Best Gift Ever: Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind DVDs.

Watch, share, enjoy, repost! If you'd like to order a DVD with these videos and more to use in your classroom (and to support the MobileHomeComing Community Documentation and Education Project) make a donation of $15 or more to the MobileHomeComing Project!

1) Click DONATE.
2) Enter an Amount and note that you are ordering the DVD.
3) Click Continue.
(or login to your paypal account).
4) Follow instructions to finish your transaction. You're Done!

For a copy of our budget or any more information please email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com

Here is the listing!

And to watch some previews check out: http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/eternal-summer-of-the-black-feminist-mind-educational-videos/!

love,
lex

Be Bold Be Re(a)d: The Podcast

3 years ago women of color came together and transformed what it meant to transform terror on Halloween, declaring October 31st Be Bold Be Red Day, a day for women of color and allies to speak out against violence against women. And 30 years ago women of color came together to respond to violence in the same critical and poetic spirit.

Towards the world the we all deserve, fully transformed from the misogyny and internalized racism we face in popular music to the frightening expendability of the lives and bodies of women of color this podcast places the brave voices of women telling the truth about gendered violence over the remixed sounds of Miles Davis. This year we take every sound back, starting with our own voices and the background that seeks to silence them.

Listen with your community, your class, your friends, your study group, your church, your crew, pass the link on or listen by yourself and see, hear and wear red.

listen here

[audio http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3]

or download here: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3

Lex Available for Lectures and Workshops!

This year Alexis is using her best developed and most cherished skill-the art of the life-changing workshop-to raise funds to support her decision to spend the next year doing the MobileHomeComing an immersive intergenerational community documentation and education project based on her lust for back queer community! (It's weird that somehow I have to be consistent with a choice to talk about myself in the third person here, but I want to interject in the first person to say that your support means everything to me and it is evidence of the fact that it is possible to be a community supported, community accountable scholar in the 21st Century. :)

Bring Alexis to your campus, community center, to speak, or do a workshop that you will never forget!

at the Furious Flower Poetry Center!

Lectures:

Alexis is available to speak on a variety of topics and has tons of experiences speaking to audiences at elementary schools, college campuses, community centers, rallies, conferences and workshops. Click on the links for examples of public talks she has given in the past. She might particularly be a great person to complement your community or campus programming during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Love Your Body Week, Celebration of Black Womanhood Week, Black Heritage Month, Women's History Month, National Coming Out Day, Mother's Day or throw tokenism to the wind and bring Alexis to speak and make any old day of the year a day filled with hope and magic!

Alexis's Academic CV

Workshops:

(Most workshops are available either as a one time session, a day-long intensive or a series within the NC Triangle or Triad areas. Get in touch about what works best for your community. Below are workshops that I have facilitated many times before. I can also design workshops specifically for your needs :)

Movement

Pressed for Knowledge: Alexis has facilitated this miraculous zine making workshop all over the United States in communities, on college campuses and at conferences. In this workshop participants (whether they are part of an existing group or are meeting for the first time on the day of the workshop) use the resources of urgency, homegrown brilliance and whatever's around to create their own publication in less than 2 hours. Alexis leads participants in a process of choosing an audience, a theme that connects their passions and a work structure and a group evaluation process for their own urgent publication! (NEW!!! Pressed for Knowledge is now available in a video version...where participants create and edit their own video in an amazingly short period of time!)

Grassroots Literary Production: Due to her experience leading the Pressed for Knowledge workshop and facilitating students at Duke University, UNC-Greensboro and the SpiritHouse Choosing Sides program in the creation of their own online and print collaborative publications, Alexis can train teachers, faculty and community cultural workers to make publication a part of their programming.

The Activist Impulse: Similar to the Pressed for Knowledge Workshop, this workshops leads participants through a process of deciding on, designing and enacting and evaluating a site-specific direct action. Alexis has led this workshop with a class of Duke University Students, at the Ethnic Studies and the Activist Impulse Symposium at Columbia University, the Beyond the Box Conference at Barnard College, the Anarchist People of Color SouthEast Regional Conference and more!

