Alice Walkers Garden Home Page 2020
We are the Ones
We Have Been Waiting For
Resistance is The Secret of Joy
from the novel: Possessing the Secret of Joy
Somos Aquellos
Por Quienes Hemos Estado Esperando
La Resistencia Es El Secreto De La Alegria
de la novela: En Posesión Del Secreto De La Alegria
La Traducción Del Jardín de Alice Walker al Español, por el poeta Cubano Manuel Garcia Verdecia, usualmente aparecerá un poco después de la publicación del texto en inglés. Corra un poco abajo para hallar otros textos anteriores en inglés y español. Amanda Navarro es la webmaster.
Site Dedication / Dedicación del sitio web
DECEMBER
My friend, the wise African novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah, wrote a novel titled The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born. But here they are. In Georgia. A state endearing enough and brave enough to have its own song. Vote. If the lines are super long, hum. Armah also wrote another novel called Two Thousand Seasons that describes a time like now when perhaps we are nearing the end of a long, long period of extraordinary confusion.~aw
Stories are medicine. Now is a perfect time to self-medicate. ~AW
Las historias son medicina. Ahora es el momento perfecto para automedicarse. ~ AW
I Have Married
© 2020 by Alice Walker
I have married
Nature
My first Love
And we
Are happy.
*
At the last
Dying
Letting go
Nothing
Between us.
***
Watch on Amazon Prime
I met John Trudell after he had died.That was how he described himself. His family had been killed; his beloved wife, Tina, had been pregnant. He was away in Washington D.C., trying to make the US government honor a treaty, which, as far as I know, it never did. We sometimes did benefits for AIM, the American Indian Movement, together. I loved his cool intensity, the music that grew from his passion for standing on his Aquarius (February 16) indigenous feet, and the strong, unrelenting poetry that contains major teachings. This film is a precious record of, and monument to, an extraordinary life. ~ aw
Conocí a John Trudell después que había muerto
NOVEMBER
Thanksgiving.
Between the World and Me brings to mind a line from a Nikki Giovanni poem: Black love is black wealth. Love runs throughout this beautiful film based on Ta-Nahisi Coates’ important book; as well as a welcome sharing of masculine emotion. Everyone’s offering is moving, but Oprah Winfrey gives voice to a special dimension of conscious suffering. Such deep, soulful truth in her acting. We have grown up, here in America. Returning “home” with a deeper understanding and acceptance of our true, as opposed to our mythical inheritance, an inheritance we embody; as well as a solidarity based on our experience of soulful if penalized Otherness. Perhaps we overcome daily in ways we do not recognize, and honor, enough. A film to celebrate. Directed by Kamilah Forbes~AW
Popsugar Article:
A Kamilah Forbes interview – https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/kamilah-forbes-interview-about-between-world-me-47979752
Lest we forget: This is who we are. Thank you, Brother ~AW
Dominique Jackson as Elektra Abundance
What Elders Like to See (a. that not all Elders want to see the same things! b. that we’re ok with that).
©2020 by Alice Walker
So. Some Elders like to see art that shows us how to recreate the human world, after what we’ve known up to now has passed away. What is the best model for this that I have experienced lately? POSE. In recreating “family” after each of their members has been tossed on the street, by parents, and others of the misguided, the humans that POSE represents are showing us how to live in a surprisingly vibrant and gallant way. My favorites are everyone on the show but especially Elektra, Pray Tell, Angel, Candy, Candy’s parents, Judy and Blanca, and both households of Ferocity and Evangelista.
When I realize I didn’t know this culture existed and became ever more vibrant as its AIDS victims succumbed to the disease in the Eighties, I can only wonder where in the world was I. Doing my own rain dance somewhere, I’m sure. Or maybe not.
Lo Que a Los Mayores Les Gusta Ver y Gore Vidal y Howard Austen
***
Gore Vidal and Howard Austen
Elders like to see white boys stand up. So many of them raised by our ancestors, great grandparents, grandparents and parents. I often think of how they managed this, since it was forbidden for a black person to physically discipline a white child.
You could be flogged to death for giving one of them a slap. Anywhere.
But our people got around even that decree. They perfected a one-liner that we can, all of us, use to this day. Maybe especially this day, when there is a badly raised white child in the white house refusing to leave. Here it is:
Ancestor, grandparent, etc. to horrible acting white child that they can’t hit (i.e. spank): “What you gon’ look like?” What are you going to look like if you keep spitting in people’s beer? Digging up their flower beds? Kicking Sukkie? (who could be a person or a cow.) What you gon’ look like? Indeed. Imagine, this was the only reprimand black slaves and servants had at their disposal. Does this help us see why both the country and the world are so badly run? Since most of these brats didn’t care what they looked like.
In any case: As I say, Elders like to see white boys, and men, stand up. There’s an ancestor living in me, hale and hearty, who insists, almost on a daily basis, that this is the least they can do. (White girls, and women, too, which I get to in a later post). And who better to exemplify this irreverence and don’t give a shit attitude than Gore Vidal? If he hadn’t existed I would have had to invent him. Maybe in my eighth novel, that I didn’t write.
Gore. Vidal. What a force of in your face, look at your own bullshit that I don’t accept for a minute, nature. You’d want to go to Gore’s parties overlooking the Italian coast. You’d want to pat him on his prickly back after tangling with the reptilianesque champion of the wealthy, William Buckley. You’d like to go with him to the cemetery to see where he expected to lie next to his lifetime beloved, Howard Austen, the man who took good care of him for many years, and was oddly ok with letting all the sex occur outside the house with others. A wonder. Something to learn here, for sure. Perhaps: Let go of all your programming! It’s All (as George Carlin, another stand up white guy, emphatically opines) Bullshit.
I am deeply grateful for THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, the documentary, in which Gore Vidal leaves one of the best, most self-defining records of his stubborn, acerbic, life. There’s no one like him, really, in all of America’s fraught racial and social history. Which brings up the question: What would happen if even half of white men on the planet told the truth? Imagine if even a few of them recognized their own brown offspring, and relatives, for instance, not to mention their gay, lesbian, or transgender ones. What if they came clean about themselves?
