Pan-African News Wire: The Meaning of Black August 2008--An Essay by Kiilu Nyasha

Pan-African News Wire: The Meaning of Black August 2008--An Essay by Kiilu Nyasha

In Your Hands

Towards growth....


Introducing In Your Hands: A Letter Receiving Project

Since love is not scarce, our ancestors bathe us in it every moment that we dare to receive.

I have learned that there are sources of nurturing that are older than us and swifter than our bodies. I am noticing that those who are no longer here in physical form are teachers in the wind, showing us how we must relate to each other, if we want to survive longer than our bodies and longer than a system that denies us.

I have been writing urgent letters to my ancestors since before I knew they were watching and on the cusp of this new year they whispered a suggestion to me. “How about for this new year, as a gift to yourself, you receive some letters from us, the spirits of women that love you from eternity?”

As ever, my answer was yes. These daily letters from the most beloved of my known and chosen ancestors on behalf of all of the ancestors who have sent us love with their lives and dreams without us knowing came at exactly the right time. When I was afraid to trust myself, I was not afriad to trust their guidance for me. I re-learned a shifting methodology of loving myself firstly as their vessel and secondly as their recipient

And my ancestors are socialist, so of course they would ask me to share these intimate insights and gifts with you. Of course they would want me to bring their messages to your waiting ears, but more than that I want to share this practice and encourage that you engage it for yourself.

I don’t know what ancestors speak to you or why and when they do, but I have been asked to ask you to listen, lovingly for what the universe wants you to know.

Can you join me? Think of the people who have influenced you, while they were living or through their written, or retold legacies. Just think about them and let your mind relax, let their energy surround and fill you. Create quiet times in your days in case they have something to say.

Here is a letter that I received from my grandmother:

Dear Lexi,

I don’t know what to say. I am honored to be the path between you and all of these great women. I am humbled by their company. There are so many ways to live in the world, so many ways to be remembered.

I love the ways you remember me. The ways you hold and use my everyday things in ways I never would have used them. The way you designed your whole wardrobe around that one necklace to keep me close to your heart.

I am watching all the time. I am learning. I am proud of your intentions and the company you keep, spiritual and in the world.

I’m glad that you have learned form me to make an impact, to care deeply, to move accordingly. I am glad you have learned to invent and inspire. I am glad that you study me and that my life and my leaving become words that you share with the other grandchildren and with strangers. Thank you for being so proud of me, so curious about me always. Thank you for listening to the deep puppet voices in the bathtub, for wearing the costumes, for filling the dollhouse. I wanted a range of world for you where you could be yourself, and that self could be expansive.

I know, you know, I always wanted to move beyond wherever I was and I do that. I still do that through you. Continue to feel at home with and responsible to the communities you adopt, because life happens in community. But also know that your spirit, intimate with mine, is reaching not only to see, but to create something exciting, something new, something old.

Cherish your own relationship to beauty. Cherish your own space and independence. Grow your affinity with nature, and as raindrops let go and become the sea, I am here.

Your Grandmother,

Lydia

I encourage you to add your insights here on the “your letters” page if your feel that what you have received could provide healing and wisdom for the rest of us. I encourage you keep your writings for yourself if you feel that they should remain private. The messages of our living dead are sacred. They transcend the norms of intellectual property, and they should be treasured by your best impulse.

My intention here is to share with you an abiding sustaining faith in presence of those who have gone before and their participation in our everyday.

I invite your observance or participation with love.

Always,

alexis

Audre Lorde on gardening in winter

A few weekends ago I was looking for some guidance/wisdom about joy & sorrow, love in the face of what's happening in Gaza and the world right now.  And I happened to open The Black Unicorn to this page, to this poem that I'd never read before.  Look...
Love, noah


Walking Our Boundaries
Audre Lorde


This first bright day has broken
the back of winter.
We rise from war
to walk across the earth
around our house
both stunned that sun can shine so brightly
after all our pain
Cautiously we inspect our joint holding.
A part of last year’s garden still stands
bracken
one tough missed okra pod clings to the vine
a parody of fruit cold-hard and swollen
underfoot
one rotting shingle
is becoming loam.


I take your hand beside the compost heap
glad to be alive and still
with you
we talk of ordinary articles
with relief
while we peer upward
each half-afraid
there will be no tight buds started
on our ancient apple tree
so badly damaged by last winter’s storm
knowing
it does not pay to cherish symbols
when the substance
lies so close at hand
waiting to be held
your hand
falls off the apple bark
like casual fire
along my back
my shoulders are dead leaves
waiting to be burned
to life.


The sun is watery warm
our voices
seem too loud for this small yard
too tentative for women
so in love
the siding has come loose in spots
our footsteps hold this place
together
as our place
our joint decisions make the possible
whole.
I do not know when
we shall laugh again
but next week
we will spade up another plot
for this spring’s seeding.

ubuntu-grows wishes for the new year

ubuntu grew intentions for the new year, and we also grew...
"messages / wishes / prayers / thoughts for the new year"
and placed the seeds on our alter at the day of healing...

here is what we wrote...

music
opening up to....!!!!!!
deep breaths, peace, hope: more than survival
to breathe in boldness and push love into the air
to practice self-love with mindfulness and patience
joy
impeccable self care
abundance enough for all / love love love...
to love / to be light / to be trusting!!! / to create in a spirit of collaboration + community + cohabitation
unbridled LOVE (and patience)
tons of healing, transformative, healthy love

*the image is from the "trauma stewardship" session that manju led

ubuntu-grows intentions for the new year

"let us not take life for granted...

always remembering how truly precious your life is."