Legacy

(These workshops are grounded in Alexis's years of black feminist research and spiritual practice and are ideal for a community organization, school, department or group of people interested in how the theory, practice, poetry and lessons of black feminist practice apply to their present conditions)

Letters to Audre: developed in a special writing enrichment course that Alexis designed for Africana Women's Studies majors at Bennett College for Women, this workshop or series of workshops introduces participants to key works by black feminist lesbian poet, scholar, activist Audre Lorde. Participants create their own versions of/responses to poems and essays by Audre Lorde including Litany for Survival and The Uses of Anger. Participatns also write their own poetic letters to this literary feminist ancestor. See www.letterstoaudre.wordpress.com for examples. Alexis is also available to lead seminars for faculty, teachers, and community educators on Teaching Audre Lorde.

Letters to June: Along a similar model as the Letters to Audre Workshop, this curriculum was developed for a feminist theory course at UNC-Greensboro. Participants will write their own "Poem About My Rights" and "What's Love Got to Do With It" and also engage some of Jordan's lesser known and unpublished pieces. Alexis is also available to use her privileged access as the first researcher to view June Jordan's archival papers to lead seminars on Teaching June Jordan.

Litany for Survival: The Poetics of Community Building This writing and movement workshop, designed in collaboration with Ebony Golden starts from the grounding point of Audre Lorde's Litany for Survival and leads participants through a process of analyzing the poem for themselves, using theater of the oppressed methodologies to demonstrate what survival means for them and creating their own praise poems towards the survival of their own communities. This workshop was debuted at the Brecht Forum in New York City with an amazing response.

In Your Hands: The Depth of Legacy: based on a spiritual experience that Alexis had of recieving and writing down letters from chosen, (and uninvited!) black feminist ancestors including Fannie Lou Hamer, Nayo Watkins, Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler and her own grandmother (see the letters and the video documentation of the process here) this workshop is designed to facilitate participants in listening for and to the legacies of their own chosen traditions. Alexis will facilitate a disucssion of some of the insights in the letters she recieved and each participant will leave with a plan and a way to make space for their own insights.

Sustainability

(these workshops are designed to keep community members, community organizers, students and teachers ALIVE AND WELL with full access to their love for themselves, each other and their inspired purpose!)


Habit Forming Love: This workshop shares the gifts of a 21 day process in which Alexis sought to learn how to love herself, her partner and her community better and to train herself in online video production and distribution. Available as a one time workshop or a skills building series, this workshop will allow participants to use new media technology to deepen and activate their love for themselves, their chosen family and their communities. Browse Alexis's video project here.

Mother Ourselves: Created in collaboration with Zachari Curtis for the Gumbo Yaya Sister Circle, and inspired by Audre Lorde's essay "Eye to Eye," this workshop provides participants with a safe space to examine their thoughts about the meaning of "mothering," and allows participants to explore what it might mean to nurture, teach and transform themselves. In this workshop we work in partners, listen to our bodies, use mirrors and talk about the affirming and difficult process of reflections linked to our varied experiencs with mothering.

Sustainability for Organizers and Activists: The workshop, designed for (and with) the organizers and visionaries in Critical Resistance, is about ENDING ACTIVIST BURN OUT!!!! Remembering that we, our bodies and our spirits are the most important resources for change, this workshop facilitates organizers in identifying the resources that keep them inspired and practices that can keep/get us well. Every participant leaves with their own visible reminder of their own wellness insights!

Vision

(These workshop are ideal for a community organization/project/coalition at a stage of inception or renewal.)

Dig: Grounding Community Transformation in Local Resources

Based on Alexis's poem dig, this workshop is designed to get community members in touch with the secrets, issues, and resources in their own communities and to build a shared analysis of those resources as a guide for their community projects and alliances. Each community will leave with at the very least, a group poem, new clarity about their resources and projects that connect and align their existing resources. The "dig" exercise has been enacted in Greensboro, Miami, Asheville and Gainesville as part of the Grassroots Media Justice Tour.