Lo Que a Los Mayores Les Gusta Ver y Gore Vidal y Howard Austen
***
It Is Raining!
©2020 by Alice Walker
It is raining!
We have prayed!
***
Yes
©2020 by Alice Walker
We will just keep going
Until we drop
And this is not a sad thing.
All the leaves that ever lived
Did the same.
El poema en español, Sî
OCTOBER
STREAMING FREE October 22nd – November 4th
Twenty-five years ago a bold film captured the struggle of people of color in the face of oppression. Today that message is more relevant and urgent than ever.
“A WORK OF GENIUS”
– ALICE WALKER, PULITZER WINNER
“A WONDERFUL GIFT”
– ANGELA DAVIS, SCHOLAR & ACTIVIST
WATCH IT NOW FOR FREE
…then join the conversation!
Oct. 28-30
| SEE THE FILM IN THIS ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME NATIONWIDE, ONLINE EVENT Join us October 28-30 for 3 days of transformative conversation. |
Program Everyday – 5:30-7pm PT / 8:30-10pm ET |
The (Our) Social Dilemma is without doubt one of the most important documentaries ever made, though a gratuitous slap down of “conspiracy theorists” sows the division it is trying to help humans avoid. Better to say that on a sinking ship it is everyone’s right to point to the hole in the hull that he/she sees. In any case, this poem came to me to share, as I walked through a landscape that miraculously so far has escaped the fires devouring the beloved hillsides of California. This world is so precious, and there are literally acres of computers raging night and day to control it and humanity. I believe we can all agree that some control of human behavior is warranted. It turns out though, that our fight for survival now is with a machine, the computer, which means we humans have no chance to win back what’s already been stolen from our lives, if we ignore the real enemy, and continue to fight us.
Outrunning the Machine
©2020 by Alice Walker
We can go on,
At least for a while
Longer,
Without them.
Remaking the world
That they have ruined.
I realize you feel alone
But that is because
It is armless trivia
That surrounds you.
You are falling asleep
Beside a Thing
That cannot feel
Your breath.
Have faith in us
Not an emoji*
On a screen
Pretending to have
Feelings
That, no matter how you look
At them, remain absurd.*
Reclaim your fighting spirit
And your bewitched
Offspring
By Any Means Necessary,
Which is to say: Soon.
And
By any way you can.
***
*The emojis that I like and use beg to differ: all the hearts, trees, dogs, wilted sunflower, and especially rainbows and clapping hands, and the brilliant blue butterfly. So there’s that. The Dilemma.
El (nuestro) Dilema Social Película y Superando A La Máquina
We are safe within the vibrational arms of these souls, whatever happens. Why? Because they are holding a vibration that is also inside us. Listen. Also, the passing over of storms is always heralded by knowledge. Which is why study is our friend.~AW
Estamos seguros entre los energéticos brazos de estas almas, pase lo que pase. Por qué? Porque contienen una energía que también está dentro de nosotros. Escucha. Incluso, el paso de las tormentas lo anuncia el conocimiento. Es por eso que el estudio es nuestro amigo.~AW
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing is an excellent example of why humans need Elders. As well as why we have them. It is our job to offer the benefit of our experience in the hope that it will lead to more honesty, health, courage and action. This woman, vilified by the spiritually terrorized during her lifetime, held her integrity of thought and activity – including writing, teaching, and speaking, especially to the crisis affecting young black men- to the very end. Her of color, underground following has always been huge, but her analysis of why white racists behave as they do has rarely broken the surface into public discussion. But in fact, why do white racists consider themselves supreme on a planet where white people constitute a minority, and on which they can not, as do all peoples of color -whether black, brown, red, or yellow- interact via a natural element, melanin, with the sun? We might see an opportunity here to reconsider, if we’ve ever been curious enough to ponder it, how Welsing’s work might connect with that of another much trashed elder, David Icke. See for example his book: Children of the Matrix, which explores who might in fact be, by lineage, extra-terrestrials; not from a planet or planets that have a sun. A possibility completely and deliberately kept hidden from them. Zulu shaman Credo Mutwa’s work is also a treasure house of possibilities since he shares legends, in Ndaaba, My Children (Listen, My Children) from ancient Africa of a time before even Earth had a sun that could be seen.* See Celie and Albert’s discussion about the indigenous white children of Africa, so called albinos, pages 272-274 in The Color Purple.
As Welsing clearly understood throughout her life, people of color around the globe are in a war for our very existence. Young black men, whose melanin prevails in any offspring they produce, except oddly in certain situations in Africa, are perceived as a special threat to those who wish to stay white at any cost. Consequently they are especially targeted. White supremacists saw Obama as their worse nightmare, while many of us, used to “race-mixing” in a country with five hundred years of it, usually via enslavement of the woman of color, thought he was a fine example (not speaking here of some of his politics) of something completely old hat to us: that of course even though the black genes appear to overpower the white ones, it is also a liberation into a new being who, hopefully, can leave some of the baggage of racism, whether white supremacy or black supremacy, behind.
