the desperately dominating racist status quo (does that sound relevant to you today?) I think of this work as a precedent to the work Black women like Charlene Carruthers, Stacey Abrams and others are doing now to engage electoral politics with a revolutionary vision. And I also think of it as one of the most effective performance art projects in recorded history.

So in that case, my collage is meta-art, a work of art about a work of art, a still visual with a grand performance as it’s primary reference. But I’ll leave that for some wonderful emerging Black feminist art historian to explore in their thesis. What I really want to write about is rest. And I want to write about it because I want to learn how to do it. Ella Baker is well known for her words, popularized by the freedom singers Sweet Honey in the Rock, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” And I have written elsewhere about that time that Ella Baker’s community fundraised for her to take a sabbatical and she couldn’t find the time to take it. And it’s time for me to write about it again, because I can still relate. What would freedom feel like to me? Well, it would feel restful, abundant, balanced. I would feel in tune with the cosmic cycles, the ebb and flow, the hibernation that my mammal self craves right now instead of the pressure to fight the systemic oppression that don’t quit. But if freedom includes rest, and we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes, then does that mean we can’t be free until we are free which is not now?

I don’t propose that Ella Baker didn’t mean what she meant. What she meant was that the work of justice is urgent because people are dying in myriad ways because of systemic racism and the deaths of Black people are erased as if their lives were never sacred. And we are not going to accept that ever. Ella Baker’s standard for rest was not the ascendence of a charismatic Black leader, even a Black president, it was accountability instead of apathy for the racist production of Black death. To be specific, Ella Baker said

“Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”

So rest, appears twice. Rest as in “the rest of the country” which is who? The people who don’t value Black life. And then who are “we”? The ones who cannot rest until the “rest of the country” values Black life? Those of us who already believe in freedom. So in the life of this sentence, “rest” first signifies division. The rest of the country, those who can sleep at night because they do not identify with Black life or identify Black lives as inherently valuable, sacred, worthy of existence, respect and protection. Rest, first signifies the false rest, unearned comfort of those who benefit from the systemic oppression of others. And the second reference to rest is actually a call for unrest or disruptive action on the part of we who are woke, because we believe in freedom. In other words, if Black mothers can’t sleep, white mother’s are about to get snatched out of their rest, because nobody in here is going to rest while I’m still stressed! Look at the angle of Ella Baker’s face, the tilt of her chin! She is not playing.

Ella Baker’s profound, brave and prophetic words are fueling direct action for Black Lives right now. As they should be. And I still want to talk about rest. How we move from the unjust rest of apathy to the resortative abundance of shared power, a life of action that knows deep peace, a progressive life where there is space for rest.

And even though Ella Baker could not see sabbatical in the urgency of that particular moment documented in her collection of letters at the Schomburg Center in Harlem (where she moved and lived at the YWCA after her North Carolina education), we know Ella Baker knew about rest. Because it was Ella Baker, as Barbara Ransby’s research and Baker’s own words teach us, who knew about stepping back. Who felt no need to do everything. Who in fact cultivated and demonstrated the political value of leadership from the most, from the mass, from the people and she knew how to trust that. Ella Baker’s life was a long beautiful song, and part of that may be because she led, not from her ego but by her faith in the multitude, the power of the people. Yes, though as many reading this know as well as I do, youth development work is some of the most rigorous presence-requiring work that exists, work that has certainly kept me up at all hours, the actual practice of developing leaders to replace us, which Ella Baker modeled in her mentorship of the leaders of SNCC, implies sharing power, an intergenerational invitation to allow our elders to rest in certain ways and grow in others.

I want rest in my life like the part of the song where we take a deep breath and remember how good it feels to be singing. I want rest in my life like a baby’s head on the chest of a parent as if I have no need yet for strong neck muscles, and can sleep anywhere. And my skull hasn’t fused so my mind is still open and downloading love direct from the source. Okay. There it is.

When I was adorning angel ancestor Ella Baker in the ceremony that has this collage as its only visual artifact, I was chanting her words “Give light and people will find the way.” Which are some of the most restful words I know. I was chanting those words in gratitude and and to reprogram my brain which had become cluttered with a lot of doubt and ego, a lot of worthless noise about how I personally had to make sure every good thing I wanted to exist in the world got done and how no one else could do it and how I had to personally supervise and things had to look how I would have imagined them and also I had to keep reminding everyone and also if i stepped back and things didn’t work out it would be my fault and most of all that I couldn’t trust the people because haven’t I been hurt and disappointed so many times by people I should be able to trust… In other words, my head was filled with the opposite of rest, not just that but ego-driven babble about the impossibility of rest.

But Ella Baker not only knew how to trust the people she also suggested it was possible to “give light.” What light? From where? Mmhmm. And that’s exactly what is at stake in my study of Ella Baker, marked visually here by her halo, her crown of bracelets with an open center, aligning her crown chakra with the dazzling O above, the referent circle beyond, the opening for light to come through. Trusting the people and trusting an infinite source beyond my lifetime and control is the same act of opening, it moves me beyond my ego. And so the way is opened, it is unlimited, and because it is unlimited I am free, and because I believe in freedom, which in practice, looks like believing in you, we are free. And if we are free than we can rest, not because it’s all over, but because we are all here, and because this life-force is ongoing and it’s so much bigger than our fears, it’s so old that it’s new.

There is love beaming, beaming into us always, if we can breathe deep enough to let it through. And what would we do, what we would act like, if we knew?

P.S. Prints of my collage for Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer are now available online in different sizes, as are my other ancestral collages. All proceeds go to the continued work of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 11x17

$45.00

Black Feminist Breathing Collage 22x28

$100.00