Wednesday, November 4, 2020

We Must Find A Way ~ As If We Were One Single Tribe

"Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we as brothers and sisters on this Earth should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe." King T'Challa of Wakanda

Chadwick Boseman: November 29, 1976, Anderson, South Carolina ~ August 28, 2020, Los Angeles, California

Ryan Coogler, Writer & Director of Black Panther


Tapping on images will enlarge them, so you can read the words on them. 

Chadwick gave this speech at the Thalheimer Freedom Fund Awards Dinner at the NAACP July 26, 2017. This was at the NAACP 108th Annual Convention at the Baltimore Convention Center:

Chadwick Boseman speech at the NAACP Annual Convention


This is my 2020 entry for Mimi Lenox's annual Peace effort. We believe words matter. We believe the energy we put out into the universe matters and makes a difference. 












Monday, June 29, 2020

When We No Longer Know What to Do

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Copyright ©1983 by Wendell Berry, from Standing by Words.

Source: gratefulness.org

Sometimes Trusting Is All There Is


Just some thoughts. Life is an experience. Okay to think of it as a journey. I like to think of things with words that provide me a way to get closer to the truth, my truth. To have an understanding. To feel closer to life. And for sure, to feel closer to who and what I am. Some words are helpful, help clear the way to feeling closer to my life. To myself. Some words muddy up my understanding. And I have no doubt that I experience when I am in special moments, feelings that bring me closer to myself. It is simple to know these moments. I feel at one with myself. I feel whole. I feel at home in myself. I don’t need someone else to advise me that what I am experiencing is healthy for me. Is good for me. 

A wee window into my life right now is that I am involved in challenging situation. If not a person that starts at a zero or low level of anxiety as a default functioning level, anxiety would spike. And if a person who functions at an anxiety level that is right there under the surface, continually needing to be consciously balanced, then your daily functioning level gets an extra amount of anxiety that can suffocate you. Or throw your balance so far off, you can realistically get a feeling that might be overwhelming. 

Surrendering ~ 
Intellectually you can say everything will work out. Religiously you can say I will pray through it, read your holy book, trust God. You can take medication to affect your body's response to it. And then, there is the honest truth, that you still are dealing with it and you are in over your head to calm your nervous system to find an even peace. We are human. Dealing with a human body's capacity. Getting from one moment to the next is what is before you. 

And sometimes, life is easier and surrendering to the winds of life is a luxury we can opt in or opt out. And then, we can meet life on different terms and surrendering isn’t an option. It's all there is. We surrender with no other choice, but to surrender. Feel there is no net. No safety valve. Choices are for the privileged. And for those that society or your government has thrown roadblocks all your lives, it is even more overwhelming. 



Surrendering to whatever is going to happen ~
Fear is an overpowering force, but fear cannot be allowed the force to dictate choices. Fear can be a coping mechanism, that we have used for years. We have practiced using fear. Surrendering fear, as a familiar coping mechanism, is like going out in a boat in rough waters and strong winds and no sails, rudder or technology to get you by. You end up trusting because that is all there is. Surrendering is trusting. And trusting is all there is. In a scary time.

So while surrendering, your only choice is, to one moment at a time, do what you can, reach out to a confidante, reach in, to try to center yourself. 

I find balance as best I can. I hang on the best I can. I look for comfort in anything, anyone, any art form. I write. I call for my angels to comfort me. I call for what I like to think of as my spirit guides. I hope to come through. If I don't, I don't. 

I wish for you in your life:
Clarity, balance, enough sustaining comforting moments and relief. And moments of joy. Internal peace.

I light a candle for all the suffering. Especially the suffering children who have no one.


They have no choice. Would we be their refuge? That is my wish.





"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

On April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. The former president—who left office in 1909—had spent a year hunting in Central Africa before embarking on a tour of Northern Africa and Europe in 1910, attending events and giving speeches in places like Cairo, Berlin, Naples, and Oxford. He stopped in Paris on April 23, and, at 3 p.m. at the Sorbonne, before a crowd that included, according to the Edmund Morris biography Colonel Roosevelt, “ministers in court dress, army and navy officers in full uniform, nine hundred students, and an audience of two thousand ticket holders,” Roosevelt delivered a speech called “Citizenship in a Republic,” which, among some, would come to be known as “The Man in the Arena.”


                                   And please vote in 2020