SEPTEMBER
Where Are We Now? Apeirogon and Mornings in Jenin
©2020 by Alice Walker
Where are we now? For the past months, learning from an illness that this is a different season of Life, learning from Nature and its fires that nothing I have is permanent, least of all my thoughts, my dwellings, and my art; learning from the trees, mostly, that I am still connected firmly to Wonder, and that gratitude for Life still courses through me like a river, I most regret I have not been able to praise the great work that so many humans are doing. For instance Apeirogon, the novel by Colum McCann, an Irishman familiar with his own “troubles,” those of Ireland during its decades of war, and therefore capable of going deep into the misery of Palestinian and Israeli suffering. In this book which I listened to, and finished on audio, and then read until I could not bear it, we are introduced to two of those people James Baldwin would have claimed as among a handful on the planet at any given time who make it possible for all of us to go on. They are Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan. Palestinian and Israeli respectively. Their daughters, Abir and Smadar, were killed, while still children, by the insanity of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. An occupation that has fostered a dive into human cruelty and soullessness that should make the whole planet realize it is threatened. Why? Because human beings learn from each other. We learn the good, and we learn the bad.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan, mother of Smadar, may her name be blessed, became my friend, though we met in person only once. And, with my memory often off roaming the cosmos, I do not recall where it was. Gaza? Germany? The West Bank? Maybe Jerusalem? But it was at a dinner, somewhere, and she was being honored for being what she is: an incredible Peace activist and woman. A great teacher and mother. A fantastic Jew. She blamed the Israeli Occupation for her daughter’s death, even though Smadar was killed by young Palestinian suicide bombers, and did not accept condolences from an old friend and ruler of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he came to call.
There are still such people in this world! Halle -lu! (Southern black English).
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is central to this story, and to this book. But it is about her husband, Rami, and his friendship that developed out of suffering and sorrow, with Bassam Aramin. There are few people alive who are as evolved as these two men. Especially I feel this is true of Aramin, who in his steadfastness and wisdom reminds me of another well known Palestinian of long ago. Ironically this is partly why it is so challenging to write about them. Or even to think about them. The standard is high.
Two men, whose young daughters were blown up and shot down (Abir by an Israeli soldier) by forces with which they had nothing to do. Two children, whose grieving fathers somehow find each other, overcome their own limitations of anger, sorrow, and pride, and decide to spend the rest of their lives telling their story of loss, and the causes for it, to anyone who will listen. Traveling at times, hundreds of miles to do so. Men who help to found and to become committed members of Combatants For Peace, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who are in solidarity with each other, because they have all lost loved ones and are united by their grief.
When I was reading this book I realized I must corroborate Colum McCann’s delicate rendering of the pain of Occupation with the voice of a Palestinian writer well known for her courage of spirit and staunchness of heart. I chose Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin. A novel that does the work novels are often called to do (Who knows how writers find the strength!) it delves into the daily lives of Palestinian human beings, who, over decades, find Life itself being squeezed and bombed and ground out of them by strangers to whom their lives obviously count less than those of rabbits.
Encounter both these novels when you feel strong. May you also discover, reading these literary maps by impeccable guides, that though the journey to awareness is sometimes long, strength almost always comes from clearer seeing.
¿Adónde Estamos Ahora? Apeirogono *Y Mañanas En Yenin*
***
(Defend Julian Assange)
Gabriel Assange Wants To Count!
©2020 by Alice Walker
When Gabriel Assange grows up
I want him to know
that I was thinking of him
on his first visit to see his father
in prison;
that I was moved to realize
his big gift to his father
was that, since he last saw him,
he had learned to count!
Was it to ten, to twenty, to thirty-five?
Was it the number of days, weeks, months,
since his father smiled on him?
We used to do everything,
even offer ourselves to cruel masters,
to stay with even one member
of our family,
as we were being sold.
The pleading even now
I sometimes feel
in my dreams.
Gabriel, small warrior,
you will have to be brave
and of strong heart
to comprehend
this same cruelty, and its long history.
They want to make you think
that you don’t count at all.
I can tell you they have failed
to convince hearts
that always knew
And know to this day
That this is not so.
***
En español: ¡GABRIEL ASSANGE QUIERE CONTAR!
I last heard the live voice of this Elder
as he stood with Palestinians in the middle of
a bombed out Gaza. Here he is again, standing up
for Julian Assange. They tell me the current virus
has its sights on Elders, or just on old people, whatever
they may do. The truth is, we may leave this Paradise
at any time: nothing is promised.
And, that being so, let us, like George Galloway,
fear nothing
more than
our silence.
~AW
AUGUST
Dying Wise
©2020 by Alice Walker
I have experienced Life, so far,
As a full on miracle;
No matter the slings and arrows
Always to be endured
On a path of intelligence,
awareness, adventure
and joy.
Behind each sorrow
Has been a gift
Not always pretty or painless
But unfailingly of use.
And so it is still.
I was talking with a friend
About my ashes
& The ceremony I hoped
She might inspire
On my way to them.
Beginning her duties immediately,
She sent a book
By Stephen Jenkinson:
DIE WISE.
Dying wise! What a fresh
Thought!
And off I went for three fine weeks
With Stephen’s sage,
And beautiful
Voice
And what must be
A Canadian accent
Filling my mind & ear.
Die Wise!
Don’t waste your dying time
Not dying!
What a thought!
What a gift to Spirit,
What insight into The Death Trade,
As Jenkinson calls it;
That some of us
Were waiting for.
***
And no, I am not at this time dying, only recognizing that Death is the future for all of us. As fires climb the hills not nearly far enough away from where I live, and as AI (Artificial Intelligence) threatens to end many fabulous human minds, and as COVID continues, I see the wisdom of listening to other Elders and Elders in training, about how we can meet the end of this crowning chapter of our lives with the grace and courtesy, the respect and honor, the openness to teaching, and learning, that it deserves. ~AW
En Español, Morir Sabio
New Poems for Ede
For Human Babies and Yorkies
The World Is Not Safe
© 2020 by Alice Walker
For human babies
And Yorkies
The world
Is not safe.
I think of this
As I caution young friends
Not to give birth.
I am old now
And see how things are.
Your babies, like Yorkies,
Are the sweetest
Of the sweet offerings
Of this realm;
And, as with Yorkies,
There is a plan
For them.
Their sweetness is the honey
The sweet glue
That sticks
Us to the wheel
Of toil and debt,
Calculated deformity
Of our journeying
And carefree
Soul’s
Intent.
Let go of believing
Your little one
Will be the savior
Of humanity.
Is humanity worth
His little while?
Or her torn and twisted
Body and mind
Marooned
And scorched
In the cauldron
Of avoidable
Mistakes?
Wake up. Laws
That force you
To violate
Your common sense
(and that of Elders beside)
Are made to be stood
Against.
