The Magic of Autumn

It's Autumn, but instead of knowing that by the natural changes around me, I know it only by the date on the calendar.  Autumn is my favorite season of the year and I'm missing it this year.  September is always a reflective, melancholy time of year for me but, this year, is actually more so, in no small part due to the lack of noticeable Autumnal changes around me.

I'm on the Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica, having moved here from France in April.  I go where Life calls me, where the energy pulls me, where it lights up for me.  But, that does not mean that I don't miss the places I've left, or long for things I've known in places other than where I am.

Costa Rica is very close to the equator.  Because of this, we don't experience much difference in temperature or length of our days throughout the year.  The change of season is determined by whether it is the rainy (green) or the dry season.  Right now, it's the height of the rainy season.  It's pouring torrentially outside as I write this.  I'm hearing huge booms of thunder and seeing great cracks of lightning out my window.  The sound of the rain hitting the roof of my little cabina can be deafening.  The electricity blinks on and off.

One of the advantages of travel, and the kind of continual movement that my life has been, is that I get to know many different people and locations and types of culture and lifestyle.  There are things to discover and love, no matter where one is, but there are also places to miss, and things to long for that one has known.  I've learned that you can't really go back.  Things change, people change, we change, and even when we do go back to places where we've lived or visited before, it's never quite the same.  I've learned to do my best to enjoy each place as much as possible in the moment, because it won't come again.  I've learned to do my best to appreciate where I am while I'm there.

Right now, though, I find myself missing the change in the angle of the sun, the way the light becomes softer and more diffused in Autumn.  I'm missing the coolness coming back, the relief of the relentlessness of Summer.  I'm missing the leaves changing and the brilliant, fiery colors of Fall.  I'm missing putting on long pants, socks, and jackets again; putting duvets back onto the bed.  And, as I look forward, I'm already missing the snapping cold of Winter, the bare trees, warm drinks, hats and gloves and boots.

I miss the seasons and the friends I've known and the vistas and the ways of all the places I've ever lived.  I realize that I appreciate them all in hindsight so much more than in the times I was experiencing them on a daily basis.  This doesn't mean I was unaware of each place's, or person's beauty and value, but familiarity tends to dull our senses a bit.  Try as we might to stay present and mindful and grateful in each moment, we're not always fully successful in that effort.  Distance, memory, and difference give us a particular frame of reference that allows us a deep appreciation for what has come before.

Sometimes the aching sensitivity and intensity with which I experience Life is a burden and, at other times, it's a gift.  As with all things, there are different aspects we experience on different days and at different times.  We're able to process things differently on different days; we're focused on different things at different times.  Because Life includes all things, no day is the same.  We never know the gifts and/or the sorrows that will knock on our door on any given day.  The vast level of variation we are able to experience in one minute, let alone over longer periods of time, is what makes Life so complicated and interesting.

I'm experiencing Autumn as a memory this year.  I'm reliving all the ways I've loved it in every place I've been during this special time of year.  And, I encourage us all to enjoy wherever we are as deeply as we're able.  To drink it in and absorb it and be grateful for it.  Life is ever-changing, and the fleeting beauty of our days is something to be cherished.  I'm grateful for where I am, I'm grateful for where I've been, and I look forward to wherever Life takes me next.

I Can't Breathe

 "I can't breathe."  These are famous words now.  Words we will never forget, uttered by George Floyd just before his life was taken from him.  He said it for himself and he said it for all of us.  They are words I utter too often these days, in regard to myself.

I have experienced varying levels of asthma since my late twenties.  I'm seventy now, so that's over 50 years of difficult breathing.  The masks we must now wear because of Covid exacerbate my breathing difficulties.  I feel like I'm suffocating all too often.

Energetically, the lungs are affected by grief.  It has not gone unnoticed by me that my buried grief has been expressing itself through my congested lungs for most of my life; that my grief is so overpowering that it inhibits my breathing.

The grief I carry is complicated and many-layered.  I've managed to process some of it, but not enough to free my lungs from the burden they carry.  I might or might not ever manage it in this lifetime.  But, I continue to focus on expanding my awareness into my grief in an effort to see it fully for what it is, accept it, and love it free.  It is a life's work.