Wishful Thinking: Vision and Actualization Based on Alexis's poem in honor of black women and survivors of sexual violence in her community and recorded as a track on the SPEAK! CD this workshop leads participants through a meditation about their desires for their local communities and communities of affinity. Participants will leave with a community wishlist and individual affirmations. To see some of the results of the version of Wishful Thinking facilitated with the Speak Media Collective at the Women and Action in the Media Conference see www.wakeupnew.blogspot.com.

Support the Work:

(all proceeds go towards Alexis's work on the mobilehomecoming project and do not include travel and accomodation. Priority will be given to institutions in Lex's home region of the North Carolina Triangle and Triad areas.)

Lectures:

Colleges and University-$1000 for lecture or poetic performance ($2500 for a lecture or poetic performance, Q&A and an additional classroom visit)

Community Center/Non-profit- $200-300 for lecture ($500 for lecture and workshop)

Autonomous Community Spaces (independent bookstores, churches etc.)- $100 for lecture(with the possibility of just passing the hat if we can also have publications for sale)

Workshops:

( each workshop will result in a publication/poem/major accomplishment for participants to keep and for the sponsor to be proud of!):

Colleges and Universities- $1000 ($3500 for a series)

Community Center/Non-profit- $300-500 (discounts for smaller or rural orgs, talk to me) ($850-1000 for a series)

Living Rooms/Kitchen Tables- $100 or gather your people, pass the hat and have some yummy food on hand and I'm there!!! (maybe I was a travelling black feminist preacher in a past life...)

All suggested prices are really suggested. Get in touch. (brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com)

We can work something out.

********************************************************************************************************************

First Ever Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind PODCAST!!!!

Check out this FIRST EVER PODCAST as part of the BrokenBeautiful Press educational campaign "Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind." Black Feminism LIVES by every means necessary.

What does it take to survive a year like 1979?

This first podcast is about the year 1979 and how the world, and black feminism began and ended in some crucial ways that year. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the Boston Murders, the Atlanta Child Murders and the Greensboro Massacre all attacking the the lives, minds and spirits of black women 1979 was a crucial year. This podcast focuses on how Audre Lorde, Alexis DeVeaux, June Jordan and Barbara Smith reach(ed) across time and space to transform the meaning of survival. (And there is some good period appropriate and anachronistic music too!)

download here:
http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/08/1979.m4a

Please leave comments here!

p.s. Sorry about the moments of outburst distortion. A sista is clearly super exuberantly excited about black feminism and promises to stay a little further away from the mic on podcast number two! :)

Ideas from the Strategy Session at AMC 2009

From the ACTIVATING AUDIENCES GROUP
*having meals with movies and conversations! (i.e. www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com)
From the THIS SHIT IS CRITICAL GROUP which talked about responding to stereotypes about women of color (cis and trans) and genderqueer folks of color by building even stronger love we have the brilliant ideas of
*The Kitchen Table reading series (okay i just appropriated that name)
-it's proposed that as folks of color fighting for gender justice across multiple communities of color we would benefit from reading together and working out some of the assumptions and divisions we have between us
-seems that the idea would be to discuss readings in our local communities, possibly have calls to discuss across space and then document our insights together online?
-articles like Andrea Smith's Three Pillars of White Supremacy were suggested...any more suggestions?
-Sydette has also suggested a database that goes along with the readings that documents the process, guidelines for working through deep issues with love and interviews with each other about the readings
-Lex offers that we could use a blog to post readings as pdf's (or links to library locations of books)
*"photo exhibit to create realistic images of what young people of color look like, not what you see on the (mainstream) media" (for example: the Alternative Windows Project by FUFA and http://www.thebeautifulproject.org/)

*How We Do Certification: "make sure we aren't just talking the talk, makes sure our orgs are rigorous and fierce and practicing what they preach, flat pay scale." Guidelines, checklists, curriculum and training for how our groups and events can be truly accessible and live up to our radical values and a space to highlight groups that aredoing this well so we can emualte. Queer Renaissance's Queer of Color and Allied (QOCA) guidelines Safe Outside the System's community summit curriculum, CripChick's accessibility list and Noemi's guide for how and why to include parents are good resources for this. This would also be useful as a standard to certify institutions like healthcare providers, public spaces that aren't necessarily movement orgs...but would help us know where we can find safe affirming space.