Leave your unborn child
And all Yorkies
In heaven; where angels
And the angelic unborn
Of all species
Belong.
***
Waking
©2020 by Alice Walker
Racism
That was taught to you
Kept you from helping
Others to survive.
Now you are becoming
What you could not learn
To help.
Silence.
If it was bad for us
They would let
Us have it.
In the end
The machine will own
Your life
And you will not own
The machine.
***
I Do Not Love You
Because You Are Perfect
©2020 by Alice Walker
I do not love you because
you are perfect
I love you because
You dare to be
Exactly how you are.
Watching you
I see the lay
Of the Universe;
The lack of bother
About pretensions;
The grace of being
However your spirit
Fills your day.
I loved my father
In all his shortcomings
Which, unknown to me,
Were not failures
At all
But only love
Of us, his children
Whom he protected
By his gentleness.
That turn of the head
Toward the ground,
The eyes
That knew not to look
Where he was told.
Your vehemence
Would have frightened
My father;
Your color too,
And the blue greenness
Of your, to the children,
Quite odd and scary eyes.
He could not see humor
In them
As I, his daughter, pushed
By fate and struggle
Beyond his shadow
Of subservience
And fear,
Can.
And do.
***
What the Servant Steals From You
©2020 by Alice Walker
While you are at Yoga,
Jogging, running,
Or enduring Pilates,
Your mind is busy
Thinking of what your
Maid, your house servant,
Is stealing from you.
It is hard to believe
That after centuries
You still have not
Worked this out.
What they, what she
Especially,
Is stealing from you
-as you huff and puff –
Is your more natural
Exercise.
***
I Love Us Because (for us in our present pain)
©2020 by Alice Walker
And for Aretha and so many fluent others;
Expressing us.
I love us because we do not forget Africa,
No matter how long ago it has been.
She is acknowledged always
As Our Mother.
This I think
Accounts for something
Unfailingly held dear:
Soul.
And what is Soul but cellular embodiment
Of our long, challenging journey
Away from Mother, away from Home?
Maybe imaginal cells
Are not limited to Butterflies:
Somehow ours rose above
The soup of disintegration;
Found a star no matter the darkness,
And saw to it that
Song became our wings.
In us the Ancestors were, like the caterpillar,
Transformed. Soaring
Invisible.
***
The Unknown Soldier (s)
©2020 by Alice Walker
I have been wondering
Where the soldiers are
The ones that did not come back
In body bags. Or those several a day
Who leave us for good;
Who cannot bear
upon arrival Home
To think about
What they have done.
The ones who have left us
To witness in our own
Neighborhoods
Some of the destruction
They caused abroad
And thought left behind.
Here is a soldier
Who, though alone on her watch,
Is standing up for the place
And the people
On this earth
That she loves. Can we all
Do this?
Can we join her
In her righteous anger
That peaceful –and in this case –
Poor people
Have been abused?
Circle. We are not done yet.
Nor will America
As we have experienced it,
Survive us.
May this soldier, Beloved,
Be our inspiration to coolly access
Who is allegedly standing
with us in all situations
of danger and resistance.
Awaken to the question:
How do we join her?
This soldier, who needs us, her Army.
Knowing our country well,
And that her cause is ours,
And that it is just.
Please see Hands Up, Don’t Shop, in Archives 2014
2020 Alice Walker
Me he estado preguntando
dónde están los soldados
esos que no volvieron
en bolsas para muertos. O esos varios al día
que nos dejan para siempre;
que no pueden tolerar
al regresar a casa
pensar sobre
lo que han hecho.
Esos que nos han dejado
para presenciar en nuestros
propios vecindarios
parte de la destrucción
que ellos causaron en el exterior
y creyeron dejarla atrás.
He aquí una soldado
que, aunque a solas en su guardia,
defiende el lugar
y las personas
de esta tierra
que ella ama. ?Podemos todos
hace esto?
?Podemos unirnos a ella
en su justa ira
porque pacíficas y en este caso
pobres personas
han sufrido abusos?
Volvámonos. No hemos terminado aún.
Ni lo hará América,
tal y como la hemos experimentado,
sobrevivamos a nosotros mismos.
!Que está soldado, amados,
sea nuestra inspiración para percibir serenamente
quién presuntamente se une
a nosotros en toda situación
de peligro y resistencia.
Despierten a la pregunta:
?Cómo unirnos a ella? A esta heroína
que nos necesita, como su ejército,
conociendo bien a nuestro país,
y que su causa es la nuestra,
y que es justa.
Translated by Manuel Garcia Verdecia
there is a daughter
for AOC
© 2020 by Alice Walker
there is a daughter
taking the floor
there is a daughter
standing in the light
of her mother’s prayers,
her father’s dreams,
her teachers’ high hopes
as well as in the shadow
of our common disillusionment.
there is a daughter
speaking the truth
that lives in her heart.
there is a daughter
standing alone
taking care
of the Soul
that might have lived
all these years
if not endlessly stoned
with verbal abuse
in our House.
hay una hija
Para AOC
© Alice Walker 2020
hay una hija
que sale a la pista de baile
hay una hija
parada a la luz
de los rezos de su madre ,
los sueños de su padre,
las grandes esperanzas de sus maestros,
al igual que a la sombra
de nuestra común desilusión.
hay una hija
que dice la verdad
que habita en su corazón.
hay una hija
que se levanta sola
a cuidar
del Alma
que podría haber vivido
todos estos años
de no ser incesantemente enclaustrada
con piedras verbales en nuestro Hogar.
