Today, my
Spirit silently shares,
"I have seen you" and,
For which I am no longer,
The same
Person, possessing this
Reluctantly beating heart,
With deepest force, one which,
Thrusts from past lives,
Breaking through a brilliant light,
To shower upon us, you and me,
The promise of our paths,
For our felt presence, coupled centuries long,
Transcends these current choices toward,
A sweet reunion, surrender,
When you do not fall in, rather
You simply accept to.
RAF
Friday, August 29, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
A Truth about Soundlessness & Silence
I experienced a deep thinking period during meditation this weekend. A change in surroundings makes you acutely aware.
From an empty house; from a mentally remote bus ride; from walking back, and forth; from receding into my own thoughts. When, after a highly energized theatre performance, two housemates and I drudged two miles back home on foot in darkness, once our evening clumsily diffused from a string of unfortunate events. Quietness enveloped us along the way, yet I felt unmoved by the soundlessness. These days, I am ambivalent by the absence of sound.
Sunday evening, I enter a meditative state where my essential self and body separate, and my senses are turn inward. And I experience silence, which, as I remember it, is a place that profoundly enjoy. Its serenity, its temerity, its paradox, its substance. Silence is present, and it contains the sound of the world opening to you.
So the next time you are inside your own head, contemplating, scheming, or feeling your way through, struggle past your muted surroundings, and perhaps, surrender yourself to the silence. It welcomes you.
R.
From an empty house; from a mentally remote bus ride; from walking back, and forth; from receding into my own thoughts. When, after a highly energized theatre performance, two housemates and I drudged two miles back home on foot in darkness, once our evening clumsily diffused from a string of unfortunate events. Quietness enveloped us along the way, yet I felt unmoved by the soundlessness. These days, I am ambivalent by the absence of sound.
Sunday evening, I enter a meditative state where my essential self and body separate, and my senses are turn inward. And I experience silence, which, as I remember it, is a place that profoundly enjoy. Its serenity, its temerity, its paradox, its substance. Silence is present, and it contains the sound of the world opening to you.
So the next time you are inside your own head, contemplating, scheming, or feeling your way through, struggle past your muted surroundings, and perhaps, surrender yourself to the silence. It welcomes you.
R.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Say It, Girl
A powerful excerpt from Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo:
Otis (reading from his book)
Ebony Cunt: for my mama and my grandma and all the women I rammed in Macon, Georgia when I was visitin' my cousins at age sixteen:
The white man want you/ the Indian run off with you
Spaniards created whole nations with you/ black queensilk snatch
I wander all in your wombs and make babies in the Bronx when I come/ you screammmmmmm/ jesus/ my blk man
ebony cunt is worth all the gold in the world / 15 millions of your shinin' blk bodies crossed the sea to bring all that good slick pussy to me...
Mitch
Sassafrass, what's wrong with you? Sit down. Otis gotta finish the book; he isn't even done with the first page...
Sassafrass (standing still)
Just one god-damned minute, Mitch. You gotta mother you supposedly love so much, and daughter by a black woman who won't see you...and you got me all messed up, and tryin' to make you happy...god damn it, I don't haveta listen to this shit. I am not interested in your sick, sick, weakly rhapsodies about all the women you fucked in all your damn lives...I don't like it.
I am not about to sit heah and listen to a bunch of no account niggahs talk about black women; me and my sisters; like we was the same bought and sold at slave auction...breeding heifers the white man created 'cause y'all was frascinated by some god damn beads he brought you on the continent...muthafuckahs.
Yeah, that's right; muthafuckahs, don't you ever sit in my house and ask me to celebated my inherited right to be raped. Goddamn muthafuckahs. Don't you know about anything' besides taking women off, or is that really all you good for?
Ummm, hmmm.
R.
Otis (reading from his book)
Ebony Cunt: for my mama and my grandma and all the women I rammed in Macon, Georgia when I was visitin' my cousins at age sixteen:
The white man want you/ the Indian run off with you
Spaniards created whole nations with you/ black queensilk snatch
I wander all in your wombs and make babies in the Bronx when I come/ you screammmmmmm/ jesus/ my blk man
ebony cunt is worth all the gold in the world / 15 millions of your shinin' blk bodies crossed the sea to bring all that good slick pussy to me...
Mitch
Sassafrass, what's wrong with you? Sit down. Otis gotta finish the book; he isn't even done with the first page...
Sassafrass (standing still)
Just one god-damned minute, Mitch. You gotta mother you supposedly love so much, and daughter by a black woman who won't see you...and you got me all messed up, and tryin' to make you happy...god damn it, I don't haveta listen to this shit. I am not interested in your sick, sick, weakly rhapsodies about all the women you fucked in all your damn lives...I don't like it.
