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Showing posts from 2015

The First BD101-RACE!

--> Greetings Dear Ones, just coming up for rejuvenating air after the most amazing healing circles at the first Beyond Diversity 101 - RACE!   What an honor to be one of the holders of this workshop vision ~ for an equal number of people who identify as white and people who identify as black to go all the way in!   To go down to the roots of what has been and open together to the truth we find there. So, what do we have to lose when we open to seeing, to speaking, to acknowledging?   No, really, what do we have to loose?   What parts of ourselves or our sense of self, starts to come unglued?   Coming unglued is not a cool feeling, period.   No matter what we sense as the precious reward to come on the other side of coming apart…No matter how much we feel the pull to heal – to re-member who we truly are; as the horrific lies fall away, there is a instinctive reflex to hold on to what has given us form or identity.   There is an instinct to hold on to inferiority and th

In honor of the April 19 – 24 BD101 Training for Trainers, 2015

POEM TO MY FELLOW TRAVELERS in the journey to wholeness Ah, you – Ah, you – Ah, you 2015 BD101 TfT folk.   You brought every season,                                                 every color,                                                                                     every prayer. You never let us get complacent.   No stagnant waters….you kept the trouble in the waters, moving stillness, yes ~ but an ever changing stillness. Carried us Home             Home to remember all our relations – and we wanted to run from the fire of their touch.                         Too hot sometimes, easier to cool off elsewhere. Cause, we didn’t want to be mis-taken for such as those, unruly and wounded creatures.   Oh, my arms longed to wrap them in a forever, long-overdue embrace.   But then, I wanted to slap some sense into ‘em first – how dare you set us on this path?! Oh you, most precious and most raw 2015 bunch – how you niggled at the tit,

MY BROTHER, I HEAR YOU

--> MY BROTHER, I HEAR YOU (Dedicated to EC, a King) My brother, I heard you when you said what you said…..how you navigate through arms stretched out for a handshake….inviting your touch, beseeching your presence, your voice - that timbre only my brothers possess. My brother, I heard you when you said what you said.   You spoke out into the room,   parting the great sea of academia.   For a few moments, you opened a channel so that we could hear the muffled screams.    Our screams.   Us, the ancestors yet to come.   You called our attention to the folk songs of those who bushwhack great walkways for our people today, for the elders, for the young.               We diligently practice to soften and open our hearts, calibrate our speech, make ourselves a flexible bridge holding both the anger and the innocence -   a refined instrument of revolution. I heard you, my brother.   I know why your breathing stopped as the picture on the screen unfolded before your eyes

Teachable Moments on the Power of Societal Oppression

--> Teachable Moments on the Power of Societal Oppression – Using three 2009 stories in the news   (find links to each story at the end of this submission) During our workshop, Beyond Diversity 101 (BD101) we practice distinguishing between the personal (INDIVIDUAL), the GROUP/institutional and the SOCIETAL.   We encourage seeing and naming - what is happening and what has happened on each of these three levels.   The practice of seeing and naming is terribly important if we are to heal as a people, as a society.   Denial and confusion - the resistance to see and know - are the fallback positions that protect and maintain systems of domination.  To acknowledge a breech between who we believe ourselves to be and what we actually do, to acknowledge such a breech might suggest that we turn our worlds upside down and do things differently.   So, in any system of oppression there is a great investment in not seeing. I often say that if a person can only work on on

From my young sister, Carly

Advice to Self in the On-Going Work for Peace and Social Justice  [By Carly Frintner...check her out at: http://lovewantstoreachout.blogspot.com] Advice to Self in the On-Going Work for Peace and Social Justice Do not ask, “Am I enough?” Instead claim that you are, Believe that you are, And live up to all that means. Do not ask, “Am I strong enough?” Know you are strong enough and you will be given strength for the journey There will be times when you feel you can’t go on, There will be times when you have used every last resource; Trust that you will be given strength anew, To do things you never thought possible, In the name of an ever-higher power, And in the name of an ever-higher Love. Do not ask, “Am I good enough?” For to ask this is to ask the same of anyone, And I Know that we were all born good, And that we all do the Best We Can, Every minute of every day, Even if we are not living up to our own expectations