A Movement of Ancestors

Is there there any room for faith in the movement, y’all — for realz?

I get that a lot of people are wary of all things religious. Shit, Pink has had their share of rants about spirituality, basically calling bullshit on the whole racket. I already told you, I’m a multitude, and I hope y’all don’t think I’m comin’ at this closed-minded. This a mah fuggin’ dialogue! If I’m presented with evidence to the contrary, I’mma share that shit.

I carry the blood of my 10th great grandfather, King Christian of Denmark, the Tyrant of Oldenburg. His 7th great granddaughter, Fannie Russell, illegally married a pure-blood African sharecropper named Walter Hendrick. From them came my Grandma Betty, then my mom, and then me. If that’s not a sign of a power greater than the U.S. Government, I don’t know what is. Love deserves a place in the movement for Black Lives.

Speeches at the rallies talk about unity. People in the street, most of whom are White, throwing up the middle finger at the establishment bothers the fuck out of me. I don’t care if it offends the cops. This ain’t about respectability politics, y’all. It offends the ancestors. It also denies a mystical component to this movement that is fueled by our ancestors and their faith. It assumes that just because we old folks aren’t in the street, we’re not doing the work.

A protest of Chicana anti-Columbus Day organizers in Colorado started with a circle of blessing, calling on the spirits of the directions. They appealed to the ancestors to guide our actions and our words and to protect us. When Breonna Taylor’s name is evoked, she is present there among the ancestors, ready to take action on her own behalf. This is how the elders participate . They bless this movement, they call on the spirits using ancient practices. We minimize their efforts when we deny and dishonor spirit.

Maybe I’m just standing on the sidelines being critical while the current leadership martyrs themselves. I don’t want anymore martyrs on my behalf. I’m ready to use the tools of my African ancestors and leave all forms of tyranny behind. I’m not here to fight people. I want to change them, and saying “fuck you” doesn’t serve that purpose.

Come at me, y’all.

Hard-Wired Spirit Work

Spirit work is not for sissies, y’all — for realz!

I’ve heard of people being “called” all my life. I went to Catholic school and heard priests and nuns talkin’ how they didn’t choose that life, but had got the call. Spiritual mumbo jumbo was what I thought ‘til the shit happened to me. Now, I’m the asshole, with folks thinking I’m selling snake oil, plumb out my mind, or born again. What a ridiculous position to be in. I honestly could give a lick which people choose. I’m just a Hoodoo worker on a mission, trying to tell my onyx from my jet stone.

I don’t fix shit, but I can use herbs, rubs, prayers and help from the spirits to coach my clients back into they own flow. When you come to me, you best expect you gonna be doing most of the work. I can guide you to the right tools, help you unlock your own magick, or wake you out of whatever dream made you think you couldn’t have what you wanted all along. I got that Glinda the Good chronic. I’ll give you the magick feather, when you were always able to fly.

I chant (I prefer that word to praying) for serenity to accept who and what I can’t change. I was conflicted about using the Bible, then I got over myself. I use a bible because, when I’m doing rootwork, I’m running in DOS mode, to use a computer analogy. I have to use the programming language the compiler expects. With Hoodoo, I need to do what the ancestors want, and they want to hear from the Bible—at least mine do. I have tribal roots that respond to shamanism, Protestant roots that are Christian, and my roots in Benin respond to Ifá.

The shit is frigging exhausting and never quite feels done. I pray on the case until it feels right and then I turn it over to the ancestors. It’s probably less complicated than I make it, but I’d rather do a little too much than not do enough. Spirits seem to like attention, so I give them plenty. The gifts get expensive too. Mom likes elephants. Send tiny ones with their trunks turned up. I could also use some ethically sourced snake shedding.

If only there was a spell to get y’all right with my pronoun! They, y’all, they! Lol! Anyway, get in my DMs if you wanna learn more about it.

Shakespeare? Bitch, Sit Down!

Now that y’all know I’m related to Shakespeare, can I please play Hamlet — for realz?

No, actually that one is not really for real. I’m too old to play Hamlet and, really, who wants to work that hard? I’ve caught shade my whole career from harsh ass critics (the kind who write reviews) who didn’t think anyone darker than Laurence Olivier in blackface should do “the classics.” What, somehow because Black people didn’t originate from the country that Shakespeare came from, we somehow will never be able to catch a beat? Has anyone heard of Def Poetry Jam?

Wealthy Africans traveled and hung out England in the 1500s, including at the royal court. Black people are also kick ass poets—the kind “regular” folks flock to listen too. What you think made groundlings rush the stage except those King’s Players could spit fire like Tech Nine? White people gas about Black people’s natural rhythm and bust on they self they ain’t got none. What? Suddenly, talking in rhythm, White people can keep a beat? No! It don’t work like that. Once corny, corny for life. Move.

