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

Blessings for 2012 & Ayiti Resurrect Updates!

Greetings friends/family/kin!

I hope your holidays have been filled with joy, peace & blessings! Wishing each of you a beautiful new year and so much love as we bring in 2012!

I am heading to Haiti on January 4th - for Ayiti Resurrect's second delegation! Most of you know about my work in Haiti, and so here are some updates. And for those of you who don't know, here is an overview. I am sending out positive and conscious vibrations for your continued support and belief in our healing collective -- AYITI RESURRECT! This collaborative work with my sistren Beatrice and Naima has been an amazing journey for the past year and a half -- and I would truly appreciate any help you can offer in the coming days -- by spreading the word, sharing links about our work, and checking out all the ways you can contribute (donations, supplies, indiegogo campaign, sponsor a delegate, etc.):

http://www.ayitiresurrect.org/contribute/

Ayiti Resurrect is a grassroots collective that formed in the aftermath of the earthquake based on principles of solidarity, creativity, and collective resilience. A team of visionary artists, community builders, and holistic healers with bloodlines in the Caribbean and African Diaspora, we have organized ourselves to work in collaboration with local Haitian organizations to facilitate psychological and spiritual healing for earthquake survivors.

Here is a description of our January 2012 Delegation: Ayiti Resurrect has assembled an incredible team of holistic healers, artists, musicians, dancers, yoga instructors, permaculture gardeners and environmental innovators who will be traveling to Haiti during the first two weeks of January, working in collaboration with artists, healers and community builders living in Haiti, to implement a Mental Wellness & Stress Relief clinic, initiate an environmental sustainability education project, and facilitate art and music therapy workshops with and for quake survivors. Workshops and sessions will be organized by Haitians and international allies through collaboration and shared facilitation, and the coalescing of our energy, creativity and wisdom promises to be powerful!!!

Fundraising Efforts: We have hosted three amazing fundraisers this Fall - one in New York, another in California, and a third one in The Bahamas. Thanks to everyone who made these possible and supported these events! We also have an internet based fundraising campaign through IndieGoGo -- which ends TODAY, but there are still many more ways to contribute and help the delegation - check the main website and/or get in touch with me!

*** A Special Thanks to my folks/kin in The Bahamas and to The Hub for a beautiful fundraiser in Nassau on Dec 16th! -- especially to all the performers who shared their talents, words, and music -- Erin Greene, Artist Javan, Mark Bethel, Helen Klonaris, John Nutt, Red Eye, and Maz & the rest of the members of Foreign Sound! *~* More special thanks to Margot Bethel for donating the Hub and its resources and making it all happen! And thank to all those who donated during and after the event!!! ***

Learn more about our delegate team, what we are offering, and our strategy for sustainability at www.ayitiresurrect.org. You can also find out more details about our history, past work, and the partnerships we have here and in Haiti. Here is a powerful video produced by core collective member Naima Penniman about our journey and work with AYITI RESURRECT. Please watch and share with others!

We are making a final push for our fundraising efforts to make sure that our January delegation will go smoothly and effectively!!!

We are a grassroots endeavor of two communities coming together across bloodlines and continents to facilitate healing from within. We are not an NGO with foundational or institutional backing, we are representatives from our hometowns, our neighborhoods, and our lineages. Your support means everything as we engage in this all volunteer work dedicated to cultivating genuine people-to-people solidarity among members of the African diasporic family while reinforcing the strength and autonomy of the Haitian community.

Thank you for taking the time to read about this work and for your continued support! GIVING THANKS to all of my friends/fam and kinfolk who have believed in me and have made all this possible through your donations, through your prayers, and through your love. I am so grateful to be able to do this work - and I am able to do it because of all of you!

As we bring in the new year, let us do so with such positivity and abundance that 2012 will bring us all what we need and desire!!! This year will bring in a Dragon Year, which is my year to spark and renew!!! It also ushers in the dawning of aquarius... new forms of consciousness rising and embracing us all!!! 

with peace, love & conscious vibration!

Angelique

Angela Davis at Occupy NYC

I dropped off the blog posting this fall...  to much goin on... but as I do at the end of year, I am catching up and posting thangs that have been on my radar and on my mind that I want to share and keep on the conscious vibration...


Major Highlight from Occupy Wall Street for me was Angela Davis speaking and blessing the movement with her wisdom. I spent much of the Fall immersed in people of color caucus - in between my other projects and teaching...  I remember her speech today as we wrap up the year.






Angela Davis spoke at Occupy Wall Street Washington Square Park in October - she urged the movement to embrace a "complex unity" within the concept of "99 percent." She evoked Audre Lorde in response to her question "How can we come together in a unity that is complex and emancipatory? Differences must not be merely tolerated but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like the dialectic."

occupynyc on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

notes from my summer gypsy travels & fall journeys

I've been deep in the throws of adjusting to a new place and new job... and at the same time, keeping up with all my other work... The summer was incredible... and the fall has been more hectic than usual, but I'm coming up for air and grounding...

