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