tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34784986928098253202024-03-13T04:52:52.678-07:00World Ancestor Concert - Voices of the Global VillageVoices of the Global VillageVoices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-18819194676429599162021-10-23T19:30:00.000-07:002021-10-23T19:30:57.362-07:00Men's Work: "Trauma Re-Illuminated by Gaslight: A Story of Sexual Violation" by Ukumbwa Sauti<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Men's work, in part, is about the acceptance and support of intimacy, sensitivity and the strength of vulnerability within masculinity, precisely because patriarchy limits men's emotional expression. This limitation directly harms men, our physical and mental health, even within the privileges patriarchy affords us. It also is part of the violent equations of men's violence against women and our LGBTQIAA2S+ family, friends and community, rape culture, misogynoir (thank you Dr. Moya Bailey)/misogyny and domestic violence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Within this context, men experience and are harmed by sexual violence, molestation as children and other types of emotional and physical violence. Men, often, project ourselves into women's digital spaces they've created to talk about their stories of sexual violence perpetrated by men, who are statistically committing the lion's share of violence against women, queer folk, children and other men. That said, we have to find our own spaces to tell our stories, to create and sustain healing and find safe and motivated contexts to grow in intimacy, sensitivity and vulnerability. These types of spaces for and men doing this work exist, need to be joined and supported and I hope we can share more about those opportunities for growth. It is with that intent that I share this personal story, a sharing of the clear and unclear stories of my own sexual trauma, to support other men to share, find support and heal in safe context with other men so that we can bring healing and balance into our families, our communities and our own hearts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span> </span>- Ukumbwa</span></p><p>~~~~~~</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">CW: sexual violation, sexual content, rape, alcohol abuse, child sexual abuse</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">[<i>Transferring this writing from my notebook to my laptop was harder than I thought it would be.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I had to listen to music kinda loud to get through it, partly listening to “Life Is A Highway” by Rascal Flats….yeah, I know, I’m a sixty year old African living in America and knows what side of the cultural bread the butter is on….but yeah, that song.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And that tick tick tick tick hi-hat cymbal pulse sorta saved me from jumping off a not so high building to get this out. It kept me sane, simple as it was, as it is, simple being the key, just a grounding pulse like the clocks they say to put in with a new puppy trying to go to sleep to remind it of it’s now distanced mother and safety.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I sat for a while bouncing up and down with that damn hi-hat like the drummer was soothing me like a five year old on a safe and loving adult’s lap. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><i></i><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>I’ve learned that there is no real rhyme or reason to what survivors need or want to get them through a day or a night or a court date or a day of work or an emotional trigger.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I felt like I wanted to call a friend and tell them that I wanted booze, not a lot of it, but that I wanted some…and I had some available…at that moment, halfway done with this…and I didn’t call any of them (yet).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And even though I could see their eyes in my mind, I know they would have wanted me to call them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know that (I can see you right now).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know that. But I didn’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>That’s a thing I need to deal with, as a man, as a person with my own particular, but possibly not unfamiliar history.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Masculinity, being conditioned by patriarchy, and whether men reach out for help or not just might be connected.</i>]</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-67tT53Vm5yQ/YXS_ZYLVwsI/AAAAAAAAAnQ/d5urFtN4FDcL9EXNNSc-Hg177-rBqGTfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Stockvault-Free-Portraits20-4-small-edit-MW-blog-WACVotGV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="320" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-67tT53Vm5yQ/YXS_ZYLVwsI/AAAAAAAAAnQ/d5urFtN4FDcL9EXNNSc-Hg177-rBqGTfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Stockvault-Free-Portraits20-4-small-edit-MW-blog-WACVotGV.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">image by Stockvault</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It had been a hard limit, something that one never wants to experience. I had said it clearly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I knew I had from the very beginning of our six months or so together.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I know I had said it because I didn’t want it to happen again.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One particular time it was done to me was about fifteen years before the direct violation that I experienced about six years ago. I had gone to visit a woman I had talked with for a while online.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We wanted to explore some sensual and sexual things together. I was comfortable with and trusted her.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>She was comfortable with and trusted me. At one point in our visit we were together on her bed, she engaging me in sensual exploration.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>She asked if she could perform fellatio on me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I said yes.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I look back at that moment, I remember saying “yes” as if for a strange, new flavor of ice cream.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I had never asked a partner for fellatio in my life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Though I grew up in a world of conditioned (roamin catholic) sexual naïveté, I knew that “every cis hetero man loves “fellatio””.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So, when she asked, I said yes, unaware that there was a reason I had never asked for it.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I look back at that moment, I realized that I dissociated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I left my body as my partner wrapped her lips around my penis and began to stimulate me and, I suppose, herself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I wasn’t sure as I think about it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>For a while then, as she fellated me, I wasn’t there.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It took me a number of years to realize that dissociation was what occurred that night.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I remember feeling empty or not feeling empty or not feeling.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I remember lying there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I don’t remember words.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was pretty sure I hadn’t said any during those moments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I knew I had plenty of words<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>before…and then after.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It seemed, as I remember, that we continued on our evening in an adequate if not beautifully sexy way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We hadn’t shared vagina around penis sex.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’ve known for a long time that sex can be many times more than that.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fifteen years later, there I was naked on the couch with my partner, who I’ll call Ellen, those six or so years ago, all abuzz with sexual energy and exploration.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This wasn’t our first sensual, sexual experience, nor was it the last, as far as I know, but for the record, because of that, we had talked about what was space for engagement and what was a hard limit, a line that we didn’t want crossed, an experience or activity for which we would not give consent to and said as much.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I told her. I know I told her.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But there we were on the couch. I remember enjoying our connection,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And I remember her moving her mouth to my penis, fellating me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I remember being silent.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I couldn’t speak.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I couldn’t form words .<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I couldn’t move. I was dissociating.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was dissociated. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I laboriously raised my hand or hands to her head in the only way I could in the moment to try to make her stop. My hand had no force that would grab her head and push it away or do anything to make her stop.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My voice wasn’t working.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My hand were only able to drop on her head in my lap. The resistance, the flight, the fight, the moment of necessary and heroic self-advocacy and sexual agency never came.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I struggle(d) with being able to call it rape, as any survivors of sexual assault often do, depending on the nature and conditions of their assault and how deep that assault dragged them into trauma.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Some survivors go years, decades without naming what was done to them as rape or even a crime that could be adjudicated or even something that should never have happened to them, something that they didn’t deserve, something that has been anti-culturally normalized, but should never be accepted as normal.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I struggled with it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Hard.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It wasn’t until after that relationship fell apart like a predictable house of cards, looking back at it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I had actually broken an agreement with Ellen, a technicality, but one I had agreed to and that, in itself, is never ok. I was never a perfect partner with her or some others and I own that and their ramifications. And I wouldn’t have known how to get out of that relationship with Ellen, who had violated me if it hadn’t been for having broken that agreement she had asked for and I consented to. I don’t say that to absolve myself from that particular or more general behavior, but to say that it was pivotal in my getting beyond what was a relationship I shouldn’t have been in.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The weight and depth of Ellen’s violation of my body and consent didn’t surface until three months or so after we had broken apart.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I heard that the mind, the heart, often waits for safer spaces to face the reality of traumatic events.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Well, it surfaced.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Hard.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For what was about three or more months after my mind and body met to calculate the hurt of what Ellen had done, I, as I now always say, “couldn’t get enough alcohol into my body” to make the pain subside, to make the reinstigated earlier life trauma connections go away.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>When I mention it to particular friends, their eyes widen a bit, as to say “tell me something I didn’t know” or “duh, you were swimming in it”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I think it was the time I started telling people that my therapist was named Jack Daniels. I’ve stopped repeating that inelegant statement for a bit now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>That said, I had even gone to a therapist through the Employee Assistance Program at a prestigious Boston University I was teaching at at the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The therapist proved inadequate and even harmful, seemingly in hindsight set aback, afraid of what may have been brutal introspective honesty and vulnerability, some details of which she was unable to hold or navigate.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And I might have been tipsy the one time I saw her.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There’s an instructive</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Cliche metaphor in here for how patriarchy blames mostly women, femme presenting and queer survivors, targets of rape and sexual assault when and after they have ingested alcohol adjacent to sexualized violence. (#MenTakeNotice)</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When Ellen violated my boundaries, assaulted me, raped me, I was in a daze for a while in the time that followed that day, unable to fully articulate what had happened to me, inside of me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know, though, that on that day, at some point, I was able to say that what she had done didn’t feel good, that it wasn’t what I wanted, wasn’t what we had ever agreed to do, was wrong.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>She got angry, visibly, verbally, telling me that my hands on her head was a signal, as is commonly reported, as my desire for her to keep going. It, of course, was not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I had told her I never wanted that done to me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And she had done it…on the couch “that her son sat on”, as people do in houses, as I would often say as I tried to acquire perspective, to understand, to make sense, healing and empowerment out of what had occurred, what she had done to me that day.