- emily c

On January 1, 2009 ubuntu held its second day of healing.

On this day we had various workshops:

Yoga/Meditation

Intentions and Determinations

Trauma Stewardship

Trust

Potluck dinner

Guided meditation

Letting Go

Dance/Body Love

The Intentions and Determinations healing session lead to the question...

"how do we support each other through the year in keeping our intentions and determinations?"

It was suggested that we post to the blog a list of our intentions, and then find an intentions buddy to help keep each other accountable.

Here are the intentions: planted seeds that we hope to grow through the year:

AJ

- to be thoughtful and intentional for myself and those I care about

- continue to be more GREEN

Alba

- to use every drop of potential I possess to the end of having the most extraordinary life possible

- to listen and act on my clarity

- to be authentic, whole and intentional

Amiris

- love for myself, others, of our environment which is the earth and cosmos

- destroy oppression and exploitation

- to create love and freedom for myself and others and of our environment which is the earth and the cosmos

- to do my work well

- determined to be free together with all

- bridge divided worlds and people, bring them together in a diverse collage of collective collaboration while never losing sight of the horizon light of freedom which is our humanity

- find a love remedy to heal the oppressors of their oppression

Beth

- play regularly

- practice my art as prayer

- create home as a place of welcoming

- take care of self

- pay attention

- trust my passion

- transform my world like we do

- to draw frequently

- to live actively

- being a being of light

- learn new meaning of accountability

- to act, to attend, to witness

- to love, to heal

- to know home

- to speak

Bre

- I want to focus more on art. For art comes in many forms. It is drawing, writing, music and cooking! It is creativity and it is creation. Art was my first love and I put it aside to focus on schooling. Now I realize that I should have never put it aside. My goal is to draw more, write more, do more, and cook for myself and friends, family and community!

Emily

- to be healthy

- to be a person of conviction

- to be intentional and loving with my words and actions

- to have and nourish faith

- to create a stable, healthy, happy and harmonious family

Jenn

- CREATIVE FORCE

- trust that I am loved and create trust

- feel love as abundant as creative process

- sing, be art, write music

- create confidence

- follow my path creatively

- create healing space

- learn from the earth's creative force

- be a mentor

- recognize the beauty and creativity every day

Kriti

1. feet on the ground

2. give into right now. goal-less. nowhere better to be.

3. willingness always to learn new things.

4. write it. share it. now.

5. sharpness clarity precision

6. do whatever needs to be done, simply, straight forwardly, without hesitation.

7. no fear. no hesitation. no doubt. you are perfect and invincible. you are surrounded by the same.

Lex

- youth led spirithouse

- Durham in love with ourselves through progressive cooperation and synergy

- optional and resonant historical names for the divinity in my life

- learning to mother ourselves

Lex and Julia

- the most loving sustaining days and nights ever shared...

Lynne

- to be brave in all I do

- to spend more time with loved friends

- to truly live to the fullest outside my work

- love

- to finish fitting into my skin

Manju

- no deprecation, self or otherwise

- write a love letter daily

- practice impeccable self care. begin with simple steps. begin with my body. begin TODAY.

- be intentional about moving forward in healing from my abuse and violence history, be patient with this process.

Mikel

- I am hereby resolved to opening my heart and my awareness to enable my choosing, moving, and connecting with each and every moment in a creative, spontaneous, and Truthful way

Noah

- Say yes! to my life with my whole heart

- focus

- say all the things i wish I'd said/ that i need to say

- act from my heart, my spirit and my deeply held values-knowledge

- speak like i know

- don't wait for perfection

- open up and give my trust out like extra seedlings or seashells

- tell everyone how much i love them

- say blessings out loud

Sendolo

- Decisive

- Strengthen my character

- Strategic, accountable, integrated, organizing

- Call my Mama, Gramma + JJ Polska more often

- Complete a first draft of my portfolio

- Make base building and intellectual work the center of my work

Serena

1. to create and sustain a sense of purpose in my work

2. to build a useful and consistent rhythm into my days, nights, weeks, moon cycles, and seasons

3. to develop an intentional, sustainable spiritual practice- in particular I want to listen to my ancestors more and better

Yashna

1. Practice Impeccable Self Care

2. To build myself with these blocks:

strength, clarity, trusting, boldness, empowered, loving, courage, confident, full+whole, truth telling, creative expression

3. to hold a torch of hope and light for myself and self-love and to actively pursue creating this in my life

4. to hold a torch of hope and light for my relationship/partnership with mikel and to actively pursue creating this in my life. healthy, passionate, connected, sustaining, long-lasting love

5. to rewire myself out of old beliefs into empowering beliefs that support my growth

6. to change my default of fear and negativity to positivity, hope and joy

and to close:

"i want to blink my eyes and radiate love like the stars." - noah