Lately, I've been thinking about Covid in regard to collective grief.  Covid is a virus that affects the lungs and stops people from being able to breathe.  "I can't breathe."  We put them on respirators, hoping that a device will be able to bridge the gap between not being able to breathe and being able to breathe on their own.  It works sometimes, but not all the time.  Sometimes the lungs just can't manage it anymore.

We each carry a lot of collective sadness.  We have perpetrated a lot of horror upon each other throughout history.  And, most of the time, life has just continued on without even a small pause to consider what has happened.  Cultures rise and fall, governments come and go, belief systems form and adapt and crumble, and all the while, the sadness just builds underneath it all.  Generations and generations of sadness.  How often has a culture or a government that rose out of horror and blood turned around to acknowledge the devastation left in its wake and to say we're sorry?  We misperceived a situation and overreacted.  We took offense to something and overreacted.  We perpetrated cruelty, pain and death over those who believed differently for centuries.  We thought we were better than those we conquered, ruled, suppressed, and enslaved.  We thought it all belonged to us.  We lacked the ability to care for our fellow human beings and all other life upon this planet.  We wanted to think we were the best.  We wanted to have it all to ourselves.  We wanted others to work for us and do our bidding without being compensated for their efforts.  We wanted to own land, people...everything.  Mine, mine, mine.

The collective shame and grief associated with millennia of aggressive greed and narcissism is a lot for all of us to bear.  It occurred to me that maybe Life gave us a pandemic that affects the lungs as an effective way to release a lot of the grief that has built up within us, all of us.  And, that a virus might be an effective way to affect and upgrade our collective DNA.  We all carry all the grief.  None of us are outside of it.  We've all perpetrated the horror.  None of us are outside of it.  It's in our genes, our DNA.  It's passed on through the generations.  We've been on both sides of the horror.  We've experienced all of it.

It might feel too big to be able to acknowledge and take responsibility for what has gone before and what is happening now.  We question what we can possibly do to affect change, release the sadness, and relieve our continuously weeping wounds.  There is a practice that I've used for many years now that is sublimely simple, yet profoundly effective.  It is called Self-I-Dentity Ho-oponopono.  It comes from Hawaii through a Hawaiian shaman named Mornah Nalamaku Simeona, who is no longer in the body, and through the work carried on by her student, Stanley Haleakala Hew Len, who is still living.  There are books and videos about it, if one is interested; but, I will give the basics of it here, that anyone can use to great benefit.

No matter what is occurring within oneself or within one's surroundings that is disturbing one's peace, sit with that in mind.  Center the self by taking a few focused breaths.  Then, the first statement one says is:  "I love you."  The "I love you" opens a field of love in which the process takes place.  The "I love you" is said to oneself, to whomever or whatever might be disturbing one's peace, to all Life.  It opens the heart.  Sometimes I have to say it a number of times before I feel I can continue to the next step.  The second statement one says is:  "I'm sorry."  The "I'm sorry" is all encompassing.  I'm sorry for anything that exists within me that would be causing this situation, disagreement, ignorance...whatever...all encompassing.  It's how we take responsibility for whatever is happening.  If something didn't exist within us, it would not be able to show itself in our 3D reality.  So, "I'm sorry."  Truly sorry.  Sometimes, at this point of the process, I weep uncontrollably for a while.  I let myself have this release and truly feel the "sorry" before moving on to the next step.  The third statement one says is:  "Please forgive me."  The "Please forgive me" is to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, to all of Life.  Please forgive me.  And, the last statement one says is:  "Thank you."  The "Thank you" accepts the process being done and complete.  It gives thanks to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, and to all of Life.  Thank you.  All is well.  It is done.  Thank you.

I'm not saying that using this process will reap instant results, although it can.  This process can be done over and over, if need be, until one finds peace.  And, if peace comes after using it once, then so be it.  There is no timeframe that can be superimposed onto it.  Peace comes in its own time.  If you have no resonance with this process, then move on.  You will find something that you will resonate with and that will be effective for you.  We have a bottomless toolbox from which to choose.