JULY
There is always a Spirit that the people, and ancestors, send to us to show us who we are, where we have been, and what is of value to our continuing journey. This beautiful book of love and loss is a mirror we might look into during this trackless time. I love it; and it is worthy of love. Long live Sicily and East Texas.~Aw
Siempre hay un Espíritu que las personas y los antepasados, nos envían para mostrarnos quiénes somos, adónde hemos estado y cuál es el valor de nuestro continuo viaje. Este hermoso libro de amor y pérdida es un espejo en el que podemos mirarnos en este tiempo indefinible. Me encanta y es digno de nuestro amor. Viva Siciliana y el este de Texas.~ AW/MV
One enlightened teacher is worth more than all the warmongering chieftains who’ve ever lived. ~AW
Un maestro ilustrado es más valioso que todos los jefes guerreristas que en toda la vida hayan existido.~AW/MV
See Post: Michael Meade, Living Myth Podcast
The World Rising
©2017 by Alice Walker
The world rising
Can put an end
To anything:
The murder of children
Whales
Elephants
Oceans.
Get up. Roll over
On that part
Of you
That will not
Welcome
Recognize
Encourage
Or even see
Our rise.
A compassionate roll:
We must be done
With cruelty
Especially to ourselves,
To start again
Beaming like the sun;
Fresh.
But a roll that shows
We’ve reached the end
Of polite moves
To repair and re-create the Earth,
And will press hard
On any parts of us
Even those we have loved,
That insist
On remaining
Oblivious
And
Asleep.
From Taking The Arrow Out of the Heart, poems. 2018 by Alice Walker
MAY
More to come. Yes. ~AW
THE BITTER POETRY OF AMERICA
“Mama”by George Floyd
These are the last words of George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died as a US police officer pinned him down, kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes:
“It’s my face man
I didn’t do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can’t breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can’t breathe, my face
just get up
I can’t breathe
please, a knee on my neck
I can’t breathe
shit
I will
I can’t move
mama
mama
I can’t
my knee
my neck
I’m through
I’m through
I’m claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can’t breathe officer
don’t kill me
they’re gonna kill me, man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they’re gonna kill me
they’re gonna kill me
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can’t breathe”
Then his eyes shut and the pleas stop. George Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after.
Right now, we have a choice. This can just be one more tragic death at the hands of US police — or the moment for change.
-AVAAZ
See earlier poem: “Gather” on blog: re: police murder of Eric Garner. Who also said “I can’t breathe.” Can we?
***
A Poem from Cuba:
A BOOT ON A THROAT
By Manuel Garcia Verdecia
For George Floyd
A boot is a sign
Of man’s intelligence
To create all that eases his life.
But a boot on a throat
Is not just an object
Out of place and function.
A boot on a throat
Is not a stumble by mistake
Is not just a rough sport move
Or a bad taste practical joke.A boot on a throat
Is well thought harm,
Is the rebirth of the beast sleeping in man,
It’s evil unleashed at its free will
Suffocating our dignity,
Stamping on our hopes,
Smashing the intelligence
That makes boots and
Every thing that is human.
***
Alice Walker, moon shoes, fly. Early 90s.
Photo by Jean Weisinger
It Is Long, It is Repetitive
©2020 by Alice Walker
As much as we might like to imagine
We will come back as a flower
Chances are, many of us
Are bound to come back
As flies.
We have annihilated so many,
Nor have we noticed sufficiently
The gossamer loveliness
Of their wings.
But come back we will;
(it isn’t even as if we ever go anywhere);
And that alone is why
We should abuse nothing.
Those ancient Indigenous
Who never disturbed any thing
Had the right idea,
Though most of us were born
Too late
And in far too un-awakened places
To benefit from this wisdom.
And so are left unaware.
Chewing the tobacco
That might have been
A grandmother.
Logging the tree
We will become.
***
Let Me Take the Blame
©2020 by Alice Walker
Let me take the blame;
I have learned
I can carry it.
Soon we will both
Be going
Without luggage
To the Far country
Of Different Realities;
So far
We may meet
Once more
Only in our dreams.
And will we dream there?
Let me take the blame.
***
Dejen Que Carque Con La Culpa
© Alice Walker 2020
Deja que cargue con la culpa
me he dado cuenta de
que puedo llevarla.
Pronto ambos
estaremos partiendo
sin equipaje
al lejano país
de realidades distintas.
Por lo visto
podremos encontrarnos
una vez más
solo en nuestros sueños.
¿Y soñaremos allí?
Deja que cargue con la culpa.
***
100 Voices Strong
Dr. Rashid Buttar Hosts a Doctor’s COVID-19 Roundtable
For most of us, medical language might as well be Greek. We can be told almost anything and have no idea what it really is that we are being told. Our ignorance is both embarrassing and irrational. After all, we place ourselves and our loved ones in the care of individuals we, for the most part, do not even know. I appreciate listening to Dr. Buttar because he takes pains to explain mysteries of the body and of viruses and of language that most of us never thought we’d ever have to think about. Our trust in the expertise of “professionals” being as complete as it is, far too often, misplaced. I have acquaintances who do not want to listen to this Doctor. Their minds are made up; they believe every word they have been told, by complete strangers. I am thankful for my love of hearing what else is to be said. About anything.~aw
When I finished listening to John Redding Goes To Sea, the first story in HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK, a collection of mostly urban short stories by Zora Neale Hurston, I burst into tears. I’m easy to cry, as we said in the South when I was a child, and being easy to cry made me know early on how many varying and different emotions can be expressed in tears: sorrow, yes, but also joy, gratitude, delight and triumph. I thought: Aunjanue Ellis, who is reading these stories, is doing so perfectly. Which then led me into thoughts of: perhaps that is what love is. Perfection. And then, perhaps that is the only perfect thing. Love. I also thought: I bet she went to some very proper schools, too, and yet, here she is, able to sound like she never went, well, nowhere. But Eatonville, Florida.
I thought of all of us who have loved Zora back into the world and hugged us all, pandemic or no pandemic. Hugging must never be abandoned. We must learn all we can to be sure it is not being stolen from us, another of our beautiful natural rights.~AW
DANDO UN GOLPE RECTO CON UN PALO TORCIDO en español
the result of the flowering of consciousness. ~aw
Heather Cox Richardson
May 10
2020
If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change modern society.