No, but serious, y’all. There’s assumptions about who owns Anglo-culture. [Assuming an affectation] Only a finely attuned ear (pronounced AY-uh), palette or eye, can appreciate the works of the “Masters!” Puh-leez! Western culture thrives on appropriation, claiming to improve everything it touches (waters down). A non-Westerner borrows from the classical canon and you’d think White folks were at a grade school dance recital (“Aren’t they so cute!”). Ahem...Hamilton.

Bitchez, y’all all come from Africa. Anything you do was already stole. You was stole! If you weren’t born in the cradle of civilization you’re an immigrant. You just forgot where your ass came from. There’s even (gasp!) Africans born with blonde hair, without European intervention (look up Melanesians). Not to boast, but everything was in Africa before it went out into the world, including language. Facts.

I’m a raise hell, now. “What? you’re not a direct descendant and you’re doing Shakespeare? Bitch, sit down!”

Falling through Religions

Been reading the Bible, y’all. [SPOILER ALERT] Adam was a snitch — for realz!

I took a bus from Cuernavaca, Mexico three hours to the city of Puebla, stuck pressed next to a missionary. They were very White, very American (as in United States of American) and preachy AF—dead set on saving my soul. I shut the convo down telling them they’d sooner get me praying to the Easter Bunny. It made the missionary cry, but I got to eat my barbecue grasshopper sans the Jesus noise. Thank God!

Me and the Bible is a twisted ass journey, starting with a whisper: “You’re a shaman.” A deep frigging dive into Shamanism led to Buddhism, Hinduism, Ifẹ, Santería and finally Hoodoo. Hoodoo brought me back to my roots — literally. The day I started researching Hoodoo, I was gifted 200 years of family history going back to slavery. The ancestors I was praying for, finally showed up.

Hoodoo, not to be confused with Catholic-infused Santeria, came about from Protestant dominance where you couldn’t disguise African worship as worship of saints. They co-opted the Bible, which they knew was an object of power. If it made “Massa’s” bow his arrogant head, that book had to pack a wallop! They even used the pages as spiritual relics to work magick. Then they figured out how to read. Imagine enslaved people reading Exodus! Fucking radical!

Hoodoo works with ancestors, and far back as the 1880s mine were ministers. If me reading the Bible makes them happy, I’ll suck it up. Besides the Bible is where Africans hid the spells and recipes for eventually setting brother against brother in a civil war that ended slavery. That last bit is just what I imagine. I don’t doubt though that the magick is that frigging powerful. If more of us would pick it up we might just manage to heal this doomed world.

Plus, the Bible ain’t a half bad story, once you figure out the Shakespeare. Luckily, I can tell a thou from a begat. Adam, by the way (spoiler alert), really is a stone cold snitch and the snake was just a fall guy.

Bugs in Gaia’s Programming

If this whole shit is broke AF, how much you really think you can fix, y’all — for realz!

I’m working my seventh step, where I call on the Orisha to remove my defects of character. I have a shitload of them. When my student was letting me have it about shit I wasn’t quite ready to cop to, I had to laugh. They couldn’t see the mile-high shitpile of epic proportions of wrongs I’ve done. Blackmail worthy shit (book in-progress). It must be sweet to have the luxury of casting aspersions on others. Based on the number of progressive saints I witness going in on people, a lot of mother fuckbos are blemish free. It’s the only reason I can think of, that people are so quick to point fingers and judge.

See, as I look at it, Gaia is this extremely complex and intelligent machine. Think of how complex a machine the human body is — how complex a fucking ant is. So, we got this super being, Gaia, right? The Earth. We’re all just pieces. Everyone — everything — serves some function as part of her highly intricate design, that probably wasn’t even designed, it just grew from splitting atoms, into splitting cells and kept splitting and forming until they became this world, right? Regardless of what you believe, it was some version of that.

So, here we are part of this finely tuned machine that is the world. Regardless of how any of us thinks it should work or how we should be in the world, we got pushed out into it and it was likely in order to — as the sole purpose — contribute in the proper functioning of this world. Otherwise we wouldn’t exist. Fuck what you think about evolution, you are here because the world (in biological terms) needed your ass — for something. Just like everything that happens with your body serves your body, including its eventual expiration.

The way I see it, if my ass is here to serve a function as part of this mind-blowing apparatus called Earth (or, even more mind-blowing, the Universe) the least I can do is keep this piece (the piece of the great puzzle Earth that is me) operating as well as possible. That’s a full-time fucking job. I gotta keep this fit, keep this fed, keep this functioning, and keep my room tidy (whatever room I’m in). Just that is an overwhelming amount of shit to do.