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was pretty clear that even before and during that period I so desperately wanted to just turn my emotional lights out, I had experienced some sort of sexual trauma in my earlier life, that something had happened, something bad had happened.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I was not only naive in my youth, but I was agreeable, having learned well to seek and attempt to make peace with and beyond a family dynamic that was regularly enough rife with some level of conflict. I would have been a prime candidate for one of the international legions of children sexually abused, historically and presently by violent, criminal christian priests (or nuns).</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had been an altar boy, later a Knight of the Altar in my t(w)eens (a roamin catholic youth group akin to boy scouts for altar servers). I was available, sometimes or one time (and this is a photographic memory I have of this) left by my parent(s) with one of the male church congregation. I remember crying, maybe at five or six, that my father was leaving me with a man that seemed a stranger or at least undesirable to me, for whether five minutes or one hundred and thirty seven, I don’t recollect, but I remember sobbing heavily. I was available. Sometimes, I hung around after mass as an altar boy to straighten up, staying after school to pray (seriously) at the Mary statue behind the church (yeah, I was all up in that) or participating later in just about every church organization as their youth representative (ok, I just said I was all up in it).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I did get my thigh squeezed under the table by an adult woman during one of the church council meetings.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Any priest, a lot of church adults or odd and sundry others had access to me. This was in the sixty’s in a small New Jersey town, when and where people let their younger children walk to school and other places by themselves.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We know those nostalgic reminiscences may have signified, but did not guarantee safety in those travel independences. I would have followed the friendly stranger man to his windowless van to see his puppy.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That said, I still don’t know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I have no picture in my mind (save one that came through during an energy healing of a man reaching his body across my body, my groin.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It felt like it was evidence). I don’t have any corroborating priest, brothers, nuns or monks to say I acted differently after I had met with Father or Mister Anywho. I had no tape recordings or security camera footage that could help me flesh out a story that not only made pain, but sense.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I just knew later I had watched “Spotlight” three times in the theaters and about ten or more times when it got to Netflix. It was as if I needed to see it, again and again, that it, upon the next viewing, might reveal some new informational detail or pathway or my name as a defendant.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I knew I had a strong memory of a person close to my family* stroking my cheek as I seemingly woke up once in my bed (I was in my early teens), acting as if asleep like I had been letting them finish something while I acted like I wasn’t in there, in my body. I didn’t<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>have any other memory, image, any information, of anything beyond that moment, though one of the last times I talked to that person on the phone, something triggered and, soon after, I was not only drunk, but just about paralyzedly so, later finding myself almost passed out cold outside on the stone steps next to the pond that is a block away from my residence under a particularly freezing winter moon. I was not ok or safe that night.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And I knew I had behaviors and patterns that some trusted friends track with people having abuse or trauma pasts.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And they would know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Too many of them know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Too many.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But I couldn’t, can’t complete the stories or any story that tied me so horrendously from my past to that moment naked on the couch unable to speak or effectively name itself or able to angry away Ellen’s actions so I could come back into my body and willful agency or even instinct.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But there was and is a story somewhere waiting for me to find it or for it to find me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Clear or obscured, the story is there in the shadows when Ellen violated my stated boundaries, then gaslit me in the trauma and dull absent pain of that moment, that ten minutes, that hour, that day and never took responsibility for what she had done (not in that moment, not ever). I remember her angry, frustrated face looking back at me as she left the room, me trying to make impossible sense of why I felt like I was walking away from my own drowning death or watching myself walking away from my own drowning death. How long does dissociation last?</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For months into years, I shared digital and embodied social spaces with Ellen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Even seeing her name on screen at the time could plunge me back into a dull pain darkness and a quick dunk in three fast beers or a visit with my liquid therapist, Mr. Daniels.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It took a while for that edge, just seeing her name, to be softened, dulled, differently weaponized or painful. It was a long time before that moment in public space when I could pass by her, without engagement, and feel like emotional safety was still something in that moment that belonged to me.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This writing is important.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>All survivors’ stories are important.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sometimes it takes a long time to realize when you are one, a survivor, and that you’ve survived multiple painful moments, some, yes, without a clear story.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’m not sure if it’s any harder as having a full awareness of the story.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For years, my body has been telling the story, telling a story, telling multiple stories to me. My body has gone through many experiences around these traumatic moments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A Dagara ritual experience sent me into a deep connection with some important detail that put a confirming name to that person my memory recalled stroking my “sleeping” face that time so long ago. My body, wise and often unfamiliar, tells the story. My mind wants, needs detail, clarity and resolution and a clearer path to healing.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All this, that was awakened that day on the couch with Ellen, years of bodily, emotional and informational struggle came crashing quietly through me, into me, against me when she crossed that boundary, broached the limits I had previously asked her not to. I know I said it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know I was clear.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And I know she didn’t care.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know she wasn’t taking any accountability (nor would she ever). I knew I felt painfully alone in those moments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Later I would find out more (though I had known for some time before, in a much different way), about how, horrendously, I wasn’t alone.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© 2021 Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed.</p>Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-22399512472685650882019-12-15T22:00:00.001-08:002019-12-15T22:19:17.100-08:00Where Are the Voices of Men: Men's Silence is Men's Violence<br />
Men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where are our
voices?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where are we speaking out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where are we standing up?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
<br />
Women and the LGBTQ community have been observing our fatal
silence for quite some time now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
have told us gently, quietly, angrily and powerfully. When the metoo movement
occurred (thank you, Tarana Burke), we chimed in with our tepid support, our
questions, our veiled guilt, our stories of trauma, our resistance, our
fragility. When the main, deep-heart tsunami wave of metoo settled, we seemed
to go back into the shadows, hiding, not even needing to run away as we were
already used to being present, but inert in our privilege while still being
caustic in our misogyny lukewarm to freezing cold in our activism against rape
(anti-)culture, heterosexism, entitlement and patriarchal violence.<br />
<br />
<br />
Don’t get me wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
see men working at this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boston locals
Martin Henson of B Men and Jonathan Barry are organizing a workshop series in
early 2020 to engage men in our causing of harm in our communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This work will be powerful, is necessary and
must be joined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know of numerous men’s
organizations that are dealing with intimacy, power, oppression and emotional
maturity in the New England reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
work behind two Men’s Gatherings have brought them together to get to know each
other as individuals and organizations and to support the work of men toward
becoming better men. This work needs to be joined.<br />
<br />
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That said, so much more needs to be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much more needs to be learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much more needs to be heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much more needs to be said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am concerned for the dearth, the
violent silence of men’s voices speaking up on behalf of women and LGBTQ lives
and security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am concerned for the
silence of men around our needs to grow, to deepen to broaden, to become stronger
in our vulnerability and insight on our thinking, behaviors and energies.<br />
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<br />
How many African and indigenous women, other Women of Color
have to disappear, be kidnapped, be trafficked, be killed before European/white
men speak out and step up on their behalf?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How many children need to be groomed and sexually engaged online,
predated upon in real time and space by adult men before we as men speak out
and step up on their behalf?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many
women and girls and other need to be raped and assaulted before men speak out
and step up on their behalf?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many
more wives and LGBTQ partners have to be the survivors (or not) of men’s
domestic violence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many women who simply
say no to men wanted to dance or meet or have sex with them have to be
assaulted or killed….yes, killed for saying no?<br />
<br />
<br />
Reportedly, 5 million women in India recently formed a human
chain 385 miles long to protest patriarchal men’s violence in that country. Where
was the line of five million men behind them?<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
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Written by Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed. facilitator and presenter for Men's Work, an initiative of the World Ancestor Concert Team.<br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Ukumbwa Sauti, a producer of the World Ancestor Concert, program developer, workshop facilitator and educator, can be reached at mojamediaworks [at] gmail [dot] com or at his personal email, ukumbwa [at] gmail [dot] com. Mention Where Are the Voices of Men in the subject line.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Thank you.</b></span></span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-79399442951337167832019-10-09T21:31:00.005-07:002019-10-09T21:36:47.449-07:00Tonight's Men's Work Open Discussion Experience<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I went in to this evening off of a call with four great men with whom I'd co-created a men's gathering of about 35 men mostly all of whom were in or organizing men's groups. I was only able to stay on the call for ten minutes as I had an event to prep for tonight and my printer needed maintenance, I had gotten busy with some daily work and I had woken up super-fatigued and depleted. I hadn't eaten all day, riding on one cup of coffee.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The call left me warm, emotional and rushed as I felt pressed to get necessary things done for the Men's Work discussion event. My partners on the call made sure they shared their appreciations of me after I gave brief (rushed and incomplete, though heartfelt) impressions of our gathering of men the previous weekend. I was grateful for my short call attendance and broken open emotionally as I really needed personal support in that moment. Deeply grateful.</span><br />