I am not about to sit heah and listen to a bunch of no account niggahs talk about black women; me and my sisters; like we was the same bought and sold at slave auction...breeding heifers the white man created 'cause y'all was frascinated by some god damn beads he brought you on the continent...muthafuckahs.
Yeah, that's right; muthafuckahs, don't you ever sit in my house and ask me to celebated my inherited right to be raped. Goddamn muthafuckahs. Don't you know about anything' besides taking women off, or is that really all you good for?
Ummm, hmmm.
R.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Universe, Calling
Fast forward two and a half weeks. New home (Washington DC), new people (along with the old-faithful), new station in life (organizing to law school, an "Obama reverse").
As I can, I walk a little over a mile from American's main campus to law school in the mornings. During the last couple of days, I've passed a grassy field occupied by teen, female, soccer players. They are clustered around an evidently confident coach who is bestowing instructions. Indeed, I have descended upon none other than soccer camp, and I cannot help but take a deep sigh. My heart glows! I was once among them, almost ten years ago. And it suddenly dawns on me that when attending summer camp that I was training for the Sydeny Olympics. That is, before I quit.
In earlier posts I've alluded to my bygone "athletic" days that I have recently reclaimed. I think, however, that I've seldom shared why I let it go. It's complicated. Yet, in short, a combination of factors, including the pressure-cooking-competitive environment of the girls soccer Olympic track, created an irreconcilable distance between my passion for the game and where I found myself only seven short years later. So when a National team coach lectured us after an exceptionally hard practice when I was 13 about the choice we had to make: either battling our way to the top 1% or deciding that we wanted "to do other things." He didn't have to tell me twice...
About ten minutes later I'm in a law classroom.
I know that these exam preparation tips are important but I made a discovery. At 23, I've claimed three primary identities (though, each has always been very present when not primary). From the time I could walk to 14, I was an athlete. Once I left soccer until last year, I was a justice-seeker/activist. Now, I can feel myself evolving into a new primary identity of which I cannot quite name yet. Maybe "intellectual?" "Scholar?" I dunno. But it entails a lot of mental lifting and flexing.
I'm aware that such changes are very normal during the course of one's lifetime. I guess it's peculiar being conscience of it while it is happening, particularly when you're not (chronologically) old.
The important part, though, about this discovery is my internal restless that has been my self-sabotage. I haven't achieved my full potential yet. When unsatisified or unchallenged, I usually more onto the next thing. I don't regret this. Instead, I've been waiting for the right moment. This time is apparently now.
When I sat in the classroom this past week, parsing legal concepts and turning over ideas, I realized that I'm well-suited for this challenge--intellectually and emotionally. I will take it upon myself to exercise a degree of discipline and finally, for the first time in my life, realize my full self. Call it, redemption.
Inspired,
R.
As I can, I walk a little over a mile from American's main campus to law school in the mornings. During the last couple of days, I've passed a grassy field occupied by teen, female, soccer players. They are clustered around an evidently confident coach who is bestowing instructions. Indeed, I have descended upon none other than soccer camp, and I cannot help but take a deep sigh. My heart glows! I was once among them, almost ten years ago. And it suddenly dawns on me that when attending summer camp that I was training for the Sydeny Olympics. That is, before I quit.
In earlier posts I've alluded to my bygone "athletic" days that I have recently reclaimed. I think, however, that I've seldom shared why I let it go. It's complicated. Yet, in short, a combination of factors, including the pressure-cooking-competitive environment of the girls soccer Olympic track, created an irreconcilable distance between my passion for the game and where I found myself only seven short years later. So when a National team coach lectured us after an exceptionally hard practice when I was 13 about the choice we had to make: either battling our way to the top 1% or deciding that we wanted "to do other things." He didn't have to tell me twice...
About ten minutes later I'm in a law classroom.
I know that these exam preparation tips are important but I made a discovery. At 23, I've claimed three primary identities (though, each has always been very present when not primary). From the time I could walk to 14, I was an athlete. Once I left soccer until last year, I was a justice-seeker/activist. Now, I can feel myself evolving into a new primary identity of which I cannot quite name yet. Maybe "intellectual?" "Scholar?" I dunno. But it entails a lot of mental lifting and flexing.
I'm aware that such changes are very normal during the course of one's lifetime. I guess it's peculiar being conscience of it while it is happening, particularly when you're not (chronologically) old.
The important part, though, about this discovery is my internal restless that has been my self-sabotage. I haven't achieved my full potential yet. When unsatisified or unchallenged, I usually more onto the next thing. I don't regret this. Instead, I've been waiting for the right moment. This time is apparently now.
When I sat in the classroom this past week, parsing legal concepts and turning over ideas, I realized that I'm well-suited for this challenge--intellectually and emotionally. I will take it upon myself to exercise a degree of discipline and finally, for the first time in my life, realize my full self. Call it, redemption.
Inspired,
R.
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