So, yes, I commend the fuck out of all the people out there in cyber-space, who have so well mastered running this fucking obstacle course called life, that they can worry the about my part (and her part and his part and their part), and not have to keep their hands on their own handle bars. I salute you. I’m not worthy. You’re a fucking all-star.

Talk About Sex

I’m ready to talk about sex y’all – for realz!

I’ve been skirting around the topic for a few of these recent posts, and it seems impossible to get into any conversation about the survival of humanity without getting pretty open about fucking. I don’t wanna be crass, but I’m just damn tired of feeling shame around sexuality. As a queer person I’ve been under attack my whole life about sex. As far as anyone around me was concerned, I was either supposed to get with the program as a horny as hell vagina-loving “real” man, or I could prepare to become societies punching bag.

In spite of the violent campaign against my natural sexual proclivities – with the support of so many of my straight male counterparts who tipped with me into the closet on the down low – I managed to emerge about as gay as you can get. I suppose when you supplement your income in a blonde afro, hot pants and cha-cha heels, you win a lifetime membership in the Friends of Dorothy club. The question remains: How does being queer fit in as part of our survival?

Same sex behavior exists in other species, so it’s not just some human fluke. Nature seems to make room for getting together for reasons other than procreation. Certainly, as a species, a little sex minus baby-making isn’t a crisis. I’ve considered whether Mother Nature didn’t build in a little homosexuality as a fail safe against over propagation. That’s a gross over-simplification but, artificial insemination aside, sodomy certainly presents a breeding challenge.

The point I’m getting at is, nature doesn’t make mistakes. Even our abominable behavior as a human species, that seems to fly against nature itself, has to have some meaning in the cosmic big picture. Perhaps even the biggest fuck ups of human beings in our past and present are necessary as part of the evolutionary process. We go big, fall hard and learn a hell of a lot from it all. We resist change in one part of our brains while breaking convention with another.

So, for every “traditional” coupling there may just have to be another exploring the myriad alternative uses for these amazing bodies we’ve been gifted. Why else make us so damn curious? Why else make it so damn fun?

I personally want to embrace my identity as a sexual maverick. I officially come out to the world as a sexual libertine. I offer myself as open to discussions and explorations of all the ways that human beings can enjoy themselves alone, in pairs and in other inventive configurations. I’m certainly not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last, but for goodness sake I wish enough people would stand up and be counted. It would suck for another generation to grow up thinking our bodies were something over which we should be ashamed.

It will be a while before we can celebrate our bodies again, but that is one thing I will not be carrying back into my life after social distancing. I won’t allow the society that lifts up violence and greed, put me down for wanting to explore the many faces of love. Besides, the world could use a few less soldiers and a few more sluts, if you ask me.

Not Going Crazy in America

How to live in American and not go crazy – for realz!

The first lie in that statement is the “not go crazy.” Last year I was diagnosed with PTSD and I’m pretty sure the last straw was working recovery for Hurricane Sandy. I stood in front of a lot of rooms and heard a lot of traumatic stories and that has an effect after a while. I don’t how people work in hospitals and other settings where people experience trauma on the daily. My therapist has to be a saint. But besides the obvious traumatic stuff we go through, there’s the not so obvious part about living in America that I imagine fucks people up (excuse my French).

Imagine you lived among a community of cannibals who only ate people who were not from their tribe. You, unfortunately, aren’t a tribes-member. My a stroke of the divine, you have a friend who is part of the tribe. She assures you daily that because of your association with her (as a friend), and because she’s a beloved member of the tribe, you are safe. You don’t have to worry about being eaten. Whew! She also explains that the tribe hasn’t eaten anyone (at least not a human) for at least twenty years, so your fears are completely unfounded. A lapse of the custom of eating people, and that you have a friend to protect you, is all that’s keeping your ass off the menu. Would you feel safe?

How about if, even though you had never been physically harmed by any members of the tribe, many of the tribes members called you “delicious” as a nickname? What if there were pictures of banquets in all of the books and magazines of people being served up as food? How about if in movies and television programs there would be scenes of people being eaten and the members of the tribe would laugh hysterically at these scenes? Let’s say, giving up humans as food, was even a conscious decision on the part of the tribe, with perhaps only a few hold-outs who continue to resent having the “right” to eat who they want taken away. Take a moment to indulge in this thought experiment.

