Cosmic Warrior Blessings

I've been on a serious hiatus from sharing on conscious vibration. The summer was super intense - filled with travel and journeys for work, for spirit, for family, for healing. I spent lots of time at home in Nassau (Bahamas), and it was really beautiful and necessary. I also went to Guadaloupe for the Caribbean Studies Association conference, to Washington D.C. for my annual writers and artists collective S.P.A.C.E. writing retreat, and also to Detroit for the Allied Media Conference and a work retreat for curriculum building with the Hurricane Season team. Detroit was powerful and ushered in some major changes for me - cutting my locs and letting go of so much...  still processing all of that... yet and still...  My 36th year started with me knowing that it was time to let go, and it was in Detroit that I made the decision, with the help of my chosen family sistren goddesses and especially my fellow Cosmic Warrior Naima - we cut it off! What a week!  

And then I spent the rest of summer from early July to mid August at home. I feel so grateful and blessed for the time, the journeys, the learning, the sharing, the space to write and grow... and the quality time with my loved ones. Spending time at home was really affirming, rejuvenating, and healing - I soaked in the sunshine and saltwater, exfoliated in the sand, played with my nieces, spent much needed time with my family and friends, and really relaxed. There is much more to share...  But for now, I'm sharing just a taste of my many summer blessings -- some mini-reflections and successes during my dragon '12 summer. 

So two major things I'm thrilled to share that I finished this summer: 

1) my "Saltwater Healing: Myth-Memoir" literary artwork piece is being published as a chapbook with Poinciana Press and editor Sonia Farmer (hopefully by December 2012). And I also worked on the art piece some more and moved it to The Lignum Vitae Foundation on Bay Street, Downtown Nassau - where it will be featured for a while.

2) and I finished my scholarly book Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora and Sexuality in Caribbean Literature and Culture - and successfully found an academic publisher! I will be working on revisions for the next year or so - and the book should be out in 2014. I'm thrilled to have finished and be in the process of finishing these two major projects that reflect my work as a writer-activist-poet-scholar-community worker-teacher - and more specifically the two aspects of my writing life - creative work and academic work - all coming to being and fruition in this dynamic, vibrant, yet challenging year.  

I've been back stateside since mid-August - in the throws of teaching, writing, and deadlines. I got really sick my first two weeks back, and so I had to establish new rituals of self-care and healing, as I embrace more fully the solitude where I live and work. And so it may be a while before I get back to my monthly intent of sharing on the blog. I hope to get back to this public space of sharing soon, but I'm not sure when or how it will look. I have embarked on a journey of creative recovery as a full mind-body-spirit-emotional healing. And so there is much work to do, while also staying present and focused on my day to day and the work and grind of teaching and writing. 

It's now Fall time, and in the northeast the leaves are starting to change into the most beautiful colors of red, brown, orange and everything in between. I am enjoying these moments of transition that reflect spirits of change, the urgency to prepare for what lies ahead, and being open to where the universe guides me. Celebrating the harvest full moon in Aries last night with meditation and setting intentions, I focused on manifesting productivity, abundance, healing light, and completion. This full moon brings together the energies of Aries and its opposite Libra - or the "me" and the "we" - reflecting both the Warrior and the Goddess within - seeking balance between being selfish and self-less. Thinking about my own struggle with this made my full moon meditation even more striking. I celebrate my warrior self and all she has carried me through even as I embrace and move closer to my spirit calling. 

And so wanna share one of my poems - just published in the new WomanSpeak journal - issue 6 (it's a beautiful collection - get your copy through Lulu Press). 

Warrior

Angelique V. Nixon

I remember her saying that she wanted to paint

a portrait of my stretch marks

these stretch marks tell the story of long days

and longer nights

I remember the revelation of her

breath on my skin

as she mapped out her portrait

tracing each line with her tongue

we inhaled and exhaled as our bodies

came together in synergy

after, she painted each line, of my story

with reddish brown charcoal and fingers

blending and weaving, slow and high pitched moans

and the stories in between

Cover Art by Chantel E. Y. Bethel

complexities of place, desire & belonging

Ewan Atkinson, Love Hate Indifference (2007)

I am thrilled to share on conscious vibration the launch of a beautiful online multi-media collection I've been working on for over a year. I would like to thank my co-editors (especially Rosamond and Vidyaratha - for the 'birth' and careful attention to detail), and to all of our contributors for trusting us with their work. 