The Civil War years taught naïve Americans what mass death meant in the modern era. Soldiers who had marched off to war with fantasies of heroism discovered that long-range weapons turned death into tortured anonymity. Men were trampled into blood-soaked mud, piled like cordwood in ditches, or transformed into emaciated corpses after dysentery drained their lives away.
The women who had watched their men march off to war were haunted by its results. They lost fathers, husbands, sons. The men who did come home were scarred in body and mind.
Modern war, it seemed, was not a game.
But out of the war also came a new sense of empowerment. Women had bought bonds, paid taxes, raised money for the war effort, managed farms, harvested fields, worked in war industries, reared children, and nursed soldiers. When the war ended, they had every intention of continuing to participate in national affairs. But the Fourteenth Amendment, which established that African American men were citizens, did not include women. (A brilliant example of divide and rule. ~AW). In 1869, women organized the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association and the American Woman’s Suffrage Association to promote women’s right to have a say in American government…
…Read full writing, May 9, 2020 (Saturday) Mother’s Day
~ El Día De Las Madres Original: resulto del florecimiento de la conciencia ~ aw ~~
Spilling beans and cans of worms. Goddess bless the stubborn.~AW
Also: A fascinating and vital interview with Dr. Judy Mikovits on London Real:
About half way through there’s the query “What are we to do with the blacks?” in the context of vaccines and autism in children. All of this interview is necessary information, but this aside is worth following up. Have black children been deliberately targeted, via vaccines, in America, as well as in Africa?
I should not care, I suppose, that Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai and Dr.Rashid Buttar, and Dr. Vandana Shiva, are brown. (Please Google) But I do care primarily because it is a delight to hear news that deeply matters from the part of humanity that is rarely listened to. The “colored” part. We are usually just dragged along to our doom: wars, enslavement, chemical experiments, loss of health and housing etc., as if we are the same as other “dumb” creatures of earth who neither speak nor have opportunity to resist. (Video removed.)
Listening to these three is an extraordinary experience. Brilliance is beautiful in itself, but coupled with courage it is irresistible.
Both Drs. Ayyadurai and Buttar voted for Donald Trump, which raises the grownup question: What impact if any does this have on their Science? And judgement? I discovered Dr. Buttar on YouTube but he may have been removed. Try London Real if you cannot find him there. He is a remarkable teacher with a passionate intent to bring us up to speed on our own health. He feels exactly like a relative.
Why we love Her.
~Photo by Jean Weisinger
APRIL
Vandana Shiva, one of the most essential teachers of our time, speaks to the world of what is most essential: our survival as human beings on this planet. Search out her wisdom everywhere. Books, Google, Youtube, etc. You will be amazed and strengthened by what she knows, and does. She appears to understand Bill Gates and others that we need to study, better than, or as well as, anyone. Particularly in the realm of how we are to sustain our lives if we do not control the production of the food we eat. Get to know seeds.
Watch if you love trees.
This video was removed for reasons unknown: PLANET OF THE HUMANS by director Jeff Gibbs and producer Michael Moore. It should be searched for; demanded, found.
***
Not From Here
From Chitauri Blues, a work in progress
©2019 by Alice Walker
Anybody who despises elephants except for their tusks
is not from here.
Anybody who decapitates mountains
is not from here.
Anybody who assassinates
rivers, oceans,
and the air,
is not from here.
Anybody who “disappears” continents
of buffalo
and foxes, turtles and rain forests
oil, gold, diamonds
and sandalwood
is not from here.
You can sleep on
if you like.
But this is the easiest way
to tell
who is not Earthling.
…Continue Reading full poem, Not From Here From Chitauri Blues, a work in progress
Meditating in Place
Pema Chodron
The instruction is to stay in the present. Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.~ Pema Chodron
This advice from master teacher Pema Chodron is good medicine for this fraught time, especially at night, when you are trying to sleep. What are you trying to do? Sleep. Instead the mind is on how many prisoners are dying in all the prisons of the world, as a plague descends on the land, and every thought we have is of how impossible it is for most humans to flee. Whether imprisoned or not. Or maybe only “imprisoned” in our houses.
Meditation is a great gift to human beings, and I was especially grateful to have its instruction in the middle of the night last night, as I, along with millions of others, tossed and turned. So here is brief instruction that works:
Although formal sitting meditation requires a certain posture: sitting on a cushion, a firm or fairly firm one, if you can get it, and propping up your crossed knees on slightly softer ones, and placing your open palms on your knees, relaxing your body and your posture, especially your neck, which will help even out your breathing, there are times when you will absolutely not want to do this. Such was the case last night.
There I was, around four o’clock, having meditated formally if briefly earlier in the evening, wide awake and miserable. Scenes of horror, suffering, sorrow and panic a ceaseless loop in my distressed mind. But then I recalled how a friend who had spent months in bed after surgery had informed me that she regularly meditated while lying down. A purist – or simply a rigid person – I couldn’t quite imagine it. But last night became my baptism.
Lying there, flat on my back, with my knees over a pillow and my head and neck resting comfortably on another, and yes, my tiny dog snuggled close for warmth, (in formal meditation the instruction is for animals not to be around) I began to breathe. Which is to say, to breathe knowingly, with full awareness of my breath.
And in this wretched “pandemic” how precious mere breathing has become!
Over decades I have tried out many a mantra. For years my favorite mantra (you’re actually not supposed to share your mantra, someone told me, but personally I believe sharing is the answer to almost everything) was “In Peace.” Breathing in on “In” and breathing out on “Peace.” But I’ve discovered that the mantra I was originally taught, “Om Nama Shivaya”- which I translate as “I bow to our inner light”- (sorry, purists) is superior. Those ancient meditators in India knew that inhaling this sound means sending breath into every crevice of the lungs, as “In Peace,” does not. Ah, the things we learn over years of practice! Imagine what we’d learn if we all practiced kindness.