I don’t know, maybe it sounds far fetched, but that’s a little bit what it’s like being a Black person in America. I know slavery was a long time ago, and that America finally passed a civil rights act in the late sixties, but it’s still a little bit like living in a place where people like me were considered food for a very long time. One day White people decided they didn’t want to eat Black people anymore. They found out it caused some disease or something.

I guess I’m supposed to feel safe but in part of my brain I keep wondering, did this person’s parents eat Black people? Did there grandparents? Did they grow up with people telling stories about banquets where Black people were served up like barbecue? No I don’t think White people are cannibals, but you get the idea, right? There was a time when people walked around believing Black people where inferior and there was never a national campaign that taught a different way of thinking. People just decided it wasn’t true. Well, some people did, at least, right?

Black people stay sane in America by pretending slavery never happened. They stay sane pretending there were never signs that read “Whites Only.” Most of the time it works. But, occasionally, something triggers that memory and it’s pretty easy not to feel safe. Someone might casually reach out and touch your hair to see what it feels like. Someone may act surprised when you speak without the TV dialect Black people have been forced to learn to get acting jobs. Someone may simply make a reference to the color of someone’s skin in conversation and remind you that being Black is a character trait, where as being White is is not useful information.

Add queer into the mix.

It’s not even just a thing for people who are typically pushed to the margins. The dehumanization of anyone, the commodification of anything really, even land, has to have a damaging effect on everyone conscious of the reality of commodification. Going back to the cannibal tribe, can you imagine being a kid in that tribe and having to figure out who is okay to eat and who is “safe?” On a subconscious level it would have to be a threat to everyone. I mean, what happens if the tribe decides you don’t belong in the way they have decided some others don’t belong?

So, yeah, the way to stay “sane” in a world where people have been “things” is to just forget, right? Or maybe you know of a better way?

To Donald Trump, with Love

I think I have to love Donald Trump, y’all – for realz!

I’ve been thinking about radical love and radical forgiveness. Someone once told me that to hate someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die from it. There’s a school of shamanism that says all of life is just a collective dream. Consider that everything we know of, on the sub-atomic level, is made up of the same stuff – protons, neutrons and electrons. They’re not even connected, they spin around each other setting off reactions in an endless cycle of degeneration and regeneration. It’s all a bunch of fragments that have come together out of some agreement. Who’s to say that agreement doesn’t spring from the collective we? The world may indeed have been flat as long as everyone agreed it was. It’s possible that agreement about the shape of the world, changed the shape of the world. It is impossible to know.

It was also “impossible” that Donald Trump could become president, and yet here we are. It is possible that the horror struck by the thought of a Donald Trump presidency was enough to make it manifest. It is possible that we allowed our focus to shift from electing a candidate we wanted, to being terrified enough of the alternative that we feared it into being. So, now here we are. Like people caught in a nightmare of our own making. I have experienced a loathing beyond what I thought myself capable of. That loathing has turned into a festering boil and I must see it raging and full to bursting on the cheek of the political landscape. It shrieks, it tweets, it campaigns endlessly. It pursues me in every waking moment in one fake news flash after another. Just when I think it couldn’t get worse, enter a pandemic.

There’s only one thing left to do: surrender. I have to give up wishing there wasn’t a Coronavirus. I have to give up wishing we didn’t have buffoons storming the capital in Lansing with assault rifles. I have to give up hoping that I will wake up to find Ahmaud Arbery was not shot after being chased by a white former law enforcement officer and his son. I have to stop thinking that Donald Trump is going to get bored and turn the presidency over to someone who isn’t a worse version of himself. I have to surrender and accept, like in the Serenity Prayer, the things I cannot change. Only through accepting it, is their hope of transforming it.

If we're all the same stuff, and I believe we are the same, then I am Donald Trump. I am former police officer Gregory McMichael, and I am his son Travis. We are part of the same material universe. I have expected the worst from people like these and they honor me by being what I expect. More than that, there is something in myself that they reflect back at me – a part of myself that I loathe. There’s a saying in recovery: You spot it, you got it! What is it in these people that I carry in myself, so that deep down I feel like this is the president – this is the world of my own making? Perhaps this is the world I’m convinced I deserve. What aspect of “me” am I rejecting when I spit curses at these parts of the universal whole that I have rejected as others? What soul sickness am I manifesting outwardly and what effect is it having internally?

Okay, maybe I don’t need to want to invite these people over for dinner, but if they do mirror back a part of myself that I am rejecting outright, am I not obligated to investigate that? Am I not obligated to love myself unconditionally? Maybe learning to separate beings from their actions and love others unconditionally is the preparation for self-acceptance. I won’t take the inventory of Donald Trump, Greg McMichael or Travis, but I can recognize a wounded, aging, self-centered tyrant in myself. I can explore my own internalized racism that gets uncomfortable when a group of hooded, loud talking Black youth enter a space. I can even consider the ways I waste natural resources carelessly because I have the privilege and the luxury of doing so. I certainly benefit from the actions of exploitation and violence perpetrated around the globe to keep me in luxuries I barely appreciate.