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<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">As I left the house to catch my approaching bus, I committed to getting another cup of coffee before getting to the Democracy Center, a modern, fleeting nod to self care. Luckily the bus moved swiftly against rush hour directional flows, so I also had time to stop and get those chocolate kisses candies, which I choose for Men's Work because I think it's clever that I give kisses to men seeking to address patriarchy inside and outside of themselves (I tell them that during sessions).</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">But I actually got there early and set up the space impeccably with directional signs, warm lighting and ample varied seating options, all my materials set up including some recently scored swag from The Network La Red, an organization supporting assault survivors in the LGBTQ community and beyond. I set up this series of Open Discussions to invite people into communal engagement around issues and experiences with patriarchy, misogynoir/misogyny, rape culture and related issues. No confirmation or RSVP required.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9mw2nJVvYHA/XZ6v52zzJRI/AAAAAAAAAes/6xTLDpsQLKUFpCmJcInLh33nzRKFVFctACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/MensWork-Event-PromoBanner01sml.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="640" height="167" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9mw2nJVvYHA/XZ6v52zzJRI/AAAAAAAAAes/6xTLDpsQLKUFpCmJcInLh33nzRKFVFctACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/MensWork-Event-PromoBanner01sml.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The first attendee came in. He had emailed me previously to confirm the event and had met me at another feminist-oriented discussion series I help organize. We greeted and settled into principled conversation amidst discussion of the projected time of the event and other things. It was about 6:55pm and the discussion was scheduled for 7pm. He asked if he got the time wring. I assured him he hadn't.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">For the next hour and a half we shared experiences and critique of the system of patriarchy and the culture we lived inside of, international cultural differences, media portrayals, personal feelings, ideas about the struggle against patriarchy in general and specific, the nature, positive and negative, of social media on that struggle, how social media relates to on the ground behavior amongst a number of other key things that seemed so profound and important.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0w1hHvOmoL4/XZ6xFUbKmRI/AAAAAAAAAe8/eK3xVIR11voTL2N0eO13g9iwLtdzYmHuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/GMN-men-ShareFromHeart-Stockvault-Free-UrbanImages35-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0w1hHvOmoL4/XZ6xFUbKmRI/AAAAAAAAAe8/eK3xVIR11voTL2N0eO13g9iwLtdzYmHuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/GMN-men-ShareFromHeart-Stockvault-Free-UrbanImages35-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="760" height="243" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0w1hHvOmoL4/XZ6xFUbKmRI/AAAAAAAAAe8/eK3xVIR11voTL2N0eO13g9iwLtdzYmHuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/GMN-men-ShareFromHeart-Stockvault-Free-UrbanImages35-9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">It was exactly the kind of sharing and discussion I intend into these spaces. We shared how important it was to have people talk and relate and learn in person as the space where real advancements occur. He shared his cynicism along with my pragmatic idealism with regard to the effectiveness of online engagement. And the dynamics of in-person sharing from our minds and hearts were clear, powerfully, to both of us. I shared my desire that that discussion we created could have been shared with ten or fifteen other people, the diverse gathering of liberators I fantasize about all so often for this world.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I was so grateful, am so grateful for his generosity, humanity, intelligence, conviction and time spent, shared with me for all the above reasons, what feel like very good reasons. I project and intend for the spaces I create to be full of authentic, caring, justice and compassion-motivated humanity, many of these spaces populated by men willing to go there, too, regardless of numbers, though I also intend greater numbers within these spaces.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">There are issues of language, communication, timing, energy that I seek to become wiser, more "skillful" in. I seek to be better in my invitations to people who are like me and who aren't, in whatever way that expresses itself. I seek to guide people to the power of communal sharing and commitment to change to a world healed by loving, principled intent and hard work.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">And I wish many others to be a part of conversations like I was gifted with tonight.</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-54490675607116904732018-11-21T04:38:00.004-08:002019-12-15T22:17:28.776-08:00Men's Work: Up from Digital Silence<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TzUnnhQ2_po/W_VFILRUyeI/AAAAAAAAAao/39vwY1-Nwa40NdLbZujXOJNFtziWs02GwCLcBGAs/s1600/Pile-3D-Popular-Social-Media-Logos.jpg" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; clear: right; color: #0066cc; float: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></a>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_eCPA2d2FE/W_VJRGSJKJI/AAAAAAAAAa4/OtDhMa5K9H4WZ8B8mRFmRk4htfaxc44SgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Stockvault-Free-Portraits20-4-aftermetoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="585" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_eCPA2d2FE/W_VJRGSJKJI/AAAAAAAAAa4/OtDhMa5K9H4WZ8B8mRFmRk4htfaxc44SgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Stockvault-Free-Portraits20-4-aftermetoo.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"></span><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Silence
is violence. Saying nothing, doing nothing, staying neutral in the face and as
the face of patriarchy, as men only helps patriarchy and men's violence against
women and the LGBTQ community stay sustained and empowered. This systemic,
widespread oppression must be interrupted, challenged and dismantled if we
truly care for women and humanity at large. We men have to begin to expand our
awareness, speak up, change our behaviors and do better to be better men. <br />
<br />
These social media ideas are simple, normal and relatively easy, but they are
simple, easy things that men seem very reluctant or afraid to do that would
signal progressive support, share good information and perspectives and help
create a more aware and just society through more activated, aware and
supportive men.</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TzUnnhQ2_po/W_VFILRUyeI/AAAAAAAAAas/s4w0CJvzOTQRUaL4sQ1PXxowC4ZHPmC7QCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Pile-3D-Popular-Social-Media-Logos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TzUnnhQ2_po/W_VFILRUyeI/AAAAAAAAAas/s4w0CJvzOTQRUaL4sQ1PXxowC4ZHPmC7QCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Pile-3D-Popular-Social-Media-Logos.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Follow 7 Ways Up from Digital Silence</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Here are seven ways men can begin or continue the process of learning more about, engaging and challenging men's sexist, permissive and violent behavior and dismantling patriarchal systems:<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />1) <u>Click "like", "love" or otherwise support posts, tweets, blog entries, articles that are supportive of women, the LGBTQ community and Gender Non-Conforming (GNC) folk</u>. Be careful of posts or comments by men that mention women, but center or focus upon men's feelings or narrow interests. Sometimes what at first "feels right" and comfortable, may not be right. Challenging patriarchy, misogynoir/misogyny, rape culture and men's violence against women should often leave men uncomfortable as we embrace new, progressive and challenging ideas and behaviors in a changing world.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />2) <u>Share/retweet posts, articles that are being supported or shared by women, LGBTQ people or men who are generally and demonstrably affirmed by women and queer folk to be reliable advocates or allies</u>. This is often referred to as amplifying women's and other marginalized voices. It always helps to pull out a short or salient quote to add to the repost to interest others. If you feel comfortable enough, put in a sentence or two in your own words why you think other men should read and respond to the post. Personalizing a post with your perspective can help other men to feel more comfortable with approaching challenging information. After all, we are here also to help other men be better men. This is not just about interpersonal behaviors and relationships, but also social, communal and political patterns of behavior.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />3) <u>Tag a friend or friends that you know would benefit from reading the post or seeing the video</u>. Let him/them know you thought he'd/they'd be interested and invite them to talk about it in a direct or private message or chat space or there on the post if possible. Even sharing a few words or a feeling or resonant idea from the post can go a long way to building better skills around supporting women and the healing of men. The more each of us shares online, the more of us beyond ourselves will learn and grow and possibly become part of the solution.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />4) <u>When in doubt, pause, listen, read/view again and come back to the post to be sure of what you are attempting to support</u>. Know that you will make mistakes in any process of learning. And know that an introspective and compassionately curious delay in responding, engaging, commenting or reposting is better than a disinterested, privileged, permissive and disrespectful momentum of silence.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />5) <u>After looking at posts, articles or videos that mention popular, reliable or helpful books, authors, writers or documentaries, simply post a link to that book's, author's or documentary's official website</u>. Adding an invitation to men in your circle to read, view, support or purchase the resource, again, helps other men stay open to new information that challenges male oppression of women and the LGBTQIA community. Keep it simple and consider letting people know your feelings and why it's important that they engage what you are sharing with them.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />6) <u>Use hashtags (e.g., #NowIsTheTime) to increase the reach of good, informative posts, articles and videos and provide other people pathways to new, more diverse information and resources</u>. Find relevant, trending hashtags and/or the ones used on the original post. The World Ancestor Concert Team uses a few newer hashtags in its Men's Work initiative. The Team urges you to use <b><i>#MensWork</i></b> on posts that inform on general history and current realities of patriarchy, misogynoir/misogyny, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia and transphobia and help clarify information that assists men in changing negative and oppressive behaviors and to challenge systemic oppression of women and the LGBTQIA community. Use <b><i>#MenTakeNotice</i></b> to bring focus or simple, basic attention to urgent social action, warnings and updates from marginalized populations with awareness-raising posts, videos or other media. Posts, resources and educational opportunities from rape crisis and domestic violence support centers are appropriate for this hashtag. <i><b>#MenHealingMen</b></i> is used to tag posts that highlight how men are positively engaging each other personally and socially, programmatically and/or professionally in informal or formal ways. Workshops like those offered by moja mediaworks, activists and educators like Tony Porter or Jackson Katz or other men's, local, regional or national organizations are good resources to tag. Be free to use these and other helpful hashtags, especially more than one relevant tags to help others find good information more easily. We urge people to use #MensWork as a great general hashtag for any of these kinds of posts. Keep in mind the recent, yet historic power of the metoo hashtag/movement created by Tarana Burke.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />7) <u>Identify and study new vocabulary, terms and Ideas that come up in your social media network from women, LGBTQ folk and trusted, reliable media sources</u>. Start a note in a note keeping app or a document on your cellphone or tablet and create a learning list. Commit to learning new vocabulary or a term every 1-3 days. You can also refer to the vocabulary list provided by moja mediaworks at the following URL, bottom of the page: <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/resources-antisexism-dismantlepatriarchy" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/resources-antisexism-dismantlepatriarchy</a></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Keep in mind and heart that though these steps may be rudimentary or simple, they can be important directly and in a larger process of learning, supporting women and other populations targeted by men's violence, rape culture, harassment, sexualized assault and patriarchy in general. Women's and other peoples lives are in real danger every day because of sexism, heterosexism, transphobia and other forms of oppression. Being observant, humble, patient and listening to women's, LGBTQ and other marginalized voices and believing them, trusting them will help us understand what's really at stake on the other side of male privilege, oppression and violence.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Many people oppressed by men's words, coercion, behavior and male-controlled organizations, corporations and social systems have expressed serious and principled concerns, frustrations and righteous anger at men's silence, lack of engagement and support, our seeming unwillingness to learn, grow and support positive social change and justice. The more we look and listen, the easier it is to understand how they come to these conclusions about us. Changing even our online behaviors, especially in this digital age, may yet be an important or necessary catalyst and motivator for changing our real, embodied and on-going behaviors and challenging systems and structures of oppression (social, educational, financial/economic, medical, religious, legal/judicial, governmental, ...). </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">For more information about <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/menswork" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Men's Work</a>, visit <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/menswork" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/menswork</a>.<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" />See also our <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/workshops" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Workshops</a> and <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/resources-antisexism-dismantlepatriarchy" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Workshop Resources</a> page links. Be free also to join, learn and connect in our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1141529595977197/learning_content/" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Men's Work Facebook group</a> linked to our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/worldancestorconcert/" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">World Ancestor Concert Facebook page</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Ukumbwa Sauti, a producer of the World Ancestor Concert, program developer, workshop facilitator and educator, can be reached at mojamediaworks [at] gmail [dot] com or at his personal email, ukumbwa [at] gmail [dot] com. Mention Men's Work or Up From Digital Silence in the subject line.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Thank you.</b></span></span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-20843664347972658582018-06-12T16:33:00.000-07:002018-07-11T02:30:40.500-07:00Dismantling Racism for Non-PoC/Non-Indigenous People<div>
