Show up for the Black Community!

Breathing | Being | Praying exercise # 23

Companheires,

As you know, I have been making these breathing | Being | Praying exercises for the last months to center, to be in touch with our breath, to excavate sensations on my body that often go unnoticed, to enflesh feelings. To have feelings that think and thoughts that feel, as Claudio Carvalhaes has taught me. Coke Tani invited me to think about the shape and movement of body prayer. Years of work with the healing arts through the teachings of Caroline Vigery, Veronica Iglesias, Mae Sandra, @anaeloisas, Eliad Santos, Débora A Junker, Divane Agra, aunties, grandmas, and cousins have taught me to let the body breathe, be, and pray. I transferred these knowing into to this drawing practice. And here is how it typically goes:

Take a deep breath. Take a moment to center yourself. Maybe create sacred space. Maybe meditate for a few minutes. When you feel grounded, identify a phrase that crystalizes a thought or sensation that wants to come to the surface of your skin. Write that in the center of the page. Breathe into this deeply and slowly. Trust your hand and the movement it wants to make, where it wants to take you, what it wants to reveal to you, as Elaine Panagos reminded me once. Draw one line as you breathe in and one line as you breathe out. After about 20 minutes of this exercise, do a bit of noting and writing based on the insights from the drawings.

The insights that accompanied this particular drawing today developed for me as a series of questions:

What am I committing to doing today? Within the next week? Next month? Next semester? Next year? Next decade? What will be my commitment as I do my life’s work?

I will continue to call for justice and gather resources. For Breonna Taylor. I will continue to breathe; continue to care for myself and communities. I will financially support the work of Oluwatomisin Oredein (venmo @Oluwatomisin_Oredein) one of the most brilliant educators and scholars I know. The work of Tamisha Tyler (Venmo: @Tamisha_Tyler), another badass scholar. Check her #WhyIsSheSoDope Series. I will continue to redistribute income. Donate to bail funds. I will give up white power and privilege.

Continue to undo and give up the power proximity to whiteness has afforded me. I will carry Cheryl Harris’s words with me and share it widely, every day: the Americanization project is fundamentally anti-black—the LAW has afforded holders of whiteness the same privileges afforded to other types of properties, as it’s an aspect of identity and a property interest used to exercise power.

I will continue to question:

After the performance is over when the streets are empty when our throats can’t chant words anymore, our eyes can’t cry, our arms can’t hold up signs any longer, what is left? Who am I? How will we show up?
Ericka Hart (venmo: @ericka-hart)—non-binary Sex educator, Racial, Social, Gender justice disruptor—asks us with white privilege what are we going to do? Will we give up power? Authority? Visibility? Will we understand that our whiteness and commitment to it is lethal? Will we admit our complicity in anti-blackness and racism? Are we willing to lose friends, have difficult conversations, put bodies on the line, lose our jobs? Be rendered as the dissenting voices wherever we go?

Will we redistribute income? Will we pass on job opportunities? Will we demand our Black siblings are properly compensated? Will we work toward reparation? Will we continue to confront whiteness in our board of directors, the board of trustees, our institutions? Will we work toward reimagining and recreating community strategies for life beyond capitalism, for safety, emergency response, collective care that does not require police presence? Will we continue to fight for abolition? Will we advocate for Black presence? Will we reach for our pockets? Will we follow Black leadership? Will we check on Black friends? Will we protect Black lives? Will we not rest until our families friends and communities are educated about the implications of anti-blackness?

Black Friends:
You have the right to be, and to be free, and to be safe, and to be feeling, and to be creating, and to be dreaming, and to be healed, and to be resting. I will not stop fighting for these rights. I continue to offer reiki sessions. Hit me up if you need one. #healersforblacklives #whitenessislethal