It's been a journey to gather, collect, edit, and connect voices, art, critique, reports and varied perspectives into one collection. And it was worth every minute. I invite you to delve into this collection - read, listen, watch, enjoy, be troubled, debate, and reflect on the complexity of sexual minority lives and experiences, politics and organizing, struggles and success, pain and joy, and most of all the carving of space for desire.

From the introduction:

The collection refers to a complex range of sexual identities, preferences, and orientations, and includes a few voices engaging with trans-identity. The collection crosses disciplines, intersects communities, bridges theory and activism, and highlights the relentless and strategic work of community workers, artists, activists, and scholars across the region. This may be the strongest element of the collection—the bringing together or “gathering” of voices (continuing the work of Our Caribbean – A Gathering of Gay and Lesbian Writings in the Antilles) in multiple media to offer a complex understanding of the Caribbean sexual landscape at home and abroad.  

 - Rosamond S. King & Angelique V. Nixon 

*~*~*

The Caribbean Region of the International Resource Network

Proudly Introduces:

Theorizing Homophobias in the Caribbean:

Complexities of Place, Desire and Belonging

An online multi-media collection of activist reports, creative writing, critical essays, film, interviews, music, and visual and performance art reflecting the complexities of homophobias in the Caribbean, while also expanding awareness of Caribbean sexual minority experiences and activism in the region and its diaspora. 

www.caribbeanhomophobias.org

Towards greater understanding and deeper reflections of Caribbean Sexualities, this online collection features engaging scholarly work and highlights of exciting activism across the region, alongside dynamic artistic expressions. There is a complex range of viewpoints and attitudes that must be accounted for in our defining of homophobias, and this collection aims to give a platform to some of those perspectives.

Rodell Warner, from Photobooth Project, Erotic Art Week

Featuring work by: 

• Zahra Airall – Short Story (Antigua and Barbuda)
• Ewan Atkinson – Visual Art (Barbados)
• Larry Chang (JGFM & J-FLAG) – Interview with Thomas Glave (Jamaica/USA)
• Sekou Charles & Colin Robinson – Film and Poem (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Charmaine Crawford - Critical Essay (Barbados)
• Fred Cronard - Interview (Martinique)
• Maria Govan and Kareem Mortimer – Interview (The Bahamas)
• Lawrence Graham-Brown – Performance Art (Jamaica/United States)
• Erin Greene (Rainbow Alliance) – Activist Report & Interview (The Bahamas)
• Joanne Hillhouse – Poetry (Antigua and Barbuda)
• Rosamond S. King – Essay (Trinidad and Tobago/United States)
• Las Krudas – Music Video & Lyrics (Cuba)
• Steve Laguerre (SEROvie)– Interview (Haiti)
• Angelique V. Nixon – Essay (The Bahamas/United States)
• Carmen Oquendo-Villar – Film (Puerto Rico)
• Colin Robinson (CAISO) – Activist Report & Interview (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Lawrence Scott - “Chameleon” - Short Story (Trinidad and Tobago/United Kingdom)
• Savannah Shange – Essay (United States)
• Joel Simpson - Interview (Guyana)
• Tieneke Sumter & Chrystabelle Beaton - Interview (Suriname)
• Suriname Men United – Activist Report (Suriname)
• Rodell Warner – Visual Art (Trinidad and Tobago)

Created by the Caribbean Region of the International Resource Network (irnweb.org). 

Edited by Rosamond S. King, Angelique V. Nixon,

Natalie Bennett, Colin Robinson, and Vidyaratha Kissoon.

Please visit the collection at www.caribbeanhomophobias.org, forward this message to others, and comment about it on our Facebook Fan Page!

Saltwater Healing - A Myth Memoir

Months have flown by since my last posting on conscious vibration... and during that time, didn't quite get to my leap year dream of writing more on this space. But I have been writing and creating elsewhere...  in other spaces...  and so...  I'm back in the mix and ready to share! 