From the Renewable WEsources Group:

*Free anticapitalist classified list (like Craig's) - Resources like: space, software, time/volunteers, hardware, skills, etc. within a radical cis and trans women of color and genderqueer folks (only) coalition or framework.
*A network of local Public TV & Radio - a network of Radical women of color that can share content, info and mobilize national when necessary; can cover large media events that are/are not local.
*A Call to Action Network (similar to what Color of Change does...online calls to action...but with an Intersectional Gender Justice analysis)
*Tool lending space that's accessible to radical women of color and allies.

Media as Healing:
*use Cyberquilting to make local and undervalued (but priceless) work visible...especially COMMUNITY GARDENING and CHILDCARE
*a publication about self-care and well-being FOR US
*a partnership with Kindred: Healing Justice Network (http://kindredhealingjustice.org/)


So holler back to this list if you are ready to get popping on any of these specific ideas

practices from many groups...:

going off the grid for resources

one on one dialogues

spray wash youtube!

better media networking between on the ground workers and online media makers

Renewable Funding Sources - Family, Friends, In-Kind Donations, Sending letters to get support.

Young people's energy, ideas, access to new technology/media.

Writing one another into our grants to have consistent sustainable income.

Share administrative tasks/roles. For example, joint payroll, accounting, grant writing, training, web development, professional services, so on.

Acces university resources (fiscal and otherwise). Like working with campus orgs to have and pay speakers and/or teachers for workshops and lectures.
Accessing university resources via students/faculty/staff for copies, printing, access to labs, etc.

Resisting the university "big business" for change and accountability. Examples given of this happening sucessfullyresulting in jobs, and community benefits.

- University contracts require community benefits within the contract that stipulate a certain amount and/or type of jobs for the community, health care standards, money to community, other stipulated terms.

Anticapitalist (and other radical stances) in fiction films that are/are not centered on that particular stance. People should see many alternatives to the current unsustainable ways of being by accident and on purpose.

Be critical about the media you consume. Try not to consume unhealthy media.

Google maps as away to share info ex. share info about toxic industry locations, safe spaces, radical women of color identified spaces.

Speak - INCITE! - Cyberquilting Chat 6-9-09

Speak - INCITE! - Cyberquilting Chat 6-9-09

Who was there --

Nadia, Adele, Stacey, Jenny, Alisa, Zachari, Alexis

What we know about the skillshare so far--

• 3 hours and 20 minutes
• Draft description: Shawty got skills2hare! -- join your favorite radical women of color for in depth training with some of the most awesome and often overlooked tools for organizing! Facilitators will guide participants through a 40 minute hands on experience of 4 seasons of activism. We'll sit with you and each technology and help you figure out how best it can be deployed to build the work you want to do in the world! Did you know that hating can end violence against women of color? or that urban foraging creates a bright new day? That a quilt can bring about media justice? We can show you all that and more if you stop through the skillshare workshop!
• Time will be divided up into 4 "seasons" of media-making: a "bright new day" visioning season, an ending violence season, a media justice season and a nurturing long distance community season
  

What we know about the strategy session so far--

• 15 min framing/Intro creative presentation of the definition of radical women of color media
• Roughly 1 hour for strategizing in small groups
• We will trust that a lot of great ideas will emerge for break-out topics, but we will also plant a few topics
  
• One planted topic will be: building an online space for all of us to collaborate and supporting / bridging the online spaces that already exist
• We need to figure out what the other plants will be, and how many
• People will break off into whatever topic they feel called towards
  
• 10 min hot potato introductions at the end, potentially: name, where your from/org, favorite superhero
• We will pass around a video camera to collect interview introductions throughout the session ("greet your neighbor" style). We will need more than one camera in order for this to be efficient.
  
