Love Letters ~ Soul On Ice

Excerpts from love letters taken from the book SOUL ON ICE, by Eldridge Cleaver. This is from the part in the book where Mr. Cleaver, who is in Folsom Prison, and attorney Beverly Axelrod exchange letters. The letters began September 5, 1965.  

E.C. “I feel impelled to express myself to you extravagantly, and words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs leap in my mind.  But I beat them down, refuse to write them, because it all seems so predictable and trite...What right have you to summon my soul from its slumber?......You have tossed me a lifeline.  If you only knew how I’d been drowning, how I’d considered that I’d gone down for the third time long ago, how I kept thrashing around in the water simply because I still felt the impulse to fight back and the tug of a distant shore...”

 

B.A writes back:  “...Believe this:  I accept you.  I know you little and I know you much, but whichever way it goes, I accept you.  Your manhood comes through in a thousand ways, rare and wonderful...I have no measuring stick.  I accept you...What an awesome thing it is to feel oneself on the verge of the possibility of really knowing another person.  Can it ever happen?  I’m not sure.  I don’t know that any two people can really strip themselves that naked in front of each other.  We’re so filled with fears of rejection and pretenses that we scarcely know whether we’re being fraudulent or real ourselves...” 

E.C. answers back:  “Your letters to me are living pieces, chunks of you, and are the most important things in my life...It only happens in books – or...Do you know what shameless thought just bullied its way into my consciousness? That, I deserve you, that I deserve to know you and to communicate with you...I seek a lasting relationship, something permanent in a world of change, in which all is transitory, ephemeral, and full of pain.  We humans, we are too frail creatures to handle such titanic emotions and deep magnetic yearnings, strivings and impulses… 

…The reason two people are reluctant to really strip themselves naked in front of each other is because in doing so they make themselves vulnerable and give enormous power over themselves one to the other.  How awful, how deadly, how catastrophically they can hurt each other, wreck and ruin each other forever!...Better to maintain shallow, superficial affairs; that way the scars are not too deep, no blood is hacked from the soul.  You beautifully – O, how beautifully!! – spoke...of ‘What an awesome thing it is to feel oneself on the verge of the possibility of really knowing another person...’ and...I do not believe that a beautiful relationship has to always end in carnage.  I do not believe that we have to be fraudulent and pretentious,...I know that sometimes people fake on each other out of genuine motives to hold onto the object of their tenderest feelings.  They see themselves as so inadequate that they feel forced to wear a mask in order to continuously impress the other.  I do not want to ‘hold you’, I want you to ‘stay out' of your own need for me.  ...It takes time and deeds, and this involves trust, it involves making ourselves vulnerable to each other, to strip ourselves naked, to become sitting ducks for each other...I am vulnerable and defenseless and I make myself a duck for you.  ...And it is not a fraud, forced out of desperation...”  

My previous blog

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. 

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.

Light a Candle at Gratefulness.org

Help Children Separated From Families ~ RAICES

Help People Get Justice ~ Equal Justice Initiative

"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.”

Theodore Roosevelt ~ Blurb source 

                                   And please vote in 2020 

Peace Within ~ Without

Personally

Personally, life has thrown me into many, many months of being off course of my life of plans, forcing me to stopping practicing my singing and piano, composing, my creative projects. Even my work on the house, including sanding, painting its exterior. Everything has been pushed aside, while consumed by this issue. Much of the time has been gotten through by getting from one minute to the next. Usually, a person who spends time standing for others' human rights, I have been forced to do a lot of work about the personal issue. 

Control of the issue is not mine. I do work hard on what I can. Diligent, persistent, dedicated. Not knowing how this will affect my life in the end is part of the difficult story. There has been no cadence. 

I am aware that I am not a refugee, forced to be separated from my family, going without food and a warm, comfortable bed. I am sad for those that suffer these things. 

The only creative thing that I have done is to write. To work through my feelings. Writing in my journals. Writing is cathartic, therapeutic. But writing forced to be only for me. But writing is a gift, a refuge. A saving grace.

Click on images to enlarge. 