In March, I was honored and excited to be a part of Transforming Spaces 2012 (Art Tour and Exhibit) in Nassau, The Bahamas, which had a common theme this year of FIBRE. After reading about the theme, I decided to submit my very first attempt at visual art through my literary art work, myth memoir "Saltwater Healing." I spent most of the early spring working on and finishing my piece. And I went home to complete and install it during the first week of March. This was essential since I wanted to use plant materials, sand, straw, and fabric from home to frame and finish my work. I have shared most of these pics on facebook and with friends. But now I am taking some time to share a bit about my vision and process. And to also let my folks know that Saltwater Healing will be turned into a chapbook with Poinciana Paper Press in 2013! Details will soon be announced! And also I also have found a home for Saltwater Healing to be on display for a while. More details soon come!

My vision for this work grew out of all the ways I write and engage with home as a Black mixed-race queer Bahamian woman living abroad. It grew out of troubled women's stories (herstories) too often left out of our "history" books. It grew out of messiness--the stuff we don't often speak about. It grew out of my desire to speak and share hard stories through a more visual medium, using a story telling poetic form and incorporating collage. The pages started with an adult me telling stories and then transformed into a childhood persona re-telling and re-imagining my childhood through the land/seascape and my grandmother's mythic voice. Some pages started with the stories, while others started with photographs and scraps of materials. I went back and forth with inspiration from the materials (seeds, cotton, fabric, plants, straw, photographs, etc) and what stories emerged as I wrote and created each page -- with an interplay between the visual and the text. I used Androsia fabric and straw specifically because of how we use these materials in cultural production and for tourism. And this vision expanded as I worked with the fabric and straw as a reflection of the obvious to tell what is not so obvious -- the hidden from view, the unspoken, the silenced.  

The pieces coming together, working at Popopstudios

The process was an incredible healing journey and the piece transformed each day I was at home in March. I was fortunate to be home during Woman Tongue season -- trees being ripe with pods and the beautiful sounds they make during our Bahamian spring time. This took my project to the healing and mythic space I had envisioned through the stories, and working with the woman tongue seeds and pods captivated me and my poet self. And so the pieces grow from distance and longing in photographs of the first few pages... to a more physical closeness with tactile offerings of the last pages and the entire frame of woman tongue pods and coconut tree branches. I ended the memoir with a kind of opening and circular movement that I hope pulls readers/viewers back into the piece to share in Saltwater Healing.

All together - stories weaved through fibres...

I was thrilled to be included in the co-curated team of artists at The Hub for TS 2012 -- including Angel Aranha, Margot Bethel, Agnieszka Christie, Sonia Farmer, Kachelle Knowles, Gio Swaby, Anna Mascaro, and Shevan Ward. Check out The Hub's photo album on facebook for pics of the whole process, installation, and the opening of the tour! Also, Sonia Farmer has an excellent piece about TS 2012 FIBRE at The Hub on her new blog Poinciana Paper Press!

While I was home for the creating, finishing and installation of my piece, I was able to help for a couple days with preparing The Hub for our show. And while I couldn't physically be there at the opening weekend of Transforming Spaces, I was there in spirit! And really excited to experience it through my friend's stories and photographs. This was a quite a new experience for me -- my treading water into the world of visual art making and production. And I am ready for more! So my artist self is expanding and growing during this Water Dragon Year! 

I plan to continue this work of myth memoir creation through the chapbook, which I plan to include some of my poems and perhaps even more stories. Until then, here are some reflections on my process and the installation.

*~*~*

Saltwater Healing is a literary artwork and myth memoir.

Weaving mythic stories of home and childhood, "Saltwater Healing" uses 

the Bahamian land/seascape to speak of silence and troubled herstories.

Dimensions: 3' x 6' (18 12" x 12" wooden squares)

Materials: paper, wood, photographs, plant materials, cotton, and sand.

I worked on each square individually - with fabric, straw,
plant materials, sand, and cotton interwoven around the collages
- each page with a different stories that weave into each other.

Installing the individual wooden squares...

Almost there!

Working on adding the layers of plant materials...

Check the detail...

Close up shot!

Adding more layers... for the finish and frame:
I framed the entire piece with woman's tongue pods,
coconut branches, sponges, seeds, shells, and other pieces
from the beaches and streets of Nassau.

