Eulogy for those coming out of isolation

April 28, 2020

Eulogy for Those Coming Out of Isolation

The carpenter bee has a hard, black back

You can hear it when it kamikaze flies into the side of the house

Because it can

It has a hard shell and a soft belly

It has the capability to hover 

It’s craft being to get right down to your level and stay there

Looking you in the eye as you wonder,

Do they sting?

“I’ve been told they can sting”

Is what they said after they killed my hover bee friend

Because they feared it could sting, or

Because they knew they had the power to kill off the disturbance in their soul

Objectified in this being perceived to be lesser (can YOU fly?!)

Who knows, the males don’t have a stinger

Was my friend who I just greeted when I came outside in our shared territory

Were they a male?

Maybe he didn’t even have the capacity to sting but I didn’t fear her because I connected

I felt them a part of the family, like siblings

I learned about them and how they burrow in isolation during the winter but make sure 

each isolated pod gets the food and resources they need

They do the hard labor of burrowing the wood so that they can leave this trail to a necessary 

resting place for the next bee to come along

I cried as he lay lifeless on the ground

He was my teacher and my friend, the black man and the black woman in the hospital bed,
on the concrete earth, under the earth

Harriet Tubman leaving supplies and shelter for the next…

So we don’t all have to kamikaze our way through this life but might have a place to land,
a path that’s tread, the food and resources that we need

A place for my grief springs up as my bee family has come out of isolation for the spring and summer

I’m sure they have much to teach us about how to be once we come out of necessary isolation,
and while still in it, how to eulogize our changed environment, way of living

There’s a way for us to stop waiting to face imposed outcomes

Like the bee, I hover, I’m still moving, breathing, in place, in a cyclical air of energy that creates
resonant vibration

I feel that vibrational energy transferring to my voice, building up to a shout

WE MUST NOT LET FEAR OF ANOTHER CAUSING US DISCOMFORT, DISPLACEMENT
OR HARM BE OUR EXCUSE TO CAUSE HARM. 
WE HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THAT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER,
NOT JUST ENSURE OUR OWN COMFORT OR INAUTHENTIC SENSE OF POWER.

Comfort and power at the expense of mutuality have passed on March 10, 2020 at 1:29pm. 
They leave behind many beloved estranged family members: mutual aid, interdependence,
familial comfort, nature connection, spiritual shifts, internal integration...and so many more. 
You can experience the gifts by making contact.

Saying their names…

Ahmaud Arbery

Breonna Taylor.

...Visioning the eradication of suffering and the liberation of all people, especially Black people

ROOTForce Dance Class, Dancehall Excerpt 3/5/17

How can I...

How can I think myself inconsequential when I hold the Universe and the horizon behind my eyelids...

Behind Closed Lids...

Now more than ever we are poised at the precipice of...
I see swirls of light, breath, peace, love, and freedom
Behind closed lids
I sit and listen to my own breath
and feel the vibration of millions of my ancestors and contemporaries
We in this life
We are about this life
We are this life
I see light - lightness and love in conversations between two people
We are agile
racists are fragile
bastions of white supremacy will tumble
because there's a rumblin' underfoot
a movement
by those who can see the future
behind closed lids
a time of peace
prosperity for our
people
love that has as its genesis a love
supreme for our
selves
love and peace
peace and love
breath and light
blessings to our future

Live in the opening where there is no door to hide behind. - Rumi

Here

The story I’ve inherited from my ancestors is one of strength and unity.  Of pride and solidarity.  Of water, clay, mud, powder, oil, duality.  Soft chests to lay on and hard backs to bear the brunt of the weight for many people and for too long.  Intelligent minds and bodies, bodies that disconnect from emotions but still exhale the essence of all the troubled feelings and the muddied waters.  The breath becomes partially trapped, never having the luxury of breathing in for too long or exhaling fully, particles of anger, fear, doubt, determination, resolve, resignation, steeliness get trapped in the chest, belly, organs, neck only to be softened by the small miracles of daily life that hold a seed of the promise.  The particles get soothed down to a fine dust and washed out with love and care.  A house built for my grandmother.  A dream house that my own mother can finally gift herself with after thirty years of long nights, early mornings, Sunday dinners, crying jags, and spates of laughter and togetherness.  A place of one’s own, owning something - that is part of my family’s legacy.  They have always been intent on owning the place they lay their head, having a roof to offer another in need, having a lot and some to spare.  Giving of themselves with their time, their money, their presence; sharing over food, music, and company of all ages.  

This is the part of my inheritance that is resonating with me now.  My journey has taken me from reflecting on my family like fragmented pieces of glass to seeing all of us like a crystal.  We are reflective, dynamic, at times distorted when our perceptions are not clear, always whole and one.  2016 is a powerful closing of a ten-year cycle for me during a time when it became clear to me that everything I was experiencing, every decision I enacted, was to come to a closer integration of my self.  My spirit, joining with the spirit of my ancestors and Source, has been calling me to recognize myself without the veil.  I had a dream not too long ago of myself standing in front of a wall that was not really a wall, it was a thin veil and when I woke up, I knew the next part of my journey was simply to walk through to the other side and to have the vision of both sides.  This is the part of my journey that I’m in now.  Writing in my sketchbook/journal last year, I drew a spiral and lines that shot up from the center of the spiral and I was scaling the walls of the side… I have spent ten* years going inside very deeply.  (*Likely, I’ve been inside in this way for much more of my life than not).  That drawing was symbolic to me of the climb I’m making up and to the outside of myself, to reach others and to show/share myself through dance, yoga, writing and so much more that I have yet to envision and channel...I am here. I am we. We are here and we are whole.

Emptied?

It's empty in here
Cleared away like ash after an intensely burning fire
I deliberately sucked it all up and threw the ashes to the wind
I figured it could have a new life upon the breeze of someone else's fresh start
or in the belly of someone's warm home
Warm milk
makes me think of childhood
the way I used to warm up my cereal like my dad did
warm milk and crunchy cereal turned soggy sweet
I liked it like that.  Still do
People think it's absurd
Just like giving away almost everything you own
So that you can clear the clutter of the past and
be free
Can I ever be free of my past?
It's the foundation that my present is built on
Happily I accept
The strength and insistence and persistence of women
The gentleness of men
The careful tidiness of home
The warmth of burning fires and the smell of home cooked food
The tinkling sound of laughter and music like a distant bell
Ringing through the living spaces
Where we lived
And laughed
And cried
And danced
And cared for one another
And tried to forget
And tried to find ourselves
Everything is relative
So of course there was pain and suffering
But there was also joy and growth
I accept
I build my present and my presence on the winds of the laughter ringing
like a distant bell
I bring myself closer to it
And hope to fly