Maybe the best thing I can do for myself is love Donald Trump. I might even learn to embrace COVID-19 as an extension of the person I have become. Perhaps that will inspire me to change and believe in the possibility of these others to change too. Maybe in demonizing myself and others I have cultivated the monster in everyone around me and magnified it until it was true. That, however, also means I could do the opposite. I could love unconditionally and hope the best for everyone, even Donald Trump, and manifest a change in myself and others.

I don’t know. I might be spinning straw into gold. Your turn. Talk.

Any Billion Dollars Now

You know the cliche about the person who wins the lottery and then a whole lot of “old friends” come crawling out of the woodwork? Well, that’s my life y’all – for realz!

Well, okay not exactly, but I needed your attention to make a point about something. First of all, no I did not hit the lottery (not yet at least, but I am manifesting a billion dollars to start my Center for Culture Innovation AKA Alt Space Detroit). The billion dollars is coming, don’t worry. In the meantime, I have tapped into a wealth stream of creative, social and knowledge capital.

I’ve been walking around spouting about being a shaman. In truth, I can’t claim myself a shaman. A shaman is as a shaman does. The proof is in the results. If I have an impact of healing and transformation connected to the survival of my people and they affirm that in me, then, I’m a shaman. Maybe I’ve done that. I certainly have played the priestess (named “Susie”) since I was six years old, gathering the children in my community to act out rituals and ceremonies I would devise. I built shrines to the animals. I continue to draw people together into ritual and ceremonial spaces for healing.

All that is besides the point. If my work isn’t effective, then I’m not much of a shaman, regardless of whatever trials I may go through or what books I might read. I can’t keep it a secret either. I can’t be of any use in the world if I hide my gifts under a bushel. My New Testament readers know what Jesus has to say about that! My friend Milano Harden of the Genius Group quoted his mother saying “You so heavenly minded you ain’t no earthly good!” So, I put it out there that I’m a shaman and leave it up to the rest of y’all to make of it what you will.

How did I know I was opening the flood gates?! LOL. Not like I thought I was special but really y’all? Like ten people call me to let me know they had their eye on me. I’m like “Hell, no!” And not at all who I would have expected. Of course it made sense when my friend whose last name is Red Deer, came forth. But when a program friend gave me the name of a shaman she thought I might want to talk to and it turned out it was my sponsor who I’d been working with for over a year, I was, as the kids say, shook! People I’ve known for 30+ years start sending me resources. Business people, scientists, stay at home moms, teachers, artists, people who “friended” randomly on Facebook who I was like “Who’s that?” Everybody and their sister Kate is a damn shaman!

I’m hearing stories about people’s everyday miracles, near death experiences, and encounters with animals. You can read them in the comments of my recent posts. You don’t have to take my word for it. More people have reached out privately. I just had someone share a reading resource called Spirit Hacks. Another virtual stranger explained aura types and was able to give me a reading to discover mine (I’m a manifesting generator). I’ve learned about Deep Ecology and Tesla’s coil. There is no shortage of resources and ways for a shaman to plug into the community. Here I thought I was gonna get labeled a nut case (which I am, unapologetically)!

I’m not mad about it. The world needs a lot of healing and it’s gonna take a lot of people working over time to get it done. If you’re not a shaman, you can still start a practice of tuning in. The truth is, you don’t have to be a shaman to be a healer. Just be sure you start with yourself. The rest seems to come naturally.

My Recovery Crush

I have a crush on my recovery partner y’all – for realz!

I’ve been lying to myself about it for months but, I swear every time I talk to him I feel my heart turning into a bowl of chia pudding with a light touch of vanilla and agave. I know that’s whack (as whack as using the term whack in 2020, but I’m old school AF)! He’s Canadian and every time he suggests we pray out (pronouncing it OOT), I’m done! It’s bad news because I’m a love addict and one of the symptoms is assigning magical qualities to people, but shit y’all, I talk to animals, what else am I supposed to do?

I’ve never met him. Never even seen his face. We only talk on the phone, although I’ve been tempted to FaceTime. I know he’s a teacher. He’s 56. We share a compulsive fear of being noticed (yes, that’s a thing). He’s also on the autism spectrum which goes perfectly with me being an Adult Child. He’s also a bit psychic. He sounds adorable. To temper my passion, I imagine him looking like Jaba the Hut from Star Wars. It fails. I just see myself laying a big wet one on Jaba the Hut. Hopeless! I’m Carrie Fischer in an iron bikini with a chain around my neck.