*~*~*

FIBRE at The Hub!

Completing the installation of my piece,

with an ocean blue wall as the finishing touch... and a bucket of
sea water with rope! Thanks Margot, Kachelle, Sonia, Gio,
Anna, Shavan & the rest of The Hub Artists!!!  

TS 2012 at The Hub - Fierce and Fabulous!

Opening Day of Transforming Spaces!

thank you for being a witness!

with peace, love & conscious vibration...

Angelique

leap day dreams 2012

On this leap day '012, over a month into Water Dragon Year, last day of Black History Month, I am reflecting on the future, struggles across the planet for equality and justice, and my place in all of that. As I think deeply about my place in the struggle, I dare to dream and imagine something better, something safer, something free.


These first two months of the year brought many challenges yet I continue to be grateful and feel so blessed... we all have many challenges and some days it's hard to pull oneself out of the gutter and grime of it all. Yet and still, I do what I must to get up and remember that I am, I think, I am SomeBody, I am alive and here... with purpose.


I keep reminding myself to be present because all we have is now as I meditate on my path and purpose... dreaming/calling forth clarity and patience.

*~*

It's been a whirlwind since I got back from Haiti in mid January and I still haven't made the time to sit and write about my experience. But for a report back of the trip and delegation - check out: January 2012 Ayiti Resurrect Delegation. And also check out these two webalbums I put together from photos by Tony Moultry: the first album - our orientation & planning days AND the second - our program days. Coordinating, planning, and fundraising for the delegation over the past year and a half has been a huge part of my life.. and so it is with so much joy and light that I share with conscious vibration our photos and report back. I plan to write my personal reflection and thoughts about our journey and share soon soon :) dreaming/making time to write.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

by Margot Bethel

February has been a difficult month... too much work...  and too much loss... On Feb 2nd, my cousin (Edward George Darville Junior) passed away from a brain tumor. He was only 49 and like an older brother and uncle to me growing up. And even though we weren't close in my adult years, I remember him being a major influence and support system for me and my mother -- they were really close and so this brought me back to her passing, 15 years ago. It's been hard to process and there is more to share... stuff that is messy and hard to talk about... stuff about the silence in family history and missing years... So I dream of tracing and locating family histories/herstories on my mother's side... I dream of reconnecting and making space in all this distance as I grieve and mourn and rememory.


The funeral happened on the day Whitney Houston passed away at only 48. It took me a while to feel the sadness of it all as I was in my own state of grief... and because I lost my mother at the young age of 19, I found myself thinking about Whitney's daughter and reflecting on what this time must be like for her. Feeling great empathy... knowing what that loss feels like... knowing what is it like to grow up with drug addicted parents... knowing there is too much silence about this experience and a serious lack of support around addiction and mental health in our communities... knowing that no matter how much money or fame she had, she was still a Black woman in america... knowing that there is more to her story than we will ever know. Feeling the light of Whitney through her music.

These passings have made me think deeply about family, loss, separation, physical and mental health, addiction, and how we remember those who have passed (especially in the Caribbean and people of color communities broadly). How do we remember and rememory? How do we speak of loss and grief? And so what is most on my mind is health or lack thereof in our communities, where we don't/can't take good care of ourselves... for all kinds of reasons.


And so I dream about time, space, abundance to put ourselves and our loved ones first. I dream of healthier lives and spirits and female bodily integrity. I dream of freedom from addiction and self medicating. I dream of community and communities joining together with hearts voices minds across differences creating and building safe healthy productive relationships and families. I dream...  and dream...  dreaming I am...  dream.


*~*~*


This morning I began my day with Democracy Now as I do most days, which generally guides me into various news reports. In this journey, I found an LA Times article about the DREAM act, which I support not only because I am an immigrant who moved to U.S. for higher education but also because it makes ethical sense (although I am critical of the military option). The piece comments on a recent interview with Angela Davis and Citizens for Immigrants talking about the act (posted on their website on Feb 27, 2012) and her argument that Black people should support this act. The article also goes into some of the reasons why African Americans may not fully support the DREAM act because of what we can call the typical divide and conquer and how people of color and migrants are pitted against each other, especially during times of economic crisis. I found Angela Davis' words to be inspiring and helpful for this debate. And for those of us migrant and Black, for those of us who are at the intersections of these often divided identities and communities, let us place ourselves in this struggle and tell each other why:

"It's important because it represents one of the most important arenas in the ongoing struggle for civil rights in this country, and particularly those of us who have a history of struggling for civil rights -- I'm speaking very specifically about the African-American community."