Reposted from <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/dismantling-racism-non-poc">http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/dismantling-racism-non-poc</a> </div>
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<li><u>Know that feeling helpless as a person of privilege is a privilege</u>. Sharing that with People of Color and indigenous people does nothing to help the situation and is extremely frustrating to PoC/indigenous people who have no choice but to deal with racism and colonialism all day, every day no matter how they feel about it. How you feel about racism and colonialism is not more important or more primary than the lived experiences of people who are targeted constantly by racism and colonialism.</li>
<li><u>Study readily accepted definitions</u> of racism and colonialism as used by People of Color and indigenous people</li>
<li><u>Know the difference between racism and prejudice</u>. Don't confuse the two.</li>
<li><u>Understand what European/white supremacy and privilege is</u>, how it affects you and how your private and public behaviors reflect those pathologies</li>
<li><u>Don't center your own stories and feelings in conversations</u> about racism and intersectional oppressions. Learn to be quiet and make space for marginalized voices. If you cannot do that, you are adding insult and often more injury to already present and historical injury.</li>
<li><u>Call other European/white people out/in when you hear them speaking in racist/colonial ways</u>. Educate those closest to you. Share helpful posts and information/writing in your social media networks by People of Color and indigenous people.</li>
<li><u>Don't participate in "tone policing"</u>, telling People of Color and indigenous people how they should feel or to stop being angry when you are in conversation or discussion, in their digital or real life spaces. How people share about their experiences of you or the systems of racism and colonialism is important information for you, no matter how you are feeling in the moment about it. Learn from their human experience and be humble in conversation and action.</li>
<li><u>Acknowledge and deal with your discomfort around talking openly about racism, white privilege and oppression</u>. Do your inner and external community work. It isn't about you, but you are responsible for dismantling racism and oppressive social and political systems and structures because humanity and justice are important to you.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<li><u>Know that you don't have all the answers</u> and the people who are suffering from being targeted by racism and colonialism are the experts on how to dismantle it and what needs to be done.</li>
<li><u>Send financial and in-kind donation support to organizations and people in the indigenous and People of Color communities and spaces</u>. It is important to repurpose the funds and access that you have reaped due to historical privilege and oppression of marginalized communities and populations. Reparations is also an expression of this level of justice work.</li>
<li><u>Support protest and direct action by financial, material and technical support if needed</u>. <u>Show up if you are welcome and be respectful and informed in your presence</u>. Embodied protest and resistance, whether they lead to arrests or not, are serious and often put People of Color and indigenous peoples at physical, social and economic risk. Be prepared to stand behind or side by side (or in front if asked) with indigenous peoples and People of Color in these spaces. Make sure that your actions and messaging is in keeping with the leadership of the action and those communities. Do not go to other communities' protests and actions for the selfie opportunities. If that is your motivation, you are better off staying home and continuing to study what is daily and historically at stake for indigenous peoples and People of Color.</li>
<li><u>Constantly learn about the systemic nature of racism, intersectional oppression and colonialism</u>. Become clearly informed on how and where racism and oppression show up in the social, economic and political structures of your local, state and federal governments and around the world. Know that the dominant (anti-)culture resists learning about how to identify these systems and patterns and there are people who will directly and incorrectly criticize you for seeking clarity. </li>
<li><u>Do an informal and/or formal cultural assessment of your place of work/school/ organization </u>to define<ol>
<li>if there is a diversity policy/statement/program</li>
<li>if the diversity policy is being funded, supported</li>
<li>if the diversity policy is being implemented</li>
<li>what the goals are for this program, are they adequate and are they being substantively influenced, controlled by indigenous people or People of Color</li>
<li>who or what department is responsible for seeing the diversity program implemented</li>
<li>if People of Color, indigenous people, women are being paid equally for equal levels and responsibilities of work</li>
<li>what the patterns of work are across the organization. Are more PoC, indigenous people and women contract, part-time, temporary as opposed to salaried or tenured? Are there more in custodial services than in management? What are the demographics of the board or administration? Are marginalized peoples in token or window-dressing roles?</li>
<li>if People of Color, indigenous people, women are holding similar levels of control and responsibility as their European/white counterparts</li>
<li>what the hiring and firing practices/history has been around marginalized populations</li>
<li>what the effects of racism within the organization has been within the organization and how it is best to move forward to hold the organization accountable for systemic change/transformation. How will you share this information with the PoC there? Have they done this work already? When and how do the PoC need to move forward to hold the organization to their policies or to better, yet unwritten policies/demands? What strategies and tactics will be used for change? Will you need support of unions/departments/particular people or the external community? Be honest and open about whether you are willing to jeopardize your job/position in the interest of justice and anti-oppression. Keep in mind that many more PoC, indigenous people and women have paid a higher price for longer than you may be considering.</li>
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<li><u>Raise the issues of race and oppression at work/school/social organizations</u>. Open the conversations and create allies and learning processes in the interest of making substantive change in your organization. Get answers that help chart paths of change and transformation. Persist in that work. It is part of the justice process.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<li><u>Join or organize groups of your peers and others to meet regularly to educate yourselves and others and mobilize people for action</u>s to support Communities of Color and indigenous people.</li>
<li><u>Bring groups of informed and motivated activists to demand answers and accountability at police stations, courthouses, city halls/statehouses, housing authorities, etc,...</u> when government officials/police are complicit and guilty of racist and oppressive activity or messaging/policy. Seek out and confirm leadership of indigenous people and People of Color when you begin organizing or mobilizing actions. Make sure those organizers/speakers are informed early in the process. Be willing to accept their leadership and direction if they so choose to give it.</li>
<li><u>Bring groups of informed and motivated activists to demand answers and accountability at insurance companies, banks, businesses, transportation companies, retail outlets, restaurants, etc,…</u> when employees, staff and/or management are complicit and guilty of racist and oppressive activity or messaging. Seek out and confirm leadership of indigenous people and People of Color when you begin organizing or mobilizing actions. Make sure those organizers/speakers are informed early in the process. Be willing to accept their leadership and direction if they so choose to give it.</li>
<li><u>Occupy places of racist activity and resist the presence of racist and oppressive organizations or groups of people everywhere</u>, whether they are a school, group of neighbors, suit-wearing business people or members of a country club. <u>Demand change with the presence of your body</u>.</li>
<li><u>Call your government/civil servants to support anti-racist and anti-oppression legislation and policy</u>. <u>Hold them accountable</u> with your emails, letters petitions, phone calls, texts and physical presence when they step out of line with what PoC and indigenous peoples need. Know that due to European/white/class privilege, your direct interests may not be reflected in that work. Those sacrifices are often necessary to create greater justice for everyone. If you are not ready to make sacrifices, you should possibly continue to educate yourself on the nature of racism and oppression and what it means in the daily and historical lives of oppressed populations.</li>
<li><u>Hold local and national TV/radio/media stations and outlets accountable when they disseminate racist and oppressive or appropriative media</u>. Agitate and protest for stories and narratives, images of PoC/indigenous peoples made by PoC/indigenous people. This could mean resisting colonial narratives in westerns, "classic" films, boycotting theaters that show racist movies, organizing call-in campaigns against racist DJs/radio personalities, un-joining journalism or other websites that hire racist writers.</li>
<li><u>Boycott all racist companies and corporations, even when it is not convenient for you</u>. There is a cost to creating cultures of justice. Avoiding your inconvenience is not worth the on-going oppression of even one person. Clearly, too many people are affected by the continuity of many corporations and businesses and they must be put in check and change their practices as soon as possible. Support and buy from PoC/indigenous owned/controlled companies and businesses.</li>
<li><u>Study and learn about environmental racism</u>. Dismantle the privileges that you are afforded by certain public "services" like incinerators, landfills or waste dumps being located in or near Communities of Color/indigenous people. Understand that environmental groups and non-profits can be just as racist as any profit-hungry corporation. How much you like a particular organization may have nothing or everything to do with how it supports and facilitates structures and practice of racism and oppression.</li>
<li><u>Consider the inevitability sweeping future changes in national and regional governance, economics and land and resource allocation when you manifest the correct political and cultural changes</u> into anti-racism and decolonization. be willing to step up powerfully into that process of positive change.</li>
<li><u>Learn empathy and compassion beyond your own narrow, limited and particular needs</u> and those of privileged populations that benefit from the oppression of others.</li>
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♦ <em>We do not suggest that these are the only things or all the best things to be done in the interest of dismantling racism and colonialism, but that this is our offering to the work already going on all over the world, our offering to motivate and activate new workers for justice across the Global Village and create support for those who have made such serious and effective steps in this interest to date. </em><br />
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<em><u>We thank all those that came before us</u> that showed us the way to reawaken us to what it means to live in a world of justice, balance, validation and peace.</em><br />
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<strong>#Ancestors #womenwaterpeace #nowisthetime #thetimeisnow</strong></div>
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© 2017 Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed., moja mediaworks llc</div>
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Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-45573250868931937252018-02-08T03:28:00.000-08:002018-02-08T03:51:41.994-08:00"Black Panther" - Because Just Short of Vibranium, Africa Just About Had All The Rest of That CoveredLong-awaited Marvel Studios film, "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/" target="_blank">Black Panther</a>", comes out of the gate (equine metaphor, spiritual portal or otherwise) on February 16th in the USAmerica. In a world where Africa and Africans have fought colonialism, racism, misogynoir, economic exploitation and cultural genocide, relevant, supportive and inspirational cultural media representation can take on mythic dynamics. Especially when something like "Black Panther" comes along in an age of powerful cinematic, visual, sound and effects ascendancy, the possibilities for even small, but profound shifts and awakenings become very, very real. <br />
