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Showing posts from 2008

My letter to Obama ~ Repeated here by popular demand

Thank you for coming to Chester Barack Obama ~ Niyonu D. Spann (October 27, 2008) Thank you for coming to Chester Barack Obama. In all the rain and wind – with no fancy introduction by the Governor or Mayor or anybody actually. I saw you with the rain rushing across your lips – that people watching on TV could not see. I wanted some sort of shelter for you but then; I saw the rightness of it all. Standing in man-made shelter has never been your calling. Thank you for standing in Chester with the same plantedness as you have and will on the White House floors that so many of our ancestors offered a spotless appearance. We may not be the poorest city that you visited or the blackest city or the one with the least shelter or acknowledgement but surely Chester is one of the most. But you knew that and you showed. As we stood on the mud-filled lawn after traveling round and round corners with a faith that we would get a glimpse of ourselves. (And I chuckled as the women behind said

Giving thanks and keepin' my eyes open

In the midst of a 4-day birthday & Thanksgiving retreat by the beach. I always seem to have a deep yearning at this time of the year to go solo - to listen deeply within and write and look back and notice significances that I've missed. And there are always a bunch of them. Tears flow as I watch my people in Mumbai . I read the phrase today, "Expanding circles of Light" - it hit my heart somehow. I usually have a visceral resistance to the notion of rejecting, destroying, extinguish DARKNESS. It is partly from being a black woman of my age. But also, I know that horrific acts -too many to recall - have been committed in the name of destroying the dark . Yet, the truth of what is frequently meant is a truth that I can see and fully relate to. 'Cause I do want to increase the Light. I want to shed light on what IS. I want to wake up and see. The seeing that I want is about re- cognizing , re- membering . I don't want to ignore any acts of injustice

Are you there for something real?

First day of blogging - just because I can and have the time to set it up. Created the Tribe 1 Myspace and my Facebook and now this. Octavia comes to mind. Who is close to me in the "Pattern?" We will see. And isn't this the time for that with all the rumblings that surround us still from as the deep yearnings for something real were knit together so masterfully as to step over a Clinton - you know what they say happens when White women cry - and then stepped through this country's epitome of fear, that evoked by a Black man speaking loudly in a dashiki, and speaking truth no less, using the proper king's tongue - and....the pretty one, and....the humble war hero with a temper and..... The yearning was stronger than all that. So, just how much do we want something real? Just how ready are we to receive it? Who are the 'pattern masters?' ~ Ni [We miss you Octavia.]