No matter what process any of us use to process our pain or help us through difficult times, I would posit that it would be beneficial to all of us if each of us could acquaint ourselves with our sadness and take responsibility for our collective situation.  It's so easy to blame someone or something else for our pain and hardship.  It's easy to blame one man, or one group of people, or one country, or one situation, or one pandemic; but, the blaming won't get us any further down the road.  The blaming will only keep us stuck.  None of us like to see ourselves as guilty, and yet we are all guilty.  We are all innocent and we are all guilty.  We are all things.  We are all capable of great compassion and love.  And, at the same time, we are capable of deep hatred and alienation.  No one is all good or all bad.  We are all wounded.  And, our unaccepted and unloved wounds cause great difficulties for the entire collective.  As we each accept and love ourselves, in spite of and because of everything we carry, we will help the collective to find peace and acceptance as well.  One person at a time.  One step at a time.  I love you.  I'm sorry.  Please forgive me.  Thank you.

The Transcendence of an Exceptional Book

I finished reading "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng this evening.  I read it slowly, until I got close to the end.  It's not the kind of book to be read quickly.  It is a book that wants to be savored, both for the writing itself, and for the story.

Some books transcend the ordinary, and this is one such book.  Both through the language and the story, one feels uplifted by the reading of it.  It is a book that triggers deep thought and that pierces deep emotion.  It is a story of love and memory, of tragedy and healing.  It is a story that has its way with those who read it, in a way that only few books manage.

I wept my way through the last few chapters.  Not because they were sad as much as that they touched my own truth and experience so deeply.  The tears were tears of surrender and recognition.  Tears for myself and tears for all of creation.

Our world is one that holds such extremes of experience.  There are times when my love for the world and the experience we are afforded by our time here is so strong that my being finds it hard to contain.  Reading this book has illicited this deeply loving response from me.  When I reach this place within myself, the love I am filled to overflowing with is unlimited and all inclusive.  I am able to look at the world with total acceptance and gratitude, both for the beauty and the horror.  It is a place within me that is able to see and receive all that life has to offer.  It is a place that is strangely quiet, with no edges or angles, only complete expansiveness.

The book reminds me of all those whom I have loved in my life and the gift each one has been to me.  Those who have gone and those who remain.  Those I have walked away from and those who have walked away from me.  Those who have hurt me and those whom I have hurt.  Those who have given to me and those who have taken from me.  Those who have enriched me and those who have left me empty.  This love extends to everyone I have ever come into contact with and had interaction with, no matter for how long or how briefly.  Each one has contributed to me in ways I have not always understood or been able to receive.  And, my life would be less without each and every one.

A book that takes me to the depths of gratitude and remembrance that this book has taken me is exceptional indeed.  It is not often that we are gifted with a book that transcends the dimensions of life and allows us to access our unlimited nature of being.  This book has done that.  This book has changed my reality.  This book has changed my perspectives and modes of thinking.  This book has lifted me up and helped me to see differently.  This book has left me better for the reading of it.

We forget sometimes how we are able to affect each other.  How what we say to each other is able to either uplift or crush the receiver of our words.  We forget how impactful our actions can be to another.  How we are able to increase them or diminish them with what we do.  We forget the power of our love and our attention.  We forget the impact of small kindnesses.  We forget the scars we are able to inflict upon another due to our carelessness and our selfishness.  We forget the wounds our own unhealed wounds can cause in another.

We are living in a time when many people have forgotten their connection and how their actions and their words are able to affect the entire collective in very hurtful ways.  In such a time, it is of primary importance for those of us who are able to remember our connection to all life, and our ability to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down, to help remind all of those who have forgotten.

It is my dream and my prayer that we are all able to remember how powerful we are and how deeply we affect those around us and the whole collective.  None of us exist in a void.  And, it is my dream and my prayer that through the remembrance of each of us we trigger remembrance and awareness in those who have forgotten.  May we all align with the oneness of all Life and live our days in love and acceptance.  May we each see this Life for the gift that it is and live our days in that knowing.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.     

