Black Lives Matter…Period
Such a heavy time
So much grief
Layers of pain
Generations of choked out voices
In the midst of these disruptions, eruptions, protests and violent shaking off of the centuries of white suppression from the necks of those who have been born into the original sin of slavery in this country…
I have been searching my soul …
and listening.
One of the voices which is new to me came by way of an episode of On Being, conversations with Krista Tippett. She spoke with Resmaa Menakem.
-
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
I’ve gone back several times to listen again and then again to try and understand more of his work which focuses on how trauma, particularly racism, lands in the body and how we all can be open to recognizing and listening to it as a path to move towards healing racial injustices.
Here is a link to that episode…click here.
Krista posts both edited and unedited versions of all her podcasts. This is one I highly recommend you listen to the unedited version. You can find it on her web site. ONBeing.org. The On Being project is a powerful resource for reflecting on the challenging work of peace in these troubled times. And there is so much work to do.
I’ve returned to this blog space on a day when an other element of the country’s conscience has shifted. News that the Supreme Court has extended workplace protection to include members of the LGBTQ community.
Coming directly on the heels of the most recent attempt/onslaught by the current administration to stamp out any and all rights which have been painstakingly granted to that same community …well I’m not feeling much like celebrating.
In our lifelong personal battles as lesbians to be understood and accepted as equal humans Pat and I have always qualified our struggles with this thought…WE are fortunate (and here today we could substitute that word with “privileged”)…because we can hide our sexuality if we need to in order to be safe. People of color obviously can’t.
With my heart broken wide open
let me add all the soul in my voice
to the roar for justice.
Let the children of our grandchildren
stand on my shoulders
and march for equal civil human rights.
BLACK
LIVES
MATTER.I’m feeling gutted…
so today…
The Gutting – 2015
Ah there’s always a dark side.
In The Yachtsman, you have a sunny, blue skied, fair weather kind of a day.
Here, the clouds thicken.
The air was heavy and it was deep into the beyond of the shoulder season,
Out in the gun metal grey waters of the harbor,
only the heartiest of working vessels were moored.The wind was kicking up,
and we had just come from the Newes,
with bellies full of chowder and a pint or two of October ale,
and I thought I could hear a steady tapping…
just there coming around the corner behind us…
like the wooden peg of a leg,
tap tap tapping on the weathered cobbled stone.I reached over, pulled up the collar of Herself’s Pea Coat ,
and snuggled closer for the warmth,
and we made our way down to the dockside.
‘Twas then I heard the screaming.
Ghastly wales, a staccato of screeching,
and a frenzy of feathers seemed to come at us from all directions.
The water churned and the sky was a roiling mass of gulls.
Through the miasma of wings I could see a figure.
A lone fisherman was tearing out the guts of his supper.It seemed as if all of the island flock was massing, and thrashing,
to win the foul spoils of his long cold day at sea.
The gruesome sight was more than I could bear,
and my chowder began to repeat.Just before I managed to steer us away,
in the midst of the carnage and chaos,
I caught a glimmer of light.Perched on top of the blood red piling,
with a gaping maw of frothing yellow beak,
a white throated gull threw back her head
and just
shudderingly
and stunningly…
laughed.The fisherman turned his head…
And I will swear that I saw…
a silvery, slithery, black eye patch.