When one is new to Meditation there is simply amazement at how easily and frequently the mind strays! It does not like to stay put. Anywhere! It likes to roam, zig-zag, strut, ponder and dissect. Calmness seems a foreign notion. Hence, the mantra. Lying there, comfy, cozy with my tiny symbol of all Creation, I let go of chasing it,(my mind, not my dog!) turning instead to my mantra: Om- Na- Ma- Shivaya. Over and over I brought my mantra to face my mind’s distraction(s), until it seemed to catch on.
Oh, I imagine my mind finally saying to itself, we’re not getting away with rambling tonight! And that was true. It wasn’t. And so, it was many hours later, in the encouraging brightness of morning, that I discovered my mind and I had eventually enjoyed a great night’s sleep.
If we have hundreds and thousands of thoughts, life becomes restless and unhappy. Freeing the mind from thoughts is the real meditation. – Karunamayi, considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Saraswati. From WISE WORDS: Perennial Wisdom from the New Dimensions Radio Series, Interviews hosted by Michael Toms; Edited by Mary Buckley. Bowing.~aw
We will get through this time of sorrow. But in order not to repeat it (endlessly) we must awaken and change. I am for us. Most days.
***
Brian Rose
We are the ones we have been waiting for… Our “weapons” of engagement: courage and humility. Love. With these, especially love, as Sister Aretha Franklin sings, we can wholly embody holiness, and with these, our mantras of mass instruction, we can rock the foundations of the world. Simulated or not. ~AW
Witness: London Real/David Icke April 6, 2020. If possible, think of it as learning.
***
Happy Birthday (April 1st) to the beautiful Grandmother Griot and Wise Woman of East Bay Church of Religious Science: Dr. Elouise Oliver. We adore you. ~AW
Website: https://elouiseoliver.com
***
In 1452, Pope Nicolas V issued the papal bull Romanus Pontifex, declaring war against all non-Christians throughout the world, to “capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ,” to “put them into perpetual slavery,” and to “take all their possessions and property.”
Preface to GRANDMOTHERS WISDOM: REVERENCE FOR ALL LIFE
I embrace you as beautiful relatives of the world. I offer you an open hand to show that I greet you in peace.
I come from a culture that has been on this North American continent since time immemorial, surviving and thriving despite many hardships and challenges. Over the ages, simple and fundamental truths have supported our survival that I think are relevant more than ever today for society at large. Principles of humility and making decisions with the consideration of seven generations might seem basic and easy to take for granted. Our heartfelt efforts have been focused on the basic call to consciousness: We are all related. This is based on the principles of interconnectedness and humility. It is precisely these principles that need to be integrated into our lives in a deeper way. Everything is my relative. This helps us to see the value in each person and each living thing.
We have an everyday existence, with family, tribal community, and our spiritual and earth-based practices with the lands, medicines, language, and ceremonial ways of prayer. The council Grandmothers have commemorated our existence by traveling the world, visiting each of our sister Grandmothers’ home country. We celebrate that accomplishment.
By stepping forward between and within cultures and languages, we can overcome boundaries. We can cross borders not only geographically but also psychologically and spiritually. If we were to look at Earth from two hundred miles up in space, we would see that divisions do not exist, and it is very clear that we are one family on Mother Earth. This simple point of view could guide us to act in a way that is life-sustaining, and our worldview would be more open and inclusive. We would listen more and have greater patience in finding solutions.
It has been a long journey that continues in our everyday life. Now is the time of awakening, where we become aware of our fundamental relationship to one another and most important, of our existence in this world.
The Grandmothers Council celebrated its tenth anniversary in October 2014. Through prayers, spiritual and social action, we have worked tirelessly for peace, respect for nature, conservation, and recovery of ancestral traditions, our traditional medicines and the preservation of our cultures. In our villages, towns, and cities, we are spiritual activists, medicine women, tribal elders, and advocates for sustaining earth-based ways of life. As individuals, each of us is recognized for our work to preserve our traditions and indigenous cultures.
We are certain we will see concrete results of our actions and our collective intent to unify. We continue to carry forward the message of our elders: Respect for the natural laws for all of life.
Grandmother Mona Polacca
Prefacio a SABIDURÍA DE LAS ABUELAS: REVERENCIA ANTE TODA VIDA, Abuela Mona Polacca
MARCH
Kill Bill from RUMBLE with MICHAEL MOORE in Podcasts.
I Am Not Waiting
©2020 by Julia Fuhrman Davis
I am not Waiting
I am not waiting until social distancing is
over
I am not waiting until Ohio’s “Stay at Home”
order is lifted
I am not waiting until I can teach yoga
classes in person, instead of
on conference calls
I am not waiting until I can give massages
again
I am not waiting until Bernie is president
I am not waiting until we have free health
care, free education, a Green
New Deal, prison reform, immigration
reform, public financing for campaigns,
mail-in voting, sanity or peace ……….
I am not waiting until my son forgives me
I am not waiting until my seeds sprout
I AM NOT WAITING to BE HAPPY!
from the mid west
News We Can Use.
Photo by: Supriya Sharma, editor of SCROLL an online newspaper
“This woman, Bilquis Bano, leads the resistance, the sit in. She may look like an unlikely candidate, but she led the 3 member delegation to the Governor, explaining their cause.
We are the warriors, and no one shall stop us.” ~Devaki Jain
Bilquis Bano y Devaki Jain, India. 2020
The coronavirus 2020
WHAT WOULD MY MOTHER ADVISE: PRAY.
That we show up as best we can through this and all emergencies and disasters. That we hold dear our much valued, by all our ancestors, humanity. That we never forget to value our humility, our ancestors, our friends and beloved ones, who count on us to embody the best that can be mustered in the most distressing and trying of times. To remember our blessings, the goodness of Life that we have enjoyed. That we make peace with our experiences and our souls. That we face whatever is to be faced with gratitude for what has already been received. ~Alice Walker
The virus itself is of stunning beauty; like so much on this rare planet. While seeking to avoid it, may we acknowledge its mystery. And may the wild animals, caught, tortured and caged, who have allegedly served as vehicles to bring the virus to humans, be freed and never, in any way, degraded again. Humans will have no peace, and will deserve none, until we accept responsibility for their liberation. ~AW
See: 60 Minutes Australia for a look at the so-called “wet markets.” Note especially the animal considered the most hunted in the world whose only defense when attacked is to curl itself into a ball. Note also that it is exquisite. And extremely aware. What is her name for herself? We can only wonder.