Peruvian Banana

Today, I ate a banana from Peru.  I'm in France and the banana came all the way here from Peru.  It was perfectly ripe and beautiful.  I was so struck by the miracle of that that I wept.

I'll admit that I'm in a bit of a vulnerable state.  I'm at the end of a particularly difficult migraine episode.  When that is happening, I can't eat, for the most part.  My body won't take in any food, and there are only a few things that I'm able to get down, a banana being one of them.  I haven't had any, and finally felt good enough to go to the store today and get some.  In the store they stood out to me, like someone had dramatically lit them in special light.  But, no, it was just their own internal light shining through.  Beautiful, yellow, ripe bananas.  I stood there speechless while I took in their gorgeousness before picking a bunch to take home.

I'm not always so emotional about my food, but maybe I should be.  I don't always remember to say grace before eating, but I know it makes a difference to do so.  I am so grateful for all the people who grow and transport and sell the delicious food that reaches me and allows me to support my body with nutrients that sustain my life.

I'm fully aware that the bananas that came to me in France from Peru were grown by some corporate farming entity.  And, I'm grateful to that entity.  I do think that corporate farming has gotten too big and out of control, and I know there's a balance in regard to making it work at its best that we haven't reached yet; and, that said, I'm deeply grateful for the food that's grown for the collective of humanity by corporations that have forgotten the fullness of the sacred service they provide and have let greed take over.

We're in a process of the crumbling of the old paradigm.  What we built wasn't working in the highest good for most of us.  And, new systems and ways of doing things that are better for everyone need to be put into place.  But, we don't necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Some things will need to be created anew from the ground up.  And, some things can be adapted and improved upon while utilizing what's already there.  Corporate farming needs a big overhaul, but there's probably a middle way that will serve us all the best.  And, I think it's probably a good idea to try to follow a middle way in regard to all the changes that must take place in our world in order for us to come back to a way of living that supports the planet and all life upon her.

Grocery stores are miraculous.  Farmer's markets are miraculous.  I can't thank the people who produce, transport, and sell the food most of us eat enough.  And, I'm also very grateful for all the people who grow their own food.  There's not much that's more essential than food production and transportation.  I look forward to the day when all the food is grown organically, and is plentiful, and we collectively make the decision to feed the whole world.  I look forward to the day when starvation is a thing of the past, when no one on the planet ever has to go hungry.

For now, I'm grateful for my beautiful Peruvian banana and all the food that nourishes me.  Next time you eat something, give a moment of thought to what it took for it to be in your hand, or on your fork, and send out a "thank you" to everyone who had anything to do with it.   

The Gift of Acceptance

I'm reading "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng, reommended to me by a friend.  Before that, I read "The Gift of Rain," also by Tan Twan Eng, and also recommended to me by the same friend.  These books have touched me deeply and, through the labyrinth of their words, ordered and organized in their particular pattern, and carrying the energetic transmission of their author, have triggered awarenesses in me that are new and revelatory.

In "The Gift of Rain," a couple of sentences uttered by the character of Aunt Yu Mei, stopped me in my tracks:  "Who can look back and truly say all his memories are happy ones?  To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation."

As all of us do, I have memories that are painful, shameful, and regrettable.  I have judged these events, and the memories of them, and judged myself for actions taken and decisions made and carried out with less than loving intentions.  I have allowed myself to feel like a victim, to feel helpless and hopeless, and to blame others.  I just couldn't stop myself from judging the past, even though I know it to be destructive.  I've been haunted, limited, and paralyzed by certain memories for my whole life.  Those memories, and my perception and judgment of those events, have entrapped me.  My journey into energetic healing was prompted by my desire to free myself from these entrapments.  I grew through it, expanded through it, gained some relief through it, and gained some acceptance of myself through it, but didn't find the freedom through it that I sought.  The wounds lived on, and the physical reflection of those wounds continued.

What it's taken me most of my life to realize is that we never heal, at least in the way I had thought of healing.  Healing doesn't mean we are able to let something go, to release it, or to move on from it.  Healing, as I see it now, means to accept the wound, to give it space, to love it, to honor it, to incorporate it.  Our acceptance of ourselves, and everything that has happened in our lives, all of it, is the key to peace, which I see as healing.  Acceptance is the gateway to gratitude, which leads to peace.