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Though the storyline is fictitious, its scaffolding follows many historical and political benchmarks of the African experience. The World Ancestor Concert Team wanted to present a few resources to help people ground themselves in that historical context, to look more deeply at the Ancestral gifts that are rich and ubiquitous in Africa, far beyond the abyss of predominant negativity and devastation that the mainstream and colonial media would have you, African or not, believe and respond to. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzNDE0ODY3OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTAyNTQ5MjI@._V1_SX1500_CR0,0,1500,999_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Black Panther, womenwaterpeace, African women, womanism" border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzNDE0ODY3OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTAyNTQ5MjI@._V1_SX1500_CR0,0,1500,999_AL_.jpg" title="3 African women star actors from "Black Panther"" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">image from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/mediaviewer/rm567290880" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">imdb.com</a></td></tr>
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The first resource, an article by <a href="https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/black-panther-delivers-the-biggest-blackest-superhero-1822600683" target="_blank">The Root</a>, is an extremely helpful and timely look at the connection of what looks like it will be an amazing film to the realities of African history. We at WAC and moja mediaworks invite you to look more deeply into the historical beauty and genius that is Africa, along with its struggles. We look forward to conversations with you about this film and Africa, the gifts of the Ancestors and more.<br />
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<li><a href="https://www.theroot.com/black-panther-an-allegory-of-the-world-wanting-blackne-1822610905">Black Panther: An Allegory of the World Wanting Blackness but Not Black People</a>, Carolyn Hinds, The Root <blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But like the Portuguese, Ross and Klaue will learn that black people—particularly black women—will fight tooth and nail to protect what’s theirs. In Wakanda, there is a resisting force of warriors known as the Dora Milaje, and like <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/gah/queen-nzinga-1583-1663">Queen Nzinga of Ndongo</a> (now known as Angola) and the legendary female <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/">Dahomean army</a>, the Dora Milaje, led by their general, Okoye, and aided by Shuri’s technology, will do what they must to protect their king and kingdom against all invaders because they have no other choice."</blockquote>
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<li>"<b>Introduction to African Civilizations</b>", John G. Jackson</li>
<li>"<b>The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality</b>" - Cheikh Anta Diop</li>
<li>"<b>Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora</b>" - Marimba Ani</li>
<li>"<b>Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.</b>", Chancellor Williams</li>
<li>"<b>How Europe Underdeveloped Africa</b>" - Walter Rodney<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Every now and then in history a scholarly enterprise emerges that breaks new ground and provokes an impact that exceeds the confines of narrow academia. Walter Rodney’s seminal work in combination with his other projects performed precisely this function for Africa and beyond. Its publication and reception exemplified the strains and fissures in the scholarship focused on the continent at the time. It would go on to become one of the most influential books in the ‘Third World’.<br />
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When it emerged in 1972 the book was hailed in Dar-es-Salaam as ‘probably the greatest book event in Africa since Frantz Fanon’. Wole Soyinka, the African novelist went further. He suggested that Rodney was one of the first ‘solidly ideologically situated intellectuals ever to look colonialism and exploitation in the eye and where necessary, spit in it’." -<a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/forty-years-%E2%80%98how-europe-underdeveloped-africa%E2%80%99" target="_blank"> </a><b><i><u><a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/forty-years-%E2%80%98how-europe-underdeveloped-africa%E2%80%99" target="_blank">Forty Years of 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' - Pambazuka News, 2012, Nigel Westmaas</a></u></i></b></blockquote>
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Dr. John Henrik Clarke - <a href="https://youtu.be/jJ411sgwkvU" target="_blank">Africa: Empires of Ghana & Mali</a> - YouTube</div>
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Please take some time to look into any or all of the above resources on African history and culture. Any and all of these will enrich your experience of "Black Panther" whether you get to them before you see it or soon (!) after. We look forward to hearing from you around these important issues of culture, tradition and, of course, the Ancestors.<br />
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<b>Enjoy the film!</b><b></b><br />
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#culture #tradition #Africa #Ancestors #worldancestorconcert #womenwaterpeace<br />
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Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-47837088610047750662017-10-03T13:30:00.000-07:002019-08-06T08:15:28.020-07:00"Even If...: Las Vegas to Lost Humanity" - Ukumbwa Sauti, WAC TeamEven if a rich, privileged European man hadn't walked unscathed into a posh Las Vegas hotel overlooking a music festival with 23 heavy firearms, shot and killed 59 people and injured over 500 people from a 32nd floor room window by premeditated, calculated violent ideation and action, the discussion and engagement of the fatal, emotional, psychic, anti-spiritual, anti-earth, anti-woman, anti-life, physical and political violence inherent in the modern and historical conception of masculinity and manhood, particularly also that in European masculinity and manhood, is a dynamic in immediate and emergent need of attention, interrogation and resolution.<br>
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Even without the direct and deleterious actions of Stephen Paddock or Dylan Roofe or Timothy McVeigh or Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson or Colonel Chivington or General Custer or Stephen Collins or Jared Fogle or Brock Turner or Bill O'Reilly or Cardinal Bernard Law or Jayson Newlun or Pope Benedict XVI or Pope Alexander VI or Fr. John Geoghan or Pope Nicholas V or King Alfonso V or Criminal Columbus or Fr. Junipero Serra or Bishop Thomas O'Brien or Rev. F. David Broussard or Most Rev. Harry Flynn or Archbishop John Nienstedt or Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piché or Fr. Andrew White or US Army Officer Richard Henry Pratt or Augusto Pinochet or King Leopold or Cecil Rhodes or Daniel Francois Malan or F.W. DeKlerk or P.W. Botha or Ronald Reagan or Lyndon B. Johnson or Charles Manson or Cardinal Bernard Law or the Steubenville rapists or the gangs of European men who terrorized Africans in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Rosewood or Charlottesville or who terrorized and murdered and raped Africans and indigenous women, people in every southern, northern, western or northern State of the United States of America or stolen country of Africa, South America, Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the Spanish Inquisitors or the perpetrators of the European Burning Times, we would probably still need to address, discuss, engage and resolve the violent thread of masculinity that has become the hallmark of modern manhood and how it is expressed, embodied, enculturated and projected into our present and future.<br>
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Even without the constant rehashing, reforming, revalidating, retrenching of the faux-sacred and anti-culturally protected status of violence and misogyny and heterosexism and toxic masculinity inherent and lauded in video games and video gamers, in Return of Kings and Men's Rights Activist and pornographic and white supremacist websites, in christian biblical references, in the sermons from pulpits the world over, the sideshow exhortations of predatory christian televangelists, in 50 Shades of Grey, in World Wrestling Entertainment, in "That 70's Show", in every Elvis Presley and Frankie Avalon movie, in "The Godfather" series and just about every mob, gang, Goodfellas and Scarface film ever made, in every Pulp Fiction twisted teenage European man white-boy director got-no-chains-on-me-cuz-I'm-more-street-than-KRS-One-in-Harlem Django Unchained white privilege, total appropriation fantasy, in just about every single Hollywood and elsewhere western movie, tv show or cartoon that disrespected and distorted indigenous life and culture, erased Africanity and constantly diminished and degraded womanhood, men would be duty bound to interrogate our own presence in the world, dismantling male privilege in our families, in our jobs, our colonial and anti-colonial political parties, in our colonial organizations and structures, in our liberation movements, our cathedrals, mosques, synagogues, temples and urban and suburban and rural street corner and store-front Stockholm-syndrome-gospel churches, to consider and compassionately deal with how far and globally wide manspreading actually goes, to relearn the importance of the divine feminine inside all bodies and the earth Herself and if we are going to kill anything, we should cease being the "tyranny of evil men" and be killing patriarchy.<br>
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Even and especially now, men have to find out, inquire and learn about what men are about. this is and will be no small personal, local, regional, national and/or global task. It is the one we must move forward into. Our lives and the quality of our lives and loves depend on it.<br>
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Postscript: If you are a man that is pretty completely ensconced in your toxic masculinity and male privilege, you will take this offering as a threat to you. That is not completely true. It is an attack, or better, a reconnaissance on the twisted part of us men (repeat - part of us) that festers in spite of all our claims of being good men. Little of what I have written above is debatable, but it is definitely up for discussion and it is my distinct hope that men can stop being afraid...of becoming and being better men.Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-40296974890348743402017-09-20T20:21:00.002-07:002017-09-20T20:27:19.016-07:00"Special" - Sherrilene Collymore"What makes Me feel special?<br />
I'm only a little kid<br />
Who am I to walk this life<br />
Feeling good about what I did?"<br />
There's all these people around<br />
Clearly bigger, prominent, authoritarian,<br />
They're confident, seeming to know their place,<br />
I'm tiny... only have this Vision!<br />
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A blur in the background,<br />
Best not making noise,<br />
Really to keep the home comfy,<br />
Not required to have a voice.<br />
Those traits that come to you so natural,<br />
Well, that's what you're here for!!<br />
Why would you think You special?<br />
What's there for one to adore?<br />
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Well, my dear love although unseen,<br />
You're seen by who you must.<br />
Your character and determination<br />
Are not without remark by some you can trust!<br />
Some, who also have experienced,<br />
Have lived in the shadow, in dark.<br />
Some who despite doing the right thing<br />
Might as well have been out in the park.<br />
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Hey, God provides all the human needs<br />
And is rarely thought of specially.<br />
What really is the human mind thinking?<br />
You slip through the cracks naturally.<br />
But indeed there are always others.<br />
Eyes open, scanners awake!<br />
Seeking the good, the helpful, the honest,<br />
In the mind that the good road we'll take.<br />
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Don't doubt that you're indeed special,<br />
That your special self isn't well made.<br />
Keep close the belief there are no mistakes.<br />
No, with Creation, no big game played.<br />
You're special because a very conscious<br />
Creation ordered for You!<br />
Keep that clear vision in Motion<br />
Show our world who's special too!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Ukumbwa Sauti, flora c/o SB...oh, and the Creator </td></tr>
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Sherrilene Collymore is a Facilitator in Business; the owner/operator of HQ2 - the Human Quality Headquarters. She is multilingual and well traveled to Scandinavia, Europe, Cuba, Kenya and the Caribbean region. Sherrilene loves dancing, writing, children, research and hiking.<br />
She aspires to contribute to the refinement of education and enterprise (business) in the region and the diaspora. Sherrilene was trained in Barbados, France, Holland, Spain and Sweden in Management, International Business, research, languages and the sciences generally.<br />
She has an interest in sustainable development and Education, Leadership and Excellence.Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-9409252701635152182017-09-20T20:07:00.003-07:002017-09-20T20:07:38.981-07:00"In Peace" - Sherrilene CollymoreIn Peace we feel the silence that is Our Nurturer<br />In Peace we feel the healing that is Our Love<br />In Peace we carry the Way that is Our Future and ends Our Past<br />In Peace we hold the Will of a Loving World<br /><br />As we move to Peace and embrace its Richness and Fullness<br />We embrace all that is possible in our Human Race<br />A Race composed of looking upon One Another<br />As Self, as Hope, as Connection to what One would Be<br /><br /><div>