• Zachari will facilitate the 2 introduction pieces
• Alisa will be plan A for facilitating the break-out section
• We will end with a strong "Next Steps" piece which Lex may be down to facilitate.
  

Questions--

• What will the 15 minute intro piece include? Presentations from the skillshare? Examples of rwoc using media as part of grassroots organizing, such as NJ7, Be Bold, Be Red? A performance/reading of the statement on the poster? A video inspired by the poster?
  
• How do we want to generate the ideas for topics on the spot? Brainstorm on butcher paper? Give people 5 min to mingle around the room and talk to each other about potential topics, so people can gauge interest in their topic before proposing it?
  
• How much time should we leave for small groups? Should there be reportbacks? How much time should we allow for Next Steps?
  
• Who will facilitate the opening / intro part?
• Who will be plan B for facilitating the break-out section?
• What will the other plants be? How many "seedlings" do we want to have on deck? How many empty pots do we want to leave for participants to fill on the spot?
• What can we call the topics, other than "topics"? "gathering points" ? "seeds"?
• Who can draft a description of the strategy session?

INCITE! / Speak / Cyberquilting Strategy Session

Notes from April 21st 8pm conference call between members of INCITE!, Speak and Cyberquilting on structuring the strategy session to take place at the 2009 Allied Media Conference, July 17-19.

Your feedback is necessary! I know I didn't get everything so if you have more notes or context to add, please do.
--

Check-in

What SPEAK has been up to: Hosted last year's conversation with INCITE! (the first time we were Speak in public). Recorded our CD after the AMC and are now selling it! speak's vision of rwoc hub online intersects with cyberquiltings media justice patch, incites blog, and ravens eye. Listening parties.
What INCITE has been up to: Many chapters and affiliates using media (ywep research zine, creative interventions, mamis of color rising zines). Working on an Incite! blog: should it be for internal comm, resource sharing, or external rwoc organizing convergence point? we knew it must be deeply connected with woc bloggers + existing work, then began thinking of something like indymedia site, with collective posting and editing.
What CYBERQUILTING has been up to: The different patches are media justice, ending violence against woc, building a new day. Be Bold Be Red. Tested out the video-conferenceing technology, learned alot. The visibility of seeing people in real-time was electrifying. Have been experimenting with the technology. Adele and Fallon travelled to SA Assoc of Women's Rights in Development to do a CQ session. practiced saying what u have, what u need, and how we can collaborate to make it --> got 1st grant Using what you have to build what we need collectively. Got a grant to do a CQ training in Chicago. Not about creating new work, but nurturing work that's already happening. Working towards regional trainings in the 5 cities. -love letters sent to all woc orgs we <3 -cyberquilting sessions at home to see what ppl have and need locally-how to connect to incite and speak: media justice component

--

INCITE! - Speak - Cyberquilting - RWOC Community Organizers and Media Makers Strategy Session

Goal this year: strategizing around shared online spaces

> How do we build solid structures of communication?
> How to assess the skills we have in our community - and how to share them.
> How do we create safe spaces to bring up issues within our own "safe spaces" as women of color?
>Generational issues with the Internet and its possibilities
>Not only Can you build community online, but, Can you build community through media?

2 main categories of rwoc online media we're talking about:
-1- the media we as woc organizers use/want to use media to relate to each other
-2- the media we want to put out into the world to represent us

--

3 hour skillshare
90 min strategy session
a later meal-time caucus

--

for the 90 min strategy session:

Begin by presenting the definition of radical women of color media in some creative way

We want to use the definition of radical women of color media from last year as a foundation for the conversation this year. Last year there was about an hour of abstract conversation about why corporate media is fucked up. It's not necessary to dwell on what corporate media does, let's focus on empowering our people as media makers. The small group visioning sessions were much more clear and concise.