Lo Que Aconsejaría Mi Madre: Oren
***
Mexican Women Stay Home To Protest Femicides In ‘A Day Without Us’
Today The Women of Mexico
©2020 by Alice Walker
Today the women of Mexico
Who produce everything,
As women produce
Everything in the human
World,
Having produced
Every human;
Are standing in their kitchens,
Livingrooms,
Bedrooms,
Sitting on their porches,
Stoops,
In their yards
And behind their computers
And steering wheels
And saying hell no,
I won’t go,
To the jobs
They are expected to fill
After crossing a zone
Of terror
Of possible beatings
And killings
To get to them.
It is a tragedy
What is happening to Mexico
This beautiful country
That I love;
That I can hardly think about
Without weeping in memory
Of some kindness
Done to me.
A smile from an old man
Generous with his eyes;
A free tortilla from a mother of twins
Who laughs to think I came
Into her shop
To purchase only ten.
Wake up, Beloved Country.
Wake up, Mexico!
Join the women
In the fight to be free again.
Free of drugs, free of fear.
Free of machismo on acid
That rots more than teeth.
This assault on the feminine
Is an assault on the masculine
Woman born:
Remember your beauty
So obvious in your children;
Give them the example
Of Mexican soul
Generations of strangers
Have for centuries admired.
Come back to who you really are:
You are beloved, Mexico.
And you are drowning in horrors
Not natural to you.
Soul lost harms the Universe.
Who loses?
All of us.
FEBRUARY
MY SISTER OF THE WHITE FLOWERS
©2020 by Alice Walker
Every turn around the sun,
Every year on the date of my birth,
No matter where I am
And usually it is the same place,
Wherever I can worship in sunshine,
My gracious Sister of the White Flowers
Finds me.
I look up from whatever Wonder
Is holding me fast,
And there is someone at my gate.
They are holding a bouquet
Of white flowers.
Calla lilies
Frida’s lily,
As I think of them.
It has been years
Since I saw my Sister…
…Continue reading, MY SISTER OF THE WHITE FLOWERS, MI HERMANA DE LAS FLORES BLANCAS
How moving to see an awakened human who cares. We might all achieve this expression of concern that leads to action. What can each of us do? Like any substance abuser, we are addicted. I have started by talking to a friend from Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization I admire and respect: how can we learn to protect ourselves? We might begin by learning all we can about the accelerated dangers to the planet of 5-G. It is chilling to realize the danger discussed in the video is closer upon us – since many of us are wearing it -than global annihilation by climate.
Imagine that we are in a global classroom, which, thanks to our dangerous gadgets, is possible to construct. Someone who cares is asking us a simple question: What is the connection between 5-G, AI, and our brain? Is there a human future where these connect?~AW
Bob Nesta Marley. February 6, 1945
Dear Bob,
I have been to Nine Miles,
the place nine miles
from anywhere;
the place where you were born.
Years have passed and still it remains
a mystery;
how you sang your way
out of there. Your crypt
when last I visited
the nicest dwelling.
How mysterious
are our escapes
from anywhere
one might think
would hold us down.
It is the spirit
that can not be
refuses to be
destroyed, or even
maimed. And so, little curly headed
half-caste (so they referred sometimes
to you): you remain beloved,
unforgettable,
an ignited light of spirit
for all the generations
of loving rebels
to claim. To learn
from your exuberant example
that the determined soul
will find the broken link
in every chain.
Thank you for the beautiful gift of your life.
-Alice Walker, Feb.6, 2020
JANUARY
America Never Was America to Me... Langston Hughes.
The Red and the Black: Alice and Native Youth
Intertribal Friendship House, Oakland, California, Fall 2019 Photo by Ester Hernandez
RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES: THE RACE FOR LEADERSHIP OF THE UNFREE WORLD
©2020 by Alice Walker
Trevor Noah’s last name is rarely used by those who admire him. “Noah” suggests someone who, in times of possible world annihilation, endeavors to encourage our awareness of the situation and to bring some of us along. From all accounts the present day “flood” is upon us.
My own view of how far the present political structure is likely to take us can be found on a Youtube video called Earth At Risk. I think it is doomed to be dysfunctional, and have yet to observe, or to study, any period in history, when it has been run to the benefit of all of us. If it had, we’d be a healthy, confident, well educated, well fed and housed populace. We’d be like, for instance, Finland.
However, looking over the candidates running for the job of president this year – and it is a job, not a knighthood or kingship- we see some truly interesting possibilities. It is hard not to like people who genuinely care about us, no matter how unlikely it is that their dreams for our progress will come true. So I woke up this morning, having watched numerous interviews Trevor conducted with presidential contenders on The Daily Show, thinking about who appeals to me. …
Continue reading, RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES: The Race for Leadership in an Unfree World
January 15, 1929 Is A Sacred Date
©2020 by Alice Walker
This is what I believe:
We are connected
Well before birth
To the date of our actual
Arrival.
Arriving at that date and time
Is crucial to who we become.
Martin, Beloved,
They have moved your date of birth
As if it is meaningless.
It is tied now to a week-end
Of leisure; when
Exhausted revelers
And servants
May have a holiday.
There are many ways to sever us
From our native power:
Changing consciousness
About when we were born
Is one of them.
I call on all who love and loved you
To honor you on your own day.
That is where the energy was
That is when the magic powers
From we know not where
Poured into your life.
January 15, 1929 is a sacred date.
The Universe aligned with powerful forces
To make a visit to Atlanta, Georgia
And to your mother’s
Expectant bedside and womb
Only on that day.
***
15 De Enero De 1929, Una Fecha Sagrada
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