Last week’s Daughter Dreams Intensive rearranged my spirit and opened my soul. Twelve of us worked through our lunar eclipse and full moon revelations with the guidance and example of Audre Lorde.

One of the dream poems by Audre Lorde that we wrote with closely and bravely is what I call her freeform villanelle “Blackstudies,” written in 1973 while she was teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (as the first Black faculty member in the English Department) and helping to found one of the first Black studies curricula in the country at the larger City University of New York.  This recursive poem works through the impact of repressing parts of her identity in order to participate in homophobic cultural nationalist spaces, the nightmare whiteness of academic approaches to language and learning and her own internalized racism and childhood trauma, and how all of those things impact her role as a mentor and teacher her students.   Yup. That and more.  By the end of the poem the speaker mediates on her own impermanence generationally in the movement and in the lives of her students.  Prompted by that brave move we wrote about what we no longer need and what we are now called to embrace.  As usual, I recommend that you read this out loud.

 

Soon and Now

 

“soon/ we will not need you/only your memory teaching us questions.”

 

-Audre Lorde, “Blackstudies”

 

you do not need humility

only expansive love

you do not need shock

only gratitude

you do not need control

only grace

you do not need proof

only practice

 

you do not need permission

only to step into possibility

you do not need fear of failure

only acceptance of what is

 

i do not need to hide.

only radiance.

only sweet sublimity to drink and trickle down my chin.

 

i do not need advisors

only ancestors

i do not need publications

only my words

i do not need productivity

only intuition

i do not need reputation

only my authentic self

I do not need permission

only spirit

i do not need approval

only tarot.

 

i do not need words

only presence

 

we do not need bullshit

only Love.

we do not need surface

we only need Love.

we do not need shallow

we only need analysis, skepticism, critical thinking skills, intuition, generosity, observation, and as clean an intention for the truth as we can possibly swing, all of which is to say

we only need LOVE.

 

The Daughter Dreams Intensive is part of the M is for M/otherourselves webinar series leading into the March 9th release of M Archive: After the End of the World.  All of the webinars in the series will be grounded in the work of Audre Lorde with a focus on mothering and daughtering.

The next intensive M/otherlands: Daughtering in Diaspora will be Feb 26-28th 6pm-9pm eastern time. To be sure to know when sign up opens add your email address to our list.