I've been writing in my journal, but my musings, thoughts and ramblings haven't made it to the blog... and so now I play catch up with myself and my public writing sphere... Here are notes and the beginnings of poems from my travels this summer:

Moon Rise in Ayiti - July 2011

There is nothing else except this moon, this moment
She calls me with a wisp of wind
cooling my sun kissed skin

I am driving with a friend in Leogane
We are talking politics, the earth, and Ayiti
His home, his country, the place
that reaches underneath my skin

connected through my Caribbean-ness
through my homeland, The Bahamas,
my forging better, ethical relations
with the place, the people, our people

The road is a reflection of slow recovery
I look up after hearing the moon's call
the clouds clear a path for me to see her shine

She calls forth my light, beaconing me
for healing and embrace, her voice lingers in the night sky
glowing with dimensions of gold and yellow hues of white
beaming in her full glory, a reflection of us

I can see the world through her fullness
I can see just how small we are, how connected we are

There must be life out there on other stars
What could our world be if we took this moment
only to love and be loved

Mantra - healing for Ayiti - July 2011

flowing through us is light, goodness & love
we share blood, We share stories, We share histories

flowing through us is power, unity & resistance
we share in this growing
we share in this knowledge building
we share in community

we share, we build, we heal (with each other)
flowing through us many languages, peaceful voices, sharing light
we speak, we listen, we create

The more I (need) learn - Ayiti - July 2011

My tongue is held captive here in this place where I don't know
her language, I want to know,
but my mind is tired and failing at retention

I hear and read words from my Kreyol book, longing to keep them
in memory, but I feel at capacity... like nothing else can fit
the most difficulty part of this journey...   is language
the thing that separates... is the thing I love and inhabit

I am supposed to be good at this - the learning of new things
 - the study of language and words - Kreyol - so resilient,
filled with power of syncretic vision and survival, no matter what

How I long for your touch on my tongue, to dream in Kreyol,
to speak with ease, to overstand
I feel trapped in translation,
trusting others to relay messages and emotions
of solidarity and healing and plans for next time

Patience is cultivated as I wait and my tongue fumbles,
thirsty in my desert of knowing
I am making another promise under a breathtaking star-filled sky
this time in Sodo, a place of healing and celebration

The starts are dancing with possibility and knowing
I feel humbled once again to be here
I promised to speak and to listen
I promised to do something

and I am doing that something
yet I must have my tongue informed, ready for action
it is time and I must

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

* Poetics of Resistance Workshop  * Detroit, August 2011


I led a workshop for Detroit Summer and had the most amazing time building, learning, and sharing with a brilliant group of youth. One of the writing exercises I had the students do was to respond to an Audre Lorde quote. I picked quotes that offered insights and a reflection of all that Lorde was up to as a warrior Black lesbian poet and activist. I also wrote with the students.

"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge" - Audre Lorde

Knowledge is built through all of us
years of memories, remembering and re-writing,
re-telling and transforming through histories and herstories
we build stories and lives out of collective knowledge,
feelings and intuition from our ancestors
who share with us through dreams, in our spirits
and vision of the past and future

We feel the movements of our ancestors through genetic memory
they rustle through the wind and trees
and burst forth in the rain on a stormy day
they speak through thunder and snaps of lightening
through my third eye

I see feelings and touch them with a slight caress
just to remind myself that I am alive
and I am here with purpose
this is knowledge
this knowing this being and becoming self

Our paths become illuminated through exploration of feelings
They drive my vision and desires for change
to build a better and just world
to live and love freely as June Jordan says
to recognize, celebrate, and build across differences as Audre Lorde says
these two sparks offer an ocean of feelings

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

And then the Fall brought with her changing leaves, the largest social movement(s) of my lifetime... and since mid September... I've been wrapped in its grasp and promise... consensus building, democratic process unfolding and embraced, the work of resistance, and the sustained critique of capitalism...

Talkin bout a Revolution... or I Stay Woke... 
* New York, 26 Oct 2011


this new moon in october vibrates through the echos 
of change, we want now
i obsess over websites, occupy blogs, live streams, and democracy now!
in between my weekend visits to new york
i join the people of color working group at occupy wall street


diving right into the work and organizing of this
wondrous and complex movement
changing like fall leaves
we must be like the wind to keep up


and i ask how can we rise as a people (of color)?
long experienced in lack: marginalization, disenfranchisement, police/state brutality, deportation, criminalization, displacement, dehumanization, economic and social injustice... the lingering effects of slavery and colonialism... globalization and immigration policies... interlocking systems of oppression... we have long been occupied...


(Communities of color, the poor and working class, immigrant communities, formerly & currently incarcerated, trans people, undocumented workers, and others who are marginalized have long known what so many people are waking up to now... 
yeah, we know this shit ain't right...)


the revolution is here
the revolution is now
it is, more than possible
movements 
building 
all over 
the world


rising, rising, rising 
out of the lies and false promises of capitalism
out of so-called free trade and free markets
out of corporate wutless'ness and greed
out of corporate controlled, puppet-like governments
out of the privatization of natural resources
out of environmental crisis and degradation
out of unemployment and debt
out of poverty
out of state violence
out of the prison industrial complex
out of gendered and trans violence
out of class exploitation
out of immigrant struggle
out of despair


out of hope
for something better
out of belief in each other
out of belief in community


our world torn and divided by so much
yet the complex unity of this 99%
experiencing various levels of inequity and injustice
lack of opportunities, seeing the hierarchies that bind us


raising our fists, hearts, and minds
together in a revolution hard to name
but one that was/is inevitable


talkin' bout a revolution 
sounds like a whisper...  
don't you know... 
one day we gonna rise up 
and take what's ours!


this is our time 
this is our world
this is the most important thing


rising up in solidarity 
to take back what is ours
to re-make our world


to re-create in our own image, thought, word
to re-invent, to re-start, to stay woke
people of color, yes! 
let us / stay woke #together


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