Have people give introductions

Breakout where people come up with the topics they want

Small groups

Synthesize

Closing

BrokenBeautiful Blooming!: The Spring Update

It's Spring!!! That bright, sexy season when we remember the full color of the world and everything becomes possible again! So what better way to celebrate the rebirth of the planet than to break your beautiful spirit out of its shell?

BrokenBeautiful Press (www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com) is ready for your reawakening with exciting new projects for you to check out, participate in and support.

On the move:

a queer black mobilehomecoming

BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to embark on a monumental journey in celebration of the bravery and genuis of the trailblazers of the black queer/lesbian/gender-non-conforming community. Think "black lesbian Eyes on the Prize" y'all! A year from today Alexis and Julia will be getting in an environmentally sustainable RV and hitting the road to learn, document and transmit the legacies of brave black queer warriors who have been transforming the meaning of life since the 1980's or earlier and hosting amazing intergenerational community education events all over the US. To find out more and to offer resources, advice or financial support go to: www.mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com

SPEAK!: Support Radical Mamis of Color!
BrokenBeautiful Press is proud to celebrate the birth of the most radical spoken word CD ever. Think This Bridge Called My Back in audio form! Speak Media Collective, a group of radical women of color transforming the world through new media, has launched a self-titled spoken word CD as a grassroots fundraiser to support the participation of young mothers of color in the Allied Media Conference. Help moms and kids of color travel to this national media gathering and get your mind blown at the same time. The CD includes a zine and a curriculum guide for using the CD in your community and classroom. To get your copy go to www.speakmediacollective.com

Community Education:
Combahee Survival: A Movement Revival:
In 1977 a crew of radical black socialist lesbian feminists wrote a document that changed the landscape of social justice forever. More than 30 years later young black feminists are tracking the survival of the analysis of interlocking oppressions and holistic transformation that the members of the Combahee River Collective stood for in the progressive community at large. The Combahee Survival Project is a dispersed community education project that shines light on and nurtures the seeds of a radical intersectional approach all over our social justice movement. Go to www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com to see poetic activities that draw on the words of the original statement, examples from community organizers who are still wrestling with the issues the collective raised and worksheets to use in your community, and look out for the Survival/Revival activity of the week brought to you by BrokenBeautiful Press all summer long!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind
In Durham, North Carolina (aka vanguard city, center of the universe) a growing, diverse and beautiful group of folks have gathered in the name of black feminism. With delicious potlucks to discuss key essays by black feminists, fieldtrips to hear black feminist poetry, and more we are acting on our faith that the radical work of visionaries like Claudia Jones, Angela Davis, June Jordan can inform and transform our city and our lives. And like-minded devotees in Chicago, DC and other cities have joined in. Follow along, find out about upcoming events and download free reading material at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com

Interact!!!!!

Habit Forming Love: The Video Project:
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, so your girl Alexis decided to cultivate the habit of loving herself and her people (you!) fully, bravely, loudly and proudly. What better habit could there be? Experimenting with (and teaching herself) the art of internet video production and sharing she created videos of love for self, love in community and growing love for her sweetheart. Now it's your turn! Go to www.habitforminglove.wordpress.com
to browse Lex's videos and make your own!

In Your Hands: Letters from Ancestors
Alexis started the year with a life-changing, spirit-humbling process of receiving letters from black feminist ancestors who gave loving advice, welcome reminders and sometimes difficult challenges and lessons. Read letters from Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, Lydia May Gumbs (lex's grandma), Toni Cade Bambara and more at www.motherourselves.wordpress.com and add your own letters about your communication with your chosen and familial ancestors.



It's Spring! Anything is possible, even you and the life-changing love that makes your spirit tingle and grow.

Stay fly!
love always,
BrokenBeautiful Press
brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com

Habit Forming Love!