I've struggled with acceptance.  I've struggled with what it is and with how to do it.   There are things in my life that I just couldn't find acceptance for, until I read the sentences uttered by Aunt Yu Mei above.  Somehow, those sentences managed to slide past my resistance and judgment, and acceptance opened up for me through the grace of those words.  Suddenly, I was filled with gratitude for everything in my life without judgment.  The gratitude just came flooding in, unbidden.  And, thankfully, it has not abated.

There is a line from "The Garden of Evening Mists" that struck me, contributing in the same vein as Aunt Yu Mei's sentences from "The Gift of Rain."  A character is remembering a quote from a poem recited to her by a character no longer living, but which has stuck with her for many years, since the moment of the recitation:  "Though the water has stopped flowing, we still hear the whisper of its name."  And, it made me think about how the whispers of our pasts can be so numerous and so loud, that living in the present is not possible.  Our unaccepted wounds, and the memories of them, refuse to be forgotten and pushed away.  They whisper to us so we won't forget them.  They whisper to us asking for acceptance.  They whisper to us asking for space, to be acknowledged for their contribution to who we are in this now.  Until we are ready and able to hear them, really hear them, and acccept them, we remain prisoner to their whisperings.

We think of memory as being linear, but it might be more helpful if we could allow it to be circular.  The shape of our galaxy, and of our energetic beings, is a tube torus.  It's like a big donut, and the energy cycles through it, never ending.  Each and every experience we've had, throughout all creation, gets added into our energetic field, our tube torus.  We are increased and expanded by everything we experience.  As humans, in this 3D frequency we currently inhabit, we tend to judge experiences as good and bad.  We want to hang on to the "good" ones and forget the "bad" ones.  But, without judgment, everything becomes unburdened experience and expansion, contributing to our growth through our acceptance and inclusion of it.  Memory is the way we value what has happened, in the way that grief is the way we value the loss of what we love.  Memory helps us to be grateful for all that has contributed to the creation of us being who we are.

When humans come to the end of their embodiments, they often seem to focus more and more on their pasts.  If you sit with someone at the end of their time here, they often want to reminisce about their life.  It is a great service to them to listen, to really listen.  By their reminiscense, they are honoring their experiences and the shape of their embodiment.  And, by listening, we are able to give them validation and acceptance.  They are passing on their knowledge and their wisdom through the gift of sharing their memories and, by hearing their memories, we are expanded and increased.  We become recepticles for what should not be lost.  We accept and allow their stories to then live in and through us, to contribute to us and to the whole collective.

The scientist, Nassim Haramein, says that it is memory that creates time.  And that, without memory, there is no time.  That might be true.  But, I think memory exists outside of time.  I think our memories, once accepted and incorporated into our being, always exist in the now.  The core and the essence of our being, the part of us that is eternal Life, is forever increased and expanded by our experiences, and the memory of those experiences is the repository of their value and contributes to our wholeness and the upliftment of all creation.

With true acceptance, forgiveness is not an issue.  Through acceptance, forgiveness happens.  It is a by-product of acceptance.  Acceptance overrides judgment, resentment, and blame.  Acceptance frees us and allows the full flow of Life to move through us unencumbered.  Acceptance brings peace and gratitude.  Acceptance brings understanding and compassion.  Acceptance is inclusive, honoring and loving.  Acceptance opens the space for all the split-off parts of us to come home.  Acceptance happens in the now and is the essence of truth.

When one is at a point where one is able to receive a knowing, that knowing will come to us through whatever means necessary and possible.  Grace uses everything to bless us.  Since all Life is sacred, all Life is a vehicle of and for the Divine.  The vehicles for my ability to finally understand and expand into acceptance were two books recommended by a friend.  It is never too late.  We are never past redemption.  We are never lost.  We are never alone.  Peace and grace are always there.  We are never abandoned.  And, we can open into acceptance in an instant.  One tiny shift in perception and we are there.