What have I done to get by? I give myself pockets of time to stop working on the issue. To try to leave the worry, and get some sense of release. When the situation is in a pause and allows it.

Globally

Today, Nov 4, 2019, the USA formally took the first steps to leave the Paris Climate Agreement. I believe this is one humanly made disastrous mistake. 

I leave this excerpt of John F Kennedy's Peace speech: 

So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. 

For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. President John F Kennedy Peace Speech at American University June 10, 1963 

This post is a part of the Blog for Peace annual November 4 effort. It is an online Peace Community started by Mimi Lenox. We post on our blogs, or a create a peace même, called a Peace globes and post at Instagram, Twitter. This year the theme is Change Your Climate, personal or global.

Note: can’t get my own comments to post. Using an iPad. My comment responses in order:
To Sherry a Blue Sky
Thank you! Yes indeed ~ writing is my saving grace. It is touching to be a part of this peace community ❤️

To Mimi Lenox
Thank you so much, Mimi. I am so grateful to be a member of this Peace community. The love and nurturing you do is so apparent. The community sprit of support is the foundation of building moments of peace into grander motion forward. Creativity is my reason for being, as is being a soldier for goodness, compassion and seeing things for what they are. Yes, I agree with your thoughts. Recognizing the power in our words, music, the arts is the gift of being connected to all. Engaging in the arts is the medicine for our need to connect, and is the way to heal whatever is fragmented, hurting, unclear, broken. My love to you❤️   Sandra 

We Travel Together ~ Passengers On A Spaceship

We travel together,
passengers on a little spaceship,
dependent on its vulnerable supplies of air and soil...
preserved from annihilation only by the care,
the work, and I will say, the love, we give
our fragile craft.
Adlai Stevenson

♥ What Was Given ♥

Music and lyrics by Sandra Hammel

This is a call to love the planet ♡

 ~ It’s not ours

To hurt, hurt, kill, kill

Free to not care.

Why so hard to love what was given?

We could heal what we hurt,

hurt our Mother Nature.

This is our home

That we’re to share with other life.

Life, not death, to share, with creation.

Why so hard to love what was given?

Given to all life’s generations,

not just you,

you

and I.

Will our life, be the death

of what was given

to all creation?

This is a cry to love the planet ♡

 ~ It never was ours

to take, steal, hurt, kill,

destroy beauty.

Dona nobis pacem,

Pa-a-a-a-cem.

Do-na no-bis pacem.

Do-o-o-na, do-o-o-na, do-na nobis pacem.

Why so hard to love what was given?
We're just passing through.

♫ What Was Given ♫ by Sandra Hammel

❤ Music ♫ May 5 ~ July 1, 2016 ❤

❤ Lyrics ♫ October 2, 2017 ❤

I wrote the music first. Finally worked out the words. I wanted to record myself for the purpose of Mimi Lenox's annual Peace effort for November 4.  I recorded this late November 4th and didn't like the few efforts. But, here is one of those. It is not perfect. But neither is this world.  

 

300,000 pieces of space junk

After decades of using space for communication and defense, we’ve left it pretty polluted: there are now an estimated 300,000 pieces of space junk a centimeter or bigger in Earth’s orbit. Some are deactivated, decades-old satellites, but most are shards of metal — the result of rockets that exploded after use, or satellites that collided. Experts are worried that growing levels of space junk could make some orbits difficult or impossible to use, and space agencies are requiring satellite operators to be more careful with their equipment after it's decommissioned. Source

  Be brave.

Live out loud.

Let your light shine.

Save The Child In You

It takes courage to be true to yourself.

It takes a lot to be brave enough to live in your vulnerability.

Being cowardly is easy. Until it's not.

.Any cowardly moment is a moment spent alienated from our own true being

Pretending is not brave. It is just pretending. We put on an act when we feel vulnerable because we get afraid of being rejected for the real truth that we feel. That we are. We afford rejection of pretentious behavior because it is the pretending image we put out that gets rejected.   But.    It feels like a fraud  

We are most free when we can keep our vulnerability

Save the child in you.

Save the child in you.