"As people who have benefited from these freedom struggles, it is our responsibility to continue justice as Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out is indivisible, and justice for black people must be used on behalf of justice for Latinos, and justice for immigrants, and justice for undocumented immigrants."

"It is a cause that black people should embrace. One of the things that we need to remember is that the victories that have been won in the struggle for black freedom never would have been possible if only black people were the ones who were active in those struggles. ... I know my case would not have been won, as it was, had not it been for the activism of the Chicano community in San Jose when I was tried on charges of conspiracy. In San Jose, there was a very minuscule black community there at that time. And it was in the Chicano community that the major organizing took place."

"I don't understand how people can assume that its possible for each racialized ethnic group to go it alone."

At the end of the interview, Angela Davis was asked what does she have to say to young people in the struggle and she responded with this: "Live one's life as a life of struggle and learn how to develop ways of asserting one's imagination and creativity. And learn how to live one's life that way so that it becomes a thing of joy and not a thing of sacrifice."

On this leap day and as we move rapidly into this planetary-consciousness-shifting Dragon year of 2012, let us dream our way into this joy, this way of life in the struggle, together... We cannot go it alone. And so I wonder what will our future look like? How can we really make these necessary alliances in the struggle for radical change? I remain hopeful and believe in the possibilities of change. 

peace, blessings & conscious vibration,

Angelique

"Birth of Sistella Black"

a new poem, work in progress:

The Birth of Sistella Black

(in response to the question -- "what are you?")

I.

The question, then the stare

I begin with a smile and exhale

Cause maybe you just see a tattoo’ed freak with locs

Or a racially ambiguous, ethnic something or other

But what happens when you hear me speak or discover I am a learned woman

Do I become more than…  my marked-immigrant-colored-body?

I am female-bodied human, Gendered She

Light-skinned, Multiracial Black

Caribbean born, Raised up in Fyah

I am grandaughter of Mabel Sistella Charles and Viola Nixon

I am great grandaughters of Mamas Willabie Black and Mary Burrows Lee

I am daughter of Kim Grace Louise Howard

I am a reflection of my ancestors

especially the ones I never met in the flesh

I am golden light in accents

yellow, brown, red, and black

I am the color that makes some feel safe

I am the underbelly of shame and desire

of what you do not remember.

I am hypervisible yet you do not see me.

I am coming out and up for air everyday.

I am the flip side

the pink of a conch shell

the layers you pull open only to discover

what is silent

I am what you cannot ignore any longer

I am the product of colonial mishaps

and inconvenient, no other choice, sexual relations

I am the sistah soldier in the struggle

rocking your world

disrupting your imagination

fueling your fantasies

I am remaking and renaming myself

I am Sistella Black

II.

I have carved on my skin lineage of meanings

of who I am, making you see me

I have studied and read, written and learned

shared and transformed by, transforming knowledges

I am light and love manifesting conscious vibration

I am blessed, opportunities grasped and ridden high

I am all that I dream of being

sexy and spirit centered

I am evolving and growing

the storm of revolution

I am sister and daughter of the earth

orange moon goddess under sun’scape showers

communing with forests and troubled sweet waters

I am what makes you feel discomfort

III.

I am years of education

I am questioning, critical, idealistic, cynical

hopeful even when there is none

I am same sex loving, bisexual and queer

I am freak nasty, vibrating on high poly-rythmic freak-quencies

I am love dancing and fucking

under a wolf’s full moon

sistah to the night's warm healing touch

I am daughter of Oshun reflecting Erzulie

I am star gazing, moon worshipping, night loving, conjure woman

I am wrapped in histories and herstories

of my people, never forgetting

where I come from

I have done things to get here

you will never understand

I am dark and dangerous, loving and creating

in spite of you, holding the earth, humanity’s elements

spirits close        to me