All day yesterday I was in a panic. Hurricane Irma was battering the islands in the eastern Caribbean, specifically Anguilla and St. Martin, islands on which every single person is literally my cousin. And pictures were flooding my timeline. Pictures of actual floods, buildings torn apart, trees uprooted, cars tossed around like playthings. The cemetery where my grandparents and father are buried? I would have to dive to get there. The buildings on Rendezvous Bay where my family lives? Unrecognizable. My family has not even been able to afford expensive hurricane insurance, has not even rebuilt from the last major hurricane in the area. Why should all that slave trade rage stirred up of the coast of West Africa dispossess the descendants of the enslaved again and again. Yesterday as I anxiously awaited news from relatives I felt betrayed by every hurricane ever, by wind and water.
But two weeks ago I was writing with a community of artists, poets, scholars and activists about what it means to surrender to wind and water. And this poem that we created together was what I needed to revisit in order to remember that even in the most volatile circumstances wind and and water have got me. They have got us. Our society trains us to believe that the systems that we have created out of fear are eternal and they are not. Capitalism has trained me to believe that man-made structures are what make my life possible. This has never been true. Join me in revisiting a poem we created with deep knowing and without knowing why and how it would be relevant right now.
When Wind and Water Love You
by the participants in the Briliance Remastered When Wind and Water Got You Intensive
“if wind and water got you that means wind and water got you. there is no little bit about their lashing love.”
-from Dub: Finding Ceremony by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
when wind and water love you
you have everything you need
when wind and water love you
there is no distance between you and the past
when wind and water love you
you can hear the ancestors teaching
when wind and water love you
there is no place they will not be with you
when wind and water love you
you are surrounded by love wherever you go
when wind and water love you
all your grandmothers are dancing
when wind and water love you
your doubts dissolve like tears
when wind and water love you
you don’t have to know your name (and you can)
when wind and water love you
it’s still okay to be afraid
when wind and water love you
you can trust that you are supported by the ancestors, always
when wind and water love you
you can trust yourself
when wind and water love you
coyote and wolf will trust the bones of their ancestors to you
when wind and water love you
turtles will trust their babies to you
when wind and water love you
you know the trees have your back
when wind and water love you
trees bend and are yet still beautiful
when wind and water love you
you feel so clear about your worth that you never have to compete with others again
when wind and water love you
you see the isolated ones and reach out
when wind and water love you
there is abundance. there is no hunger.
when wind and water love you
you will overthrow all oppressive paradigms
when wind and water love you
you will have visions of the formations of crystals
when wind and water love you
you will be invited into the iridescent cave
when wind and water love you
we sparkle like amythest
when wind and water love you
all is in motion, in storm formation
when wind and water love you
there is peace
when wind and water love you
you sleep in sacred sound
when wind and water love you
your daily life takes on the quality of ritual
when wind and water love you
everything thought to be lost, is found
when wind and water love you
you are in the crossing and carrying the crossings of your ancestors
when wind and water love you
you are always listening, always heard
when wind and water love you
the Elders and the unborn are singing together
when wind and water love you
your hands are made ready to catch the new world on her way
when wind and water love you
you will remember your childlike sense of wonder at this miraculous world
when wind and water love you
you are inspired to fearlessly share all your revolutionary dreams
when wind and water love you
you carry the adventure inside and every place is also home
when wind and water love you
everything they touch, touches you
when wind and water love you
the poem is everywhere
when wind and water love you
it is possible
when wind and water love you
you will always be at home
when wind and water got you
you can see from mountaintops and feel as deeply as the sea
when wind and water got you
knowing, magic and mystery are your guides
when wind and water got you
you don’t gotta do nothin else
when wind and water got you
you good, fam