May Peace be Our Only Wish, in fulfillment of Eternal Love</div>
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~~~~~~<br /><br /> Sherrilene Collymore is a Facilitator in Business; the owner/operator of HQ2 - the Human Quality Headquarters. She is multilingual and well traveled to Scandinavia, Europe, Cuba, Kenya and the Caribbean region. Sherrilene loves dancing, writing, children, research and hiking.<br /> She aspires to contribute to the refinement of education and enterprise (business) in the region and the diaspora. Sherrilene was trained in Barbados, France, Holland, Spain and Sweden in Management, International Business, research, languages and the sciences generally.<br /> She has an interest in sustainable development and Education, Leadership and Excellence. </div>
Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-7955181384098404542017-09-07T20:07:00.003-07:002017-09-20T19:59:05.774-07:00"Where Beauty Rests..." - Sherrilene CollymoreWhere Beauty rests, life lives, Beauty homed in the harbour of Love that gives.<br />
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Evidence of Nature's Grace, Purity has power to flush away hardship’s dregs from Beauty's face.<br />
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Witness it bursting, from children delightfully untamed, Purity unplanned, unchecked, unnamed.<br />
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In the wayward thought of the social renegade, daring to breach the expectancy of the game played.<br />
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Advancing into the unknown, the All channeling, inspired in hope, love and awe; with solutions returning.<br />
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Where Beauty is homed and nurtured is Pure. Accept the Love gifted of Grace, it’s the Cure.<br />
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Sherrilene Collymore is a Facilitator in Business; the owner/operator of HQ2 - the Human Quality Headquarters. She is multilingual and well traveled to Scandinavia, Europe, Cuba, Kenya and the Caribbean region. Sherrilene loves dancing, writing, children, research and hiking.<br />
She aspires to contribute to the refinement of education and enterprise (business) in the region and the diaspora. Sherrilene was trained in Barbados, France, Holland, Spain and Sweden in Management, International Business, research, languages and the sciences generally.<br />
She has an interest in sustainable development and Education, Leadership and Excellence.Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-40118526617716584542017-08-16T19:25:00.002-07:002017-08-17T19:50:00.683-07:00In the River of Sound: Nature, Music and Children - Julia Priest"<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">This drive to connect with nature, especially animals, appears to be universal in families around the world, from city to suburb to desert to seashore."</span><br />
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Our modern world, with all its bells and whistles, with all its mercenary calls to "connection" and its distractionary (I made up that word) disconnections, often lays like a confusing template over our Ancestral integration with the world wide web of life. Forever....animals have lived and flourished in our mythologies, our cosmologies, our stories and our songs. They have guided, informed, instructed, fed and sustained us on many levels. Julia Priest brings us a watery reflection of the deep wisdom of our young ones as they enter the physical world seemingly so aware of our relationship with the animal world, with a world inspired by sound, movement and meaning. Our children are a lesson in wisdom for us and we can benefit from their learning as we support and guide them. - Ukumbwa Sauti</blockquote>
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"Leaping and dancing, the fish are in the river;<br />
Leaping and dancing, to see a baby born.<br />
Leaping and dancing, the fish are in the water;<br />
Leaping and dancing, now that spring is here<br />
Brincan y bailan los peces en el rio;<br />
Brincan y bailan de ver nacido un nino.<br />
Brincan y bailan los peces en el agua;<br />
Brincan y bailan de ver la primavera."</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been teaching this song to parents and preschoolers for
fifteen years, yet I don’t always feel confident that I’ve helped them to love
the song as much as I do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I teach early childhood music in a Boston suburb. This means
classrooms full of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, with their parents or
teachers. Many of our students are so young that they haven’t even visited a
petting zoo yet in their lives. Strikingly, they all adore pictures of pigs and
chickens, songs about roosters and ducklings. Children seem to be born with a
passion for nature, especially animals. Parents almost universally feel driven
to quiz their toddlers: “What does the cow say? The cow says moo. . . What does
the sheep say?” Even Ylvis asked, “What does the fox say!”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This drive to connect with nature, especially animals,
appears to be universal in families around the world, from city to suburb to
desert to seashore. Even in a world where we are increasingly out of touch with
the people and places that provide us with our food—whether omnivorous,
vegetarian, or vegan--parents sing and read about animals to their children!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The powerful fascination with animals is seemingly as
universal as the drive to learn language or the drive to adorn ourselves. Could it be coded into our genes? It almost
seems like an attenuating echo of the necessity for non-industrial traditional
peoples to pass large, complex bodies of herbal, culinary, medicinal, and
animal-husbandry knowledge down through the generations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As a music teacher, I savor the special affinity which
children feel for animals. By imitating the extreme high sounds of a meow or
the low sounds of a moo, the lip trill of a horse nickering, the uninhibited
hooting laughter of monkeys and apes, we warm up and challenge all the extremes
of our larynx, our voicebox. I delight in children’s early forays into
imaginary play when they take the role of an animal and imitate how it both
sounds and moves. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a roomful of
four-year-olds swim on the floor like polliwogs and then hop across the room
like frogs. Messiaen imitated bird song; Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals
includes an Aquarium. . . there is a natural tie between music and animals too.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite all this, I felt slightly blocked for many years
about how to make the Spanish-language text of Brincan y Bailan immediate and
real for Anglophone parents and children. The song was at an even further
remove from its original context because, due to some arcane music-theoretical
aspects of our curriculum’s internal logic, I need to introduce Brincan at
springtime even though the original is a Christmas carol! The concept of
“rebirth” was, I feared, a bit too abstract for little ones who have seen
winter give way to spring once or maybe twice, and maybe haven’t even
experienced the arrival yet of a baby sibling of their very own!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I guess that what I needed was a concrete experience in my
own life to bring it all together for me. This April, entirely for fun and
without a thought that it might relate to my song curriculum, I hopped in a
friend’s car, off to the Nemasket River in Middleborough, Massachusetts. There,
alewife herring have been swimming upstream to spawn every spring for
millennia. Indigenous people built weirs to nurture as well as harvest fish
here. Many townships in the area built dams in recent centuries which have
inadvertently doomed alewife to near extinction, but the Middleborough
community wisely built fish ladders and therefore is still rich in herring. And
so I saw with my own eyes, for the very first time, how fish fight the current
and jump up over barriers to reach their first home, to make babies. Although
the exertion is great, the drive will not be denied.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In comparison with human mating, fish insemination might
seem rather remote and not at all sexy. Fish parenting may not seem very cuddly
from our human, mammalian perspective. Yet to a fish, the urge is ineluctable.
I can’t help projecting human-centered feelings onto these creatures, imagining
that when they finally they leap into their childhood beds, paired in
matrimony, they sigh with watery, bubbly contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bringing this story, this information, and these images back
to my classes made the song an easy sell. The children could easily imagine the
joy with which fish head homeward. Now my students might, I think, start to
love the song as much as I do. This outing into nature brought renewal to me as
a teacher. Perhaps it will also inspire somebody to get out into nature and
enjoy a body of water. Maybe that somebody will be you!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thank you, Julia, for the great modeling!</td></tr>
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Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-62249771674630016222017-08-16T13:43:00.000-07:002017-08-16T13:50:11.587-07:00On Science, Nature, Children and a Culture of Life - Lisa Lambert<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
"I want the soon-to-be-adults of the future to know that it is entirely possible to create health and harmony and that all the new inventions and fancy technology can support this if technology is used as a tool and not as a means to replace or change nature (as if nature would ever let humans win at this anyway. Ha!)"</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
Western "civilization" bears upon it a particular daunting responsibility to develop an ability to look within, critique and transform...even compost...itself in the interest of joining many in the rest of the world who seek to illuminate and empower traditions of social harmony, political clarity and the interconnection of humanity (again) with the profundity of nature and the nurturance of Mother Earth. There are people working tirelessly within this daunting and frustrating context of colonialism, corporate hegemony and the heartless destruction and exploitation of nature. We can find some of these amazing people in the embattled classrooms, labs and burgeoning gardens of what many call a miseducational system. Lisa Lambert is just one of these teachers, bringing her personal experiences, her wisdoms, her grounded scholarship, her warrior heart as gift to all the children that pass, luckily, through her classrooms. She calls us to think and feel and do more deeply as we preside over the lives, learnings and growth of children and that of our own vital presence in our communities and on this earth. - Ukumbwa Sauti</blockquote>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">People say children don’t know anything. I’m
not so sure this is true. I believe they know a lot, more than most adults. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">When I was a child I was always drawn to the
outdoors. There was a vibration out there that I could never access when I was
indoors. Of course, at the time I didn’t know what it was, I just knew that I
felt ‘right’ being outside. That space held me and comforted me, taught me and
delighted me. Whenever anything wasn’t ok, nature was my church. Whenever I had
a question, if I was quiet enough and I paid attention, it would tell me the
answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">The connection felt stronger near places like
oceans, ponds and in the rain. I noticed that water was the thing that
connected all of it, it’s constant flow touched and fed all of us. I had so
many questions about the world outside. I never knew any adults that could
answer them, at least not in the way that I wanted. I most certainly never met
any adults that liked being outside as much as I did. I was generally shushed
or shamed and allowed to be seen and but not heard, I was ‘only a girl’ after
all, why would my thoughts be important? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">So I stayed quiet and I studied the absolute
to make sense of the relative. I investigated everything. I read anything I
could get my hands on. I dug in the dirt. I nursed wild animals. I examined how
water made puddles and how the wind moved the trees. Nature led me to science
and science became my teacher and gave me a voice, but nature was and will
always be, my mentor. I was happy to find a source to offer me concrete answers
to my seeking, a world of prescribed solutions, all gleaned from wild places. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">By studying biomimicry, I expanded my interest
in biology, then to medicine, then specialized to botany, ecology, engineering,
geology and then outward to astronomy, the universe and beyond. There I found
myself led to philosophy and religion, and the natural extension of the spiritual,
here I discovered ethereal ancestors and from there I was led back to nature,
always nature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">I’m a science educator now. I feel like I know
two languages. One is the logical human made one with essays, formulas and
lists and the other is the enigmatic ever flowing reverberation of energy that
cannot be created or destroyed, but only channeled. I have the honor of
spending my days serving families and children as a public school teacher and I
still deeply believe that children intuitively come to class knowing everything
they need to know. Do they have the schmantzy words or ‘theory’ to explain it
in the way that our conditioned old dead white guy science model wants? No,
that type of colonial language is not present. But children have a heart intelligence, a curiosity, a enthusiasm
for exploring. They come to me with a creativity and ingenuity in figuring
things out, an openness to new and different things and an inner knowing that
the cycles and flow of ALL of it are important. I help them articulate their
knowing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">A very young child can easily see the
importance and safety of interconnectedness.
