Hey I’m just sitting here minding my own business but you still want my attention.
Still crawling up the back of me, lurking to steal my thunder and steal my power.
You don’t want me. You don’t want me near you. You don’t want me to shine.
And yet …
You can’t leave me alone. You can’t turn away because you know I’m mighty fine. You know I’m divine.
You know I hold the secrets of what it means to be fire. You know you can’t hide your desire no matter how hard you try to hide, to blend in, to mystify.
You can’t hide your desires because of your long, ugly, harsh venomous tongue dipping lies is always going to give you away, betray your cold and encrusted lying heart and mind.
I must make my heart, my queen for the love she once poured out, an ivory tower, a silent, giant, jagged-edge mountain of harsh rocks, wood and ruin.
Reaching up under a pale night sky, reaching for the stars, for some kind of spark, being witness to so much unnecessary, preventable violence, l choose to transmute fear into rage.
l choose to transmute fear into rage.
l choose to transmute fear into rage.
Do not mistake these rose-tinted cheeks as doll-like innocence or fairness. I’ve grappled with my myths and the myths you’ve fed me about my place. And passion, flames and fire have risen yet threatens to consume you more than it could ever harm me.
Burn whiteness to the ground. Burn that construction of whiteness and all that shit down to the ground once and for all. For all.
See I’m still carrying that tired old play script that a Black Woman is the mule of the world, saving everybody else when no one gives a fuck about me.
I’ll keep working on that, my queen, my heart, fixing that ivory tower to remain out of reach and impenetrable and safe.
When life throws you curve balls to knock you off your feet and forces you to reassess everything in your life, this is when you lean into the practices which have seen you right.
Those practices which keep you buoyed when it appears you’re drowning or about to go down.
Those practice which you practice everyday but really come into their own when the chips our down.
One of those practices is keeping a gratitude journal. And it doesn’t have to be something major or time consuming.
Thinking on one simple thing is enough to switch my thinking, to get me to count my blessings and step up again. Renewed, restored and ready.
This week has been a week of happenings and announcements and shit hit the fan moments. But I’m alive and here to live another day. So all is not bad.
I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason. Maybe to test us. Maybe to move us into a better situation. To gain clarity and perspective. To live a better life on my own terms.
This card ‘thunderstorm’ signifies tremendous upheaval and change, happening or about to. And it is out of my control. But I must keep the faith, trust in Mother Nature that these things are happening for the best.
Things are out of my control. But how I respond to this period of upheaval is within my control.
I’m choosing to count my blessings, lean into my practices and give thanks. Give thanks for all that is going right or is good in my life right now. Here and now.
I’m grateful for the light. I’m grateful for rest. I’m grateful for a warm comfortable bed. I’m grateful for morning coffee. I’m grateful for time spent with the people I love. I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful for my creativity. I’m grateful for all the opportunities which have and are coming my way. I’m grateful for food in the cupboards. I’m grateful for the roof above my head. I’m grateful for the air I breathe. I’m grateful for the earth between my toes. And I’m grateful for the water that holds me.
If I allowed curiosity and love to seep through the wounds, I wouldn’t be here now at the page trying to make sense of it.
A black girl walks through the meadow, enters the dark woods and forfeits her life. And I can’t but think if she was white …
Trust. Always difficult for me to hold, like light on burnt leaves. Like the coming of winter any day now.
The race talk, an accumulation of cautionary tales told through time, she, with earth in her voice, filled the void of rage with what was right for her soul. Joy.
As mentioned at the beginning of this month, when I declared that June was the month of the Mixmoir, going forward I plan to use Mariëlle S. Smith, Fleshing Out The Narrative: A 31-Day Tarot and Journal Challenge for Writers in conjunction with The Earthcraft Oracle Deck by Juliet Diaz and Lorriane Anderson and illustrated by Daniell Boodoo-Fortune in order to get the creative juices flowing.
Using these tools and prompts, not only allows me to create content for the mixmoir but also allow me write around the subject, explore the process and progress. This bit excites me and keeps me engaged. Working out what I’m trying to say at the same times as holding up to the light the rituals and practices I have around writing, is enlightening as well as encouraging. One way of working might work well one day but the next not.
I’ve been using the pomodoro technique with Abao in Tokyo on YouTube. Writing/ working/ practicing for 25 minutes at a time and then taking a 5 minute break, helps with the concentration and productivity. I’m really enjoying the process sandwiches into neat sections of time for a focused amount of time each day. It’s a simple practice which I look forward to and really get engrossed with during the allotted times for writing.
I found it interesting today that I pulled the Spirit of the South card when I was exploring the fire within yesterday and how I’d rather allow it to burn outwards and accept what ever backlash it may bring rather than living in fear of the fire outside consuming/ canceling/ destroying me.
This card came along today, I feel, to reinforce what I’ve been thinking of late, that is to not hold back and to stop finding/ making up excuses for not doing the work/ practice and to crack on and just do it. To follow my dreams, tell my story and to hell with it all.
And here ends the daily cheerleading chant for Sheree and the Mixmoir.
She’s called Daphe, the woman running the business training out of her Notting Hill home.
The Thames curves south from here by Chelsea, sluggish brown. The city’s awake and burning.
Have you been to see the damage yet? he asks, in our snatched conversation.
Almost gleeful in his hunger to hear details about the tower block which blazed leaving so many people missing or dead.
He says there’s photographs of the missing stuck to tree trucks, walls and railings. Black, brown and olive skinned and missing.
I don’t want to see this suffering. The ruins becoming a tourist attraction. Leave them with some dignity. Always having to endure the gaze in life and death.
Living Wild Studios 