When we talk there's a kind of gentle detachment that reminds me of when I was a kid playing in the sandbox. The words aren’t important. The real communication is the careful assembly of our castles in parallel play. Pointing out the rooms and who would live where. He calls me “girl” sometimes. I tell him animals I see and he looks them up and sends me their meaning via text.

Sometimes we end up on a phone meeting together and it’s such a thrill to hear him talk for a straight three minutes at a time. He always sounds hopeful. He always sounds grateful. He mentions me often, but I’m the only one who knows who he’s talking about. It feels like passing love notes in the classroom. The way we express our gratitude for each other feels like a profession of love. There’s abandon in his saying I inspire him – the way I proudly proclaim gender nonconformity. I love to build his confidence. I love challenging him to love himself fearlessly.

Of course I can never express to him – this man-child – my true feelings. That would bring an end to things. In recovery, it’s called 13th stepping to use a recovery relationship as a way to bag a date. It wouldn’t necessarily be that, but being recovery partners with a person you're romantically engaged with seems to go against the point. He has to feel safe telling me everything and I have to feel safe sharing my darkest secrets with him. Of course, my having a huge crush on him is a dark secret. Well, not dark. It’s more of a guilty pleasure.

I don’t know. Should I say something? Should I break it off? Don’t leave me hanging here, y’all! Tell me I’m not the only one crushing on faceless strangers. LOL!

Animals Intrusions

Y’all these animals are getting out of hand – for realz!

I’ve been tapping into my shamanic roots. I’ve been sober for quite some time and the inner-vision that I’ve had since I was a kid (including prophetic dreams) has come flooding back. I think it’s related to having died as an infant. Yes, I died as an infant – at least that’s the family lore. Anyway, near-death experience is the sure-fire ticket to shaman-hood. I think of myself as a hood shaman, hence the moniker Notorious Pink. Recently, I’ve had a few visits from people who by all rational measures should not be visiting me – as in, they had passed on to the other side. Of course, I don’t believe there’s an “other side.” I believe we just get out of our meat wagons (bodies) and get on with the real work of our life force as part of the unified field (web).

Each time I’ve had an encounter with one of these transitioned folks, I’ve carried the message to their loved one (‘cause apparently, I’m running errands for the dead now) the recipient person had been expecting my call and was not surprised by the news. For example, my friend David Morera came to me and was like “Call my wife!” He wasn’t asking. He was ordering. Dave has intense eyes that have a way of giving weight to his words. I picked up the phone and called Kim Morera, his wife. Kim was like “Oh, he does that all the time.” This is the world I live in now.

So, these animals. It started with visions. I’d just get a hunch about an animal and then check out what the spiritual meaning of that animal might be. Simple stuff, like a mental throw of the runes or drawing of the tarot. Why not? I’m learning to trust my brain. Every time I looked up the spiritual meaning (cause what do I know about animals – I’ve been scared of them most of my life?) every time I look it up, it somehow relates to an issue I’ve been dealing with that has had me stumped. Of course, like horoscopes, they make these things vague enough so that they can be interpreted to fit just about anything. I’m a skeptic. I’m not about bullshit.

So, I’m going for a run in the park (which is frigging empty cause everybody is home sheltered in place. I’m running along and suddenly this goose gets my attention. I’m like “Oh, hell no! Did this Goose just honk at me?” I turn to the goose. It’s just standing its ground and I know better than to mess with geese cause they can get nasty and they roll with a big crew. I’m getting an attitude, when the goose bows to me. I was all “Hell no! Did this goose just bow to me?” So, I bowed back. It bowed again. Then it froze and so did I. I decided to test this. I bowed again. It bowed back. I stopped. It stopped. This continues for about a minute (which is a long time to be in conversation with a bird). Then a fire truck went by and I was done with the whole thing.

I wake up at midnight and the pheasant that lives in the vineyard next to my house (because I’m gangster like that – I have a vineyard) is crowing – at midnight. I’m like “Hell no!” I look it up and it turns out the pheasant is telling me I need to put myself out there more. I need to strut my stuff. I need to show my colors. This was right around the time I was deciding my shaman would wear a pink suit and if you don’t believe me ask Deb Oo. So, now it’s official I’m Notorious Pink. And the birds start going nuts around my house. Robins are singing non-stop. A woodpecker is single-handedly trying to take down the oak tree in my yard, that has to be at least 100 years old (the biggest tree for blocks). Hawks are circling. Starlings are partying on my front lawn and the geese are now landing on my roof. This is now my normal.