Somewhere between infancy and adulthood we humans have forgotten how to
access this expansive beauty of reverence and ease. All the answers to all the
worlds problems are held in this simple collaborative connected space, if only
adults could have the wisdom of that child. If only education didn’t mean
extinguishing this inner knowing. Is it possible to teach children these two
languages, the standardized one and the real one? Is it possible to keep them engaged and
caring as they age out of our school systems? Is it possible that we all can
soften and flex and discover, the way kids are born to do? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">I’m not sure if growing up today is any harder
than it was decades ago. It’s always been hard to be a little kid in a grownup
selfish world. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Nowadays, kids are getting diverted away from the natural world
sooner in life and are more likely to grow up not even understanding the very
ground they stand on. Things like weather, animals and even their own biology
become problems to oppress instead of the inherent beauty that they are. This
is a BIG conceptual missed opportunity. This attitude coupled with ages old
‘norms’ further keeps children inside by playing out the false story of nature
as gross and uncomfortable or dangerous . Ignorance, fear and hatred of the
unknown migrates pervasively into kids daily lives and as a consequence the
natural world and so many who live in it are suffering. We see it in the news every
day. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">The connection between humans and nature is clear. The solution to the
major human and global issues in the world is not to divorce ourselves from the
outdoors, sequester ourselves inside and only interact in air-conditioned rooms
with electric screens. The solution is to jump in the mud and mix both these
worlds in a spectacular primordial futuristic fusion that supports sustenance,
equality and responsible stewardship of our planet. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">I want the soon-to-be-adults of the future to know that it is entirely possible to create health and
harmony and that all the new inventions and fancy technology can support this
if technology is used as a tool and not as a means to replace or change nature
(As if nature would ever let humans win at this anyway. Ha!). With steady kind
attention, our climate will be remedied, water will be clean and freely
available, racism and patriarchy will be smashed, healthcare will be replaced
by caring AND health for the body and the mind, there will be abundant
affordable healthy food, cultures and religions will be celebrated, unfair
wealth structures will be leveled, there will be clarity of intersectionality on every
level and, yes, new sustainable accessible technologies will be invented to
solve energy demands. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">This isn’t the future, it’s happening now, these little
rumbles. Classroom by classroom, garden by garden, neighborhood by neighborhood
and with every kid who looks into a flower or at a bug and asks, “I wonder why...?”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-37418870036338587162017-04-29T06:39:00.002-07:002017-04-29T06:57:54.135-07:00Yesterday while at the thrift store - Beverly Scott<div>
<b><br /> "I looked down at her and thought I should warn her of the dangers. I should tell her of the predators. I should tell her oh honey there will be time enough for that."</b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />Beverly Scott reveals from her daily life moments here that transform the mundane into the transcendent. There is nuance and knowing in the normalcy of our daily, pedestrian travails. If we are able to stay open to the gift of the insistent and energetic world of spirit, of our most intuitive human connections, we are able to find that space of a lovely, flowing and important humanity. Beverly, in these moments illuminates that insistence, that intuition from the heart of the divine feminine. - Ukumbwa Sauti</blockquote>
<br /><br />Yesterday while at the thrift store I experienced the collapsing of time. I didn't go in there to be enthralled, We went in there because we mistakenly thought it was half-price day and Gene likes to "beat the system".<br /><br />Two dollars for a designer men's shirt makes more sense to him these days than 125.00 dollars for the same shirt packaged beautifully and handed to him with a smooth mix of deference and self satisfaction. </div>
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<br />I like fancy stores and the thrift shop, which is why my bounty is always thirty or forty dollars and his is never more than twelve. It's also why my closets require more pruning, more often than my rose bushes.<br /><br />We split up at the front of the store and I decided to check out the shoes first. I had no idea I was about to be transformed into a child and receive a gift so precious it took my breath away.<br /><br />There were shoes on both sides of the aisle and as I entered I saw some cute flat slides in a black and a light tan basketweave pattern. Beeline. Hmmm, yes I think I can fit these. Let me see, so I dropped them to the floor grateful they were stapled together so I didn't have to wrestle one to try the other on.<br /><br /> I hadn't noticed her until then. She was sitting on the floor with her head down, deeply engaged in buckling the strap of a silver rhinestone platform heel. She wore red socks and was already wearing the other shoe. It would be a long time before those shoes fit.<br /><br />She had long chestnut brown hair which provided a curtain for her face so she didn't see that I had been transformed into my thirteen year old self and teleported to a shoe store in Chicago called Baker's on 63rd and Halsted Street. There I was trying on my birthday present. A pair of white patent leather strappy platform heels.<br /><br />I could hear the bustling and exchanges between the salespersons and customers and feel the butterflies spiraling around in my abdomen. <br /><br />I walked in my shoes and felt so tall, and beautiful and empowered because I had earned the money and rode the bus by myself to make this statement to the world.<br /><br />I am a teenager and I am vulnerable as hell. Let me explore and express myself. Let me try to wrestle back my sexuality from the molester. Don't grope, oogle or trick me. Let me be.<br /><br /> Instead the world heard. She ready. She fast. She asking for trouble. Get ready it won't be long now.<br /> Then I was snapped back to present day.<br /><br />I looked down at her and thought I should warn her of the dangers. I should tell her of the predators. I should tell her oh honey there will be time enough for that. But something inside so strong would not hear of it. She still hadn't looked up at me and before I knew it the words had reached my tongue and began to roll out of my mouth.<br /><br />Ohhhh those are soooo pretty. You look beautiful sweetheart. My words ooozed with love and acceptance.<br /><br />That's when she raised her head and turned her face to me. It was radiant, innocent, beautiful and still flashed the visual of where her imagination had taken her. Then she smiled a smile so pure and filled with gratitude and pleasure those butterflies returned, I grew wings and felt more than a womyn. No I felt fully an empowered and authentic womyn who had just done a sacred thing and we both knew we would be forever connected through this encounter.<br /><br />I did the twinkly finger wave bye bye and left her to her dreams. I scanned where I found the flats spotted two more pair I liked grabbed them and went to meet my husband. He had two great shirts a dollar a piece but I had the peace that surpasses all understanding.<br /><br /> The End<br /><br />- Beverly Scott<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-71898621279887387852017-04-29T06:37:00.000-07:002017-11-01T12:33:41.205-07:00I want to tell you about my Mom.- Kathy R.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>"It was an emotional struggle to finally make the decision to move Mom into a nursing facility. It damn near broke my Dad’s heart. He took care of Mom with the devotion of a true soul mate but it was becoming too much for him, even with me there in the house to back him up."</b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In this sharing, Kathy reveals her exploration of a familiar, but consistently difficult awareness of the transition of a loved one as they move closer to their role as an Ancestor. This writing reminds us of the relationship of death to life, of our lives to history, recent and ancient and the tender space between mother and daughter. - Ukumbwa Sauti</blockquote>
<br />
I want to tell you about my Mom.<br />
<br />
Back while I was growing up my mother was a force to be reckoned with, she was kick-ass before the<br />
<br />
term was invented. When most women of her day married young and started families my Mom moved across the country to a university to study opera. She lasted two full years on her own and admitted to me while I was in my teens that toward the end she existed on a couple of pieces of fruit a day because money was non-existent. Eventually she gave up her dream and came home where she and my Dad reunited and started dating. She had a full-time job and a home of her own - on her own - long before it was considered proper behavior for a young woman. My Mom was something of a scandal back then and I dare say she enjoyed the label.<br />
<br />
Mom and Dad dated and eventually eloped and were married by a Justice of the Peace. A church<br />
wedding was out of the question because of religious conflicts between the two families. Mom was<br />
Methodist and Dad came from pure Irish Catholic stock, and well, at the time marriages between different faiths didn’t happen often.<br />
<br />
I came along soon afterwards followed by my brother fifteen months later and my sister surprised them both five years after me. Mom was never supposed to have had children because of a heart defect. When she was barely out of toddlerhood she had scarlet fever and it damaged her heart for good. Any one of us kids could’ve killed her, but here we are so she managed to pull it – us - off.<br />
<br />
When Mom was in her mid to late-thirties her heart and her health started to fail. Mom and Dad made<br />
the decision for her to have open heart surgery. It was beyond risky since it had only been done in our<br />
area a few times. I remember the day the school principle came and got my brother and I out of class to tell us that Mom had made it through the surgery. I didn’t really understand the significance at the time but I remember feeling relieved.<br />
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Years later after Mom was healthy again she went on to work in a large city school system where she<br />
built a library in an elementary school that had never had one. It was in a basement and not easy for the kids to get to but she made that library a haven for those kids. It was full of light and laughter with handmade mobiles of famous cartoon characters that would be easily recognizable today. Those<br />
mobiles are still in the family, packed away nice and safe, faded somewhat but ready to be hung up and used again.<br />
<br />
Eventually the school closed and Mom had other jobs until her retirement more than 20 years ago. The woman who was a rebel and a force of nature started to slow down until one day she fell and hurt her hip. The hip wasn’t too secure anyway but that fall started Mom’s downward slide. Instead of fighting to get her mobility back she sank into a depression that nothing and no one could pull her out of. She refused to follow doctor’s orders to start walking again. The family tried to encourage her to get up and start living again but Mom always was stubborn as all hell so she sat in her chair in the livingroom and did very little to stop her own physical deterioration.<br />
<br />
After that Mom had one physical set back after another. A shattered thigh bone was reconstructed out of a metal plate, wire, pins and screws. Her other hip had to be operated on and she had colon cancer that was thankfully discovered before it took hold. We almost lost her many times, once from a bleed out, from several bouts of pneumonia, wounds that became infected, and fall after fall. It was during this time that her mind started to deteriorate. She started to forget things, dates and places to start. She gave up her crossword puzzles when she couldn’t remember the words anymore, her handheld games went unused, and she started watching television with a blank stare. The once formidable woman who kicked ass and took names started to fade away.<br />
<br />
It was an emotional struggle to finally make the decision to move Mom into a nursing facility. It damn near broke my Dad’s heart. He took care of Mom with the devotion of a true soul mate but it was becoming too much for him, even with me there in the house to back him up. She had many, many health issues by the time she was finally admitted into where she is now.<br />
<br />
Today Mom has zero mobility, doesn’t remember most of her own past, and sometimes when I visit she looks at me and I wonder if she remembers who I am. She can feed herself but her food has to be ground into a paste so that she won’t choke on it. She weighs a fraction of what she used to and her bones show through her skin.<br />
<br />
The woman who busted my ass when I needed it, was rude and uncompromising at times, was<br />
independent and confident as hell is now a fragile being living somewhere between this world and the next. She tells me she sees her mother, father and older brother here and there. I see it as a sign that she’s getting ready, or being readied, to cross.<br />
<br />
My Mom will be an ancestor soon. I won’t be ready, I’ll never be ready but she’s told me for years that once she crosses she’ll put pennies in places I won’t expect to see them to let me know she’s okay. I expect that when I cross and become an ancestor that I’ll see her again in all her kick ass glory.<br />