Quiet Joy

The demon voices in my head have softened over the years.  Their grooves of influence worn deep, they continue to babble, but their effect is of no real consequence anymore.  I’ve ignored them long enough, while allowing them to continue their litany, that they don’t even expect me to listen at this point.  But, babble they must, and babble they do.  Bla, bla, bla…  It’s like white noise in the background.

For years, the voices in my head that drove me forward ruled my existence.  I didn’t know they weren’t me.  I didn’t know they weren’t true.  I didn’t know I could ignore them.  I didn’t know my own voice, or whose voice I would hear if I did ignore the voices.  Or, would I hear a voice at all?  What would life be like if actual choice could happen?  What would life be like if I was free from their influence?

I just finished reading a book by Bryce Courtenay called “The Power of One.”  It’s a novel set in South Africa during and after the second World War.  It’s about a young man growing up in this time, the influences that shaped him, and how he grew into a man and set himself free of the demons of his past that drove him.  It’s a very well-written book and got me to thinking about the demons and voices that have driven me for much of my life.

The current stage of my life is a simple, quiet one.  I have lots of time alone and plenty of time for reflection.  A peace often comes upon me unbidden, I just sit—or, sometimes walk--and commune with the sounds and sights of my surroundings.  I haven’t always been able to be as present with the immediacy of my days.  It is a gift of grace.  This is not my constant state.  I can still get pulled into the effect of things that take me out of presence.  But, I’m better at being present than I used to be, and I notice it more often than I used to, and I’m grateful for it when it happens.

I’m not a formal meditator.  Meditation, for me, is more a communion with Life wherever I am.  But, this kind of surrender has been traditionally more illusive than it’s become in recent years.  Sinking into Life, instead of running in front of it, is much more familiar territory now.  I no longer bear guilt born of pleasure.  I no longer push myself forward out of some need to feel that I am enough or to matter or to be seen.  These things hold no further ability to drive me.

Today was the first day of daylight savings time in the US, although here in Europe, it won’t happen for another couple of weeks.  But, it felt like Spring today.  The temperature was mild and I opened the door to my terrace and sat and read in my loggia.  I could hear the sounds of cars and motorbikes on the street a few blocks away.  I heard the birds singing and talking to each other.  There was a voice talking over a loudspeaker announcing something of which I had no awareness.  There were clouds in the sky and a breeze blowing through the still bare branches of the mulberry tree in the yard below me.  My cat, Sophie, sat curled up beside me, and gratitude for the peace that enveloped my heart filled me.

Joy has been a very illusive experience in my life for a long time, but it is starting to creep in very subtly.  For so long I had some concept of joy that kept me from it.  I now think joy is a result of presence, that it comes from a surrender into life and the gratitude that is a result of that surrender.  This joy is quiet and warm and fills my empty spaces.  It is not something to strive for, or that is the result of anything I might or might not do.  It’s more about my acceptance of life and what it holds.  It’s about a lack of resistance.

There might come a time when I am moved to change the way I live my life or the place in which I live it.  Life is like that.  Change comes.  But, for now, I am grateful for things exactly the way they are.     

"I Am Not Your Negro"

I just saw the film "I Am Not Your Negro" by Raoul Peck.  It is about James Baldwin and Negros in the United States.  It was inspired by James Baldwin's unfinished novel, "Remember This House," which looked at the issue of race in America through the lives and impact of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is a brilliant film, and is a knife to the heart.

This film made me realize how much we are the product of the culture in which we are brought up, the lens we are taught to view life through, the values we are entrained to by our families; how imprinted we are in ways both large and small by our surroundings, what we see and what we hear, what we are encouraged toward or discouraged from.  I do not consider myself a racist.  I was brought up in a liberal family, in a city that was racially diverse, to believe that all people are equal.  I still believe that, but I also realize that, as much as I'd like to deny it, racism rears itself within me.  It's subtle and can still be unconscious and, as an adult, I'm more aware of it and more able to recognize and override it, but it's there.

My father held and practiced the most liberal view between my parents.  My mother had racist views that she mostly tried to hide, but instilled within me none the less.  A whispered word here or there.  A warning given.  An action taken.  Children are very observant, and my mother's behavior affected and shaped me, as did my father's.  A certain fear