I’m in the park on another run and listening to Sandra Ingerman on the topic of ceremonies. People familiar with my work know that I create modern ceremonies as theatrical events where the audience plays a crucial role in the narrative, usually giving testimony during the performance. So, yeah, I’m learning more about ceremony and Sandra is like “Finding a dead animal in the road and giving it a burial is a ceremony.” I’m thinking that is nasty. I don’t do dead shit. But damn if I don’t round the next corner and see a fresh hit squirrel in the road, dead. I’m like “Ugh! Why?” Of course, I had to do it. It wasn’t even generosity. Not to bury the damn squirrel was like asking to be struck by lightning or something. I’m not superstitious, but I don’t walk under ladders, and I toss spilled salt over my shoulder.

So, I’m like “Okay, if you are trying to talk to me,” not even sure who the hell “you” is, “I need a definite sign. I don’t want to have any doubts about this!” Then, I went to sleep only to wake up to a crash and the room suddenly full of light. My computer had come out of sleep and there was something in the bedroom with me. Literally in my bedroom. I look up in time to see, through the marine vinyl panels in my ceiling, a frigging raccoon tiptoeing along the attic wall. The room was full of light from the computer monitor, so it was bright enough to see its masked face and it’s not running. I’m like “Oh, hell no! Now y’all are in my house! IN MY HOUSE?” So, yeah, I believe that nature is talking to us. It’s not just me, I just decided to start listening. But, yeah, I’m kind of done with these animals.

First Humans

I’m thinking about the first humans, y’all – for realz!

200,000 years ago they evolved on the planet as a species. It would be 200,000 years before Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus would introduce taxonomy. They had evolved from our predecessor species (not the Neanderthals by the way, they were a whole other species) to survive and thrive in the world as they then knew it. They depended entirely on instincts, which included ingenuity, an ability to cooperate with others humans and navigating the prehistoric world. They didn’t have GPS devices, they didn’t have almanacs. That wisdom (ingenuity, cooperation and navigation)was encoded into our DNA as much as the ability to breath, or chew or grab things with our hands.

2.5 million years before we even became human, we’d already developed the first tools. The first humans were pretty advanced considering they didn’t have instruction manuals to pass knowledge along. They barely had language. Language wouldn’t develop for another 100,000 years. Yet they knew how to survive and knew how to cooperate well enough to protect themselves and to rear their young. They knew how to use fire and knew how to cook. They figured out what to eat and how to dress ourselves against the elements.

That’s a lot of information we have stored up in our genetic memory bank. So do ants, squirrels, bees and all the other creatures that have figured out how to operate on the planet without going to war with each other. Even water has a kind of wisdom winding its way through stone with its persistence, making its way skyward (water could fly long before human developed that skill). The earth knows how to release pressure to prevent itself from simply exploding spontaneously into fragments. Gravity is a kind of wisdom that keeps life close. Plants have encoded wisdom to know when the climate is suitable to sustain their next phase of development.

Why would it be strange for humans to be able to talk to the trees? Every bird has the sense to know which branch is best to build a nest and when to fly towards the equator for the winter and which direction to go. Again, no GPS. Squirrels know how many nuts to store up to get through the winter and their bodies know to slow their metabolism to meet the change in conditions. Dogs can sense when we are sad or angry. Every species has figured out how to survive on earth (as we once had) based on their instincts.

Humans seem to have forgotten how to do it. Spirituality seems to be the way humans seek to tap into some forgotten ability to connect to the unseen and to know the unknowable. We give it names, but it’s possible what we experience when we experience God is actually us connecting to ancient lines of communication with the earth that we have allowed to grown dormant. Perhaps it’s so easy to believe in God because on some level we all are experiencing that deep level of connection to some universal cable provider whose network is eternal, never crashes and is absolutely free. The cost associated with our inner wisdom (our God-ness) may be one of the reasons why knowledge and belief in this mode of communication is suppressed or labeled hocus pocus. You can’t make money on a technology that every one is born with.

Steamed about STEAM

Y’all, I’m sick of STEM – for realz!

Whoever came up with STEM was a genius. We swallow (likely for our own feelings of security) the idea that Science, Technology, Engineering and Math are the core curriculum our children need to be productive citizens. There is somehow a belief that STEM will lead to a better world. Otherwise, why would we all be so committed to the concept, right? I rarely hear (honestly, I’ve never heard) anyone speaking critically about STEM. Occasionally, someone will attempt to wedge creativity in among the giants to form STEAM. Unfortunately, it often comes off sounding like a lot of hot air.

