lessons in Life/Nature/Earth
*for this lesson, emergent strategy by adrienne maree brown is the text, a hike through the san gabriel mountains on 06/20/2020 is the teacher, and my body is the student.
grow toward each other. both flower and thorn reach toward sun/light. toward another. an act of yearning as a means of survival.
listen deeply.
breathe.
be both rock and water. move through, over, and around. erode, carve, shape. be fluid. be firm. be malleable. both valley and mountain emerge from the same process.
to lead is to follow. follow earnestly. match gait and imprint. keep rhythm and time. you are part of symphony. this is a practice of trust and release.
remain curious. remain open.
you can always return home.
without order, organization emerges.
i desire a radical love. a love that soothes love’s past harms. that traces the scar and calls it monument. I desire a radical love. I desire a bridge to nowhere. I desire a journey through another’s memory lane, comparing notes and drafting blueprints.
love is in nature - Nature is god.
Black people have retained the ability to recognize the humanity in others. it’s embedded in how we nod, how we dap, how we mmhmm and amen. it is a choice to not see - a radical act of disregard. this can be at times, privilege, and at times, survival.
after a cannon ball into a cool spring, it is customary to leap out of the water with an unfurling of the neck. the next little mermaid is a Black woman.
silence and solitude can be a practice of deep listening.
reading and writing in public while Black is an act of resistance. an act rooted in love.
we once had arethas and ninas and marvins and harrys. they took our princes and our michaels. they took our whitneys, our aaliyahs, our tupacs, our biggies. they blinded our left eyes and here we are, still focused on trying to see the right way out.
we set sail down rivers not knowing how those hands will receive us. then we look back and wrestle with our own reflection.
breathe.
the universe speaks in numbers.
the universe speaks.
Black joy and Black fury sprout from the same root: Black love.