Introducing Habit Forming Love,

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit…so on March 4th 2009 I embarked on a journey to love myself, my community and my chosen romantic partner intentionally, bravely, loudly and proudly. And now I am ready to share the results with you! In addition to teaching myself how to love, by transmitting my love via internet video I was also teaching myself how to make simple yet effective at home videos using my computer, my phone and very basic editing software and how to make those videos internet accessible.

This experiment has taught me so much. I have emerged less self-conscious about my own face, more confident about the miraculous vitality of love in all of its forms and more adept at using online video as a tool for self-expression, affirmation and community education.

The three focus areas of my project were

Self:

for example:

(Go to www.loveforself.blogspot.com to see the whole 21 day process)

Community

for example…

(Go to www.habitforminglove.blogspot.com for the whole 21 day process)

and Romantic Love

(Sorry loves…the whole process is for Julia’s eyes only wink!)

Browse the “life” “love” and “community” sections of this site to see some of my more detailed reflections on each process and more examples.

One of the most important things that this process taught me is that even an analog girl in a digital world can make compelling, effective video. I don’t have to be perfect to carry the message of love that my ancestors are speaking through me and the video doesn’t have to be perfect to carry it’s message. The magic is in the medium. Try it yourself, and email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to share!

love (is a habit),

lex

In Your Hands

Introducing In Your Hands: A Letter Receiving Project
Since love is not scarce, our ancestors bathe us in it every moment that we dare to receive.

I have learned that there are sources of nurturing that are older than us and swifter than our bodies. I am noticing that those who are no longer here in physical form are teachers in the wind, showing us how we must relate to each other, if we want to survive longer than our bodies and longer than a system that denies us.

I have been writing urgent letters to my ancestors since before I knew they were watching and on the cusp of this new year they whispered a suggestion to me. “How about for this new year, as a gift to yourself, you receive some letters from us, the spirits of women that love you from eternity?”

As ever, my answer was yes. These daily letters from the most beloved of my known and chosen ancestors on behalf of all of the ancestors who have sent us love with their lives and dreams without us knowing came at exactly the right time. When I was afraid to trust myself, I was not afriad to trust their guidance for me. I re-learned a shifting methodology of loving myself firstly as their vessel and secondly as their recipient

Here is a letter I received from Fannie Lou Hamer:

Child,

And they didn’t want me to have any. I need you to stay awake. This life is not the only one, but you are here for a reason. I feel you holding your chest, pressing down on your heart in fear and memory of how I was taken, how June was taken, how so many were taken, Lord. And I say better, you hear me, better to eat our own bodies than to give our lives over to complacency and submission on their terms. Better to become acrobats than to fit into the narrow box they have for us. But even better baby, would be to live breathing deep and free and living yourself with a healing strength of faith and vision for all of us. Even better to reach out for community so you have what you need to keep yourself whole.

You remember what I said about sick and tired and remember what we sacrificed and why. Remember that we had you in mind and heart. And you aren’t out in any field (except that homemade field of love June talks about) breaking your back all day, and don’t contort yourself into the shape of our pain. Grow and dance into the beauty of our dream for you and all of ours.

There is more love here than anything.

Eat it up while it’s hot.

Fannie Lou

And my ancestors are socialist, so of course they would ask me to share these intimate insights and gifts with you. Of course they would want me to bring their messages to your waiting ears, but more than that I want to share this practice and encourage that you engage it for yourself.

I don’t know what ancestors speak to you or why and when they do, but I have been asked to ask you to listen, lovingly for what the universe wants you to know.

Can you join me? Think of the people who have influenced you, while they were living or through their written, or retold legacies. Just think about them and let your mind relax, let their energy surround and fill you. Create quiet times in your days in case they have something to say.

I encourage you to add your insights here on the “your letters” page if your feel that what you have received could provide healing and wisdom for the rest of us. I encourage you keep your writings for yourself if you feel that they should remain private. The messages of our living dead are sacred. They transcend the norms of intellectual property, and they should be treasured by your best impulse.

My intention here is to share with you an abiding sustaining faith in presence of those who have gone before and their participation in our everyday.

I invite your observance or participation with love.

Always,

alexis