The word formed by the anagram, “stem”, evokes nature – it is the main stalk, it is the origin. STEM is so pervasive that when looking for a definition for the word “stem” I only got results for the educational theory. STEM takes these core concepts and weaves them “organically” to create a stimulating learning environment. STEM was a response to dwindling interest of U.S. citizens in the sciences, which may simply have been an organic collective intuition that we perhaps have pushed science about as far as it needs to go (that’s just me, though). The U.S. government, however, decided to throw as much money into getting U.S. students to the head of the pack in the sciences.

I think it’s genius – the diabolical kind. I also think it’s some redundant mumbo-jumbo bullshit. Technology is science. According to Oxford it’s the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Guess what? That’s another way of saying “engineering” which, according to Oxford, is the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures. Math is the study of numbers, shapes and patterns. Sound familiar? It should. The word math comes from the Greek "μάθημα" (máthema), meaning "science, knowledge, or learning.”

So, clever of that person or group to develop an anagram evoking Mother Nature, intended to serve as propoganda in the doubling down on the exploitation of nature and human beings. I’m sure it was intended to appeal to the part of our brains that was yearning for a return to a more organic way of life. Why else risk sounding so monotonous? STEM should really stand for Subjugation through Terrorism for the purpose of Exploitation and Manipulation. COVID-19 is hopefully teaching us that Mother Nature will only stand for so much of what STEM really means – the continued treatment of the natural world as a commodity. Perhaps we need a little less STEM and a little more ROOT, Realization Organizing Overthrow and Transformation. Regardless, could we please wake up and recognize it takes a lot more that an understanding of science to build a better society and end this ridiculous infatuation with STEM?

Done with Spirituality

I’m done with Spirituality. For realz y’all. I’ve been struggling over the idea for years, questioning “Why is it important for me to believe in some prescribed system of understanding (which is really a system of proposals intended to be swallowed whole as fact) in order to gain enlightenment?”

I’ve come to believe the concept of spirituality is deeply flawed in that it takes our focus away from reality and directs us to seek answers from vagueness: “Somewhere out there is meaning.”

Perhaps, instead of seeking to be spiritual, we might seek to be aware. Awareness allows us to seek answers in everything around us. It begs the question “How do I fit in with all this stuff I see and hear and feel and smell?”

Awareness allows us to be curious and to observe and to listen, instead of pawning the responsibility for enlightenment off on some deity (or the story somebody else told about their observations). We were born with so many faculties, few of which we get to fully exercise.

I’d love to see a resurgence in deep awareness on a worldwide scale, followed by action in response to a newly developed understanding of the way things are, as opposed to how we’ve been told they are supposed to be.

Please reply away! I’d love to know what you all think.

Moratorium on Love

I’d like to request a moratorium on love. Love has been as co-opted as Christmas. Love is a De Beers campaign. It’s Beyonce swervin' on that wood. Love is never having to say you're sorry. It’s the Defense of Marriage Act. It’s apparently all you need, if you're a billionaire recording artist. Instead of using the word love it would be amazing if people just said what they meant. I would prefer to hear “I really like having sex with you” or “kindly, solve my problems, please” or “I really need you to just listen right now” or even “My ass is broke and I really need someone in my life who can occasionally slide me some cash.”

It would be extra awesome to hear “I believe I can accomplish more working in community with others. I believe I do better when I feel supported. Would you be willing, for the time being, to enter into a relationship of mutual support? That support would include physical and emotional intimacy; picking up slack when one of us might be incapacitated, but not beyond what is reasonable for the well-being of the other; and engaging in mutually rewarding and life-enriching activities. We could share hobbies, enjoy entertainment and travel. We would also need to agree to accept and honor each other's personal boundaries, understanding that those boundaries may shift as you and I both grow as emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual beings.”

Humility

Humility is a sense. It is as dependable as a sense of smell, any other sense really. Our senses are fallible and yet we give them preference over the granola senses, like intuition, premonition, and the highly underrated humility. Our humility, like intuition, allows us to measure ourselves against the given circumstances. It might be confused with demeaning oneself to accommodate one’s surroundings. That is not the case. There may be deference, but only in the sense of acknowledgement. Humility does not ingratiate itself to anything. Humility is what got Cordelia banished in the play King Lear. Cordelia told their dad, the king, when asked, “How much do you love me?”

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty

According to my bond; no more nor less.

Humility is truly having an understanding of one’s place in the Universe. It is knowing one’s skills, boundaries, weaknesses and temperament. It brings one’s knowledge of oneself to bear in the situation as best suited. No more; no less. It doesn’t grandstand, but states clearly “I can do that” when one can. It has the self awareness to say “I don’t know” when that holds true. Humility is the primary sensibility required to be of service—that is to others and to oneself.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.