<br />
- Kathy R.Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-52402483878577638602017-04-04T11:45:00.000-07:002017-04-04T12:29:11.423-07:00"2016 into 2017: Water Reflects Fire" - Ukumbwa, WAC Team Blogger<div style="clear: both; font-family: "trebuchet ms","trebuchet","verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">2016 into 2017: Water Reflects Fire</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(reposted from "Indigeny & Energetics", Dec.29, 2016)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: 15.84px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">In the Dagara tradition from West Africa, 2016 is/was a Water year. The 6 is a feminine, receptive, internal marker numerologically.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8xyxdDkepWk/WGVpgPAtfiI/AAAAAAAAD7M/a2ZrSL9ngdUMdNl95xxx2vVgyxN7xP2PgCKgB/s1600/20131005_130257.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8xyxdDkepWk/WGVpgPAtfiI/AAAAAAAAD7M/a2ZrSL9ngdUMdNl95xxx2vVgyxN7xP2PgCKgB/s280/20131005_130257.jpg" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; border-image: none; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.098039); box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">2016 is not your problem as all to many people have suggested it was. 2016 has been your blessing. 2016 has been a time where we had opportunity to gain insight from deep-seated, deeply submerged, deep water issues that plague us. We got a chance to see, to resolve, to feel...deeply.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We were deeply blessed by the resistance of Africans and others to state violence against African people,the presence and emergence of African women creatively, courageously within that and related struggles, the resistance of women and indigenous people to patriarchal and colonial violence. We witnessed a sharp rising to the surface of xenophobia, racism, heterosexism, misogyny, great lack of political clarity and vision, retrograde narratives of discompassionate exploitation and disregard for humanity and Mother Earth Herself. It's as if our shit just rose from the bottom of our socio-political sewer and we could deny the stench no more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JqpR7AXd8ho/TuH_p8F5SyI/AAAAAAAAAR4/KiLmWIYCEKgidnEMiJE0nEg5mXhdKYlrACPcB/s1600/SpyPondPlasticsPollution0008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JqpR7AXd8ho/TuH_p8F5SyI/AAAAAAAAAR4/KiLmWIYCEKgidnEMiJE0nEg5mXhdKYlrACPcB/s280/SpyPondPlasticsPollution0008.jpg" style="border-image: none; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.098039); box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">We were...and ARE...blessed by the sacred work at and of Standing Rock. If you don't realize the fundamental history-resolving nature of that dynamic, then 2016 actually alluded you. You missed 2016. We have been blessed by 2016. </span></div>
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<div style="clear: both; font-family: "trebuchet ms","trebuchet","verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">And we should not miss the fact that, celebrities aside, many many many people (and species) have crossed over to the Other Side, from Brazil to Nepal to Aleppo to Chicago and beyond. Just take a moment to go inside, feel the ocean-heavy weight of what that means. Sit in the depth of that aquatic emotional tsunami waiting to happen. 2016 reveals itself to be sacred womb pregnant with gifts of spiritual Ancestral insight. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">And if we have the utter bravery to do it, we will actually weep for 2016. We will weep its passing. We will grieve what we found out about the diamond bright treasure of humanity at the same time we had deep water reflection into the distortions of inhumanity to peoples, water and sacred earth, to the feminine divinity that birthed and constantly rebirths us all. We will grieve the pain and the often latent joy of 2016, still flowing through us as we live....and breathe....alive to see the end, the death of it, the transformative cocoon-break of it, the dissolution of it, the absorption of it, the larger spiritual river flow of it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">And the Dead do not leave us...though they do change their address. They are available to us. Corporeally. Communicatively. Actually. Vibrantly. And we are called...if we say we love and miss Those that have passed over, this or any year....to consider how we will carry the blessing, the gift of Their transformed, transmuted lives in our minds, our bodies, our words, our works. If Those lives meant anything, how do we integrate the best of Them into the fabric of our social becoming so They then know beyond a shadow of a doubt that They have not been forgotten? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uRCesGYJlgY/VD8UsWlBZmI/AAAAAAAABHw/I7-SxpaFycEwoA9SpxhgbMY5APWesRa-gCPcB/s1600/033_200" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uRCesGYJlgY/VD8UsWlBZmI/AAAAAAAABHw/I7-SxpaFycEwoA9SpxhgbMY5APWesRa-gCPcB/s280/033_200" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="280" /></a></span></div>
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<div style="clear: both; font-family: "trebuchet ms","trebuchet","verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">And 2017 is a fire year. And the Dagara have observed fire as the portal to the Ancestors. They reveal Themselves, Their wisdom through this powerful element that brings light, vision and incites our passions, illuminates our dreams. 2017 is an opportunity to explore the blessings that we have been given...on purpose...by our Ancestral legacies. And while fire allows us to reduce and burn away all that we do not need, it also lights the way toward seeing our path, sparking the impulse of life into a world turned upside down by exploitation, injustice and oppression, fear and self-loathing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oG2d8PoOlbA/VD8USTE74dI/AAAAAAAABHw/8-C4gFJtWgkfngYsKhhcSMgLuv8VryXUQCPcB/s1600/Vun-fire-flames" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oG2d8PoOlbA/VD8USTE74dI/AAAAAAAABHw/8-C4gFJtWgkfngYsKhhcSMgLuv8VryXUQCPcB/s280/Vun-fire-flames" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="280" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small;"><b><i><u><sub><sup><strike><br class="kix-line-break" /></strike></sup></sub></u></i></b></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">The 7 marks a feminine energetic. And we know we must support and acknowledge the divinity and primacy of that creative force, that creation story. What lies in the pregnancy of human, spiritual existence waiting to be born? Who are we yet to grow into, gifted powerfully now by the newly Ancestored energies of our icons, loved ones and faithful and flawed relations? Our Dead are in US. Their gifts waiting to be reborn...in and from us. We are the composite treasure of their transmuted recent and ancient lives. We are Their sacred immortality. WE are. We. Never broken, but reconstituted by the mortar of their now timeless existence, the constantly rebuilding dynamic foundation of Their every aspiration for our transcendent greatness. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">And here we stand at a precious nexus like every nexus, every crossroad presents us with space and motivation for enlightened contemplation and powerful healing choice, pondering the meaning of a myriad deaths, of painful loss and continuing mortal struggle to keep the rest of us here in love, safety, validation and compassion to finish our sacred duties upon this blessed earth, this embattled earth buttressed by the bones of our Ancients, their blood now fused with the dust of time. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Breathe that in.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTqB2zlew_A/VD9IlABfnyI/AAAAAAAABO4/m2vwwYUx8q0gSnZl8Arff2OY0Rq6qJBugCPcB/s1600/Wie-SpyPond-6-3-10%2B-%2B21" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTqB2zlew_A/VD9IlABfnyI/AAAAAAAABO4/m2vwwYUx8q0gSnZl8Arff2OY0Rq6qJBugCPcB/s280/Wie-SpyPond-6-3-10%2B-%2B21" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="280" /></a></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">The Dead have left precisely to carry us through to our next shining moment, here at the sparkling mountain spring of this new baktun, clean cold river rushing down to bring life to All, flowing like fluid gems of sacred healing clarity...incessant...unrelenting.... </span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">Find your feet. Keep them on the ground. Ask Them how to continue your good walk on your path of life. Ask those who have done it before you. And as we stand here at the juncture of 2016 into 2017, here at the anniversary of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee at the hands and Hotchkiss guns of the USAmerican colonial cavalry, remembering still that a woman gave birth to a child at Standing Rock, the greatest unification of indigenous nations in modern memory, as Africans born of brutally displaced indigenous African Mothers and Fathers struggle for meaning and liberation and peace and ujamaa in Kwanzaa, at the present moment of the continuing destruction of lives in Aleppo, in Palestine, in Congo, we are reminded that we have much to do...and much that we have been given....and that there is a wealth of wisdom in the Ancestral genius of those that have come and fought and lived and loved long before us. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">2016 was not in and of itself a problem. It was our greatest gift as we stand here in the midst of our problematic challenges, pathologies, crippling privileges and passions. Even on the largest and largely unseen level...we all got here...together...troubled...fighting...bent and broken....healing...resisting...triumphant and transcendent. Together. Our Ancestors birthed us all into this moment. Now. Here. Present...holding the blessings of the sacred water of 2016 as we see in it the growing sparkling inner reflections of the fire of 2017.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">Asante, Wakale. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small;"></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; vertical-align: baseline;">We walk forward.</span></div>
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Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-49458741482220934122017-03-31T17:37:00.006-07:002018-05-28T16:42:39.523-07:00Our World - Reflections from the Global Village<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What do you </span><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">think</span></u><span style="font-family: inherit;">, what do you </span><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">know</span></u><span style="font-family: inherit;">, what do you </span><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">feel </span></u><span style="font-family: inherit;">about the voices of the Global Village shared </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">on the <b>Our World, the Global Village</b> page. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Leave your comments here.<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><u>Don't forget to tell us what you are responding to</u>. </i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The intelligence, the wisdom the world needs right now comes from all four directions, from all corners, from all peoples, all cultures, all traditions. <u>The world needs the voices from the Global Village</u>...the world needs </span><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">you</span></strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
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<i>Asante! Merci! Danke! Gracias! Barka! Obrigada! Thank you!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>➤ Back to <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/ourworld">Our World - The Global Village</a> page on <a href="http://www.worldancestorconcert.com/">www.WorldAncestorConcert.com</a>.<br />
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💙Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3478498692809825320.post-32538733374166367702017-03-31T13:11:00.000-07:002017-03-31T13:20:18.892-07:00Greetings from the WAC Team!☀ Welcome to the <b>World Ancestor Concert</b> blog! We really thank you deeply for visiting and reading and hopefully sharing your ideas, thoughts and feelings with us, with the <b>Global Village</b>. We are deeply interested in your perspectives and practices around our beloved Ancestors, about issues around the <u>empowerment of women and girls</u>, the <u>protection and sanctity of water</u> and the <u>presence and growth of peace</u> in our world.<br />
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⛅ We have decided to moderate all comments at this time and will see how that goes for our small, but engaged team interested deeply in the safety of all our Global Villagers. The WAC team, which may be the producers or members of our extended team or interns, reserve the right to exclude comments that we feel are hurtful, distracting or dismissive of other Global Villagers or the philosophies and ideas that we are here to support and amplify. ❥ <i>We thank you for understanding this desire to have this blog be a safer place for our Villagers to share and connect, even though we are assuredly here to engage important and often difficult ideas and processes</i>.<br />
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<b>Miigwetch! Barka! Obrigada! Asante! Merci! Danke! Thank you!</b><br />
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#womenwaterpeace<br />
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<br />Voices of the Global VIllage - World Ancestor Concerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12757424648918943997noreply@blogger.com0