Lucille Clifton has a poem about “the feels everything woman.” Quiet as it’s kept, that’s me. I am feeling revulsion and outrage that people within and alongside of my communities are aligning themselves with explicit racism and sexism. I am profoundly triggered by the many people in and alongside of my communities who are actively protecting and justifying rape culture. I am devastated by the profound betrayal of our planet that our entire species has enacted evidenced by the announcement that the Great Barrier Reef like most of the coral on our planet is dying. All of the healing work that I have done, all of the rigorous work that my community has supported me to do, to move past my numbness, to live beyond my coping mechanisms and to live in my body instead of only in my brain means I have no where to run. I am part of all of these communities. I am connected to this planet. I feel everything. And today feels especially apocalyptic.
Lucille Clifton is one of the prophets that I reach for at times like this. Clifton did not sugar coat anything. Not child sexual abuse, not racism, not sexism, not dialysis, not cancer, nothing. And she has a group of poems called “Message from the Ones” which we reviewed in last month’s Soul Talk: Legacies of Black Feminist Magic intensive where she hear very clearly, in the 70’s no less. That humans are no favorite child of the universe. That this world is not the only world. That we will one day drink the poison that we release onto the planet. That we cannot hurt anyone here without hurting ourselves. That if we are intent on destroying ourselves the universe will not stop us. And yet. That same reality, the humbling reality that human beings are neither the center nor the pinnacle nor even a middling example of what life actually is, devastates and liberates in the same moment. What if all the selfish, scarce, fear-based, divisive, harmful things we do to protect our fragile human sense of who think we are lose their illusion of value. What if it’s not even about us. What if there is, as Clifton suggests, a limit to what we can destroy. And that’s ourselves. I don’t know about you, but today is a good day for my ego to die. Today is a good day to listen for possibilities beyond what I think I can do.
Towards the end of her series of poems Clifton offers:
“there is a star
more distant
than eden
something there
is even now
preparing”
the historical “even now” that Clifton was talking about was the end of the 1970’s the horrifying time (before I was born) when Ronald Reagan rose to be president. When corporations got free reign to abandon workers and to pollute and extract everything from the planet. When the United States used it’s military and local police power to target and destroy revolutionaries of color around the planet. In Grenada, Nicaragua, Greensboro and more. When technological resources were focused on making Nuclear war more possible more quickly. And we need the perspective Clifton offered ESPECIALLY NOW. At least I do.
This is the poem that we, as participants in the Soul Talk Webinar created for this moment of presence and preparation. May it sustain you. Release you. Transform you. I am strong enough to feel everything if part of everything is loving you. If you want to participate in the next Brilliance Remastered online intensive (next week) check it out here.
With love and all the feelings. Even now,
Sista Docta Lex
even now
by the participants in the Soul Talk: Legacies of Black Feminist Magic Intensive
“there is a star
more distant
than eden
something there
is even now
preparing”
-Lucille Clifton “Message from the Ones”
even now spirit is speaking
even now black women love themselves
even now we create freedom
even now we gather for mutual healing
even now the moon can hear us
even now stars are birthing darkness
even now darkness is birthing stars
even now the alchemists are busy
even now, god still looks out and calls it good
even now there is plenty of time
even now we are activating our purpose
even now we dance and shake loose our chains
even now we cry without shame or apology
even now we laugh without abandon
even now love finds everyone
even now our spirits flow between planes
even now we dream in real time
even still we are our ancestor’s living dream
even now we must dream of future generations
even now as it’s scary to do
even now we embrace the resilience of the young
even now we are invested in our own healing
even now there’s prayer in every breath
even now we listen to the frequency of hope
even now the song is uploading
even now I am visible
even now I have my own story
even now I am still standing
even now the ocean rises to meet me
even now this blessed body arches toward love
even now we create beloved community
even now I take the risks to expose oppression
even now the Cherokee ancestors are proud of us
even now the birds understand
even now the moonlight shines on us all
even now I breathe in the scent before it rains
even now we are the sweetness of honey
even now sweetness sustains us
even now our capacity for love is growing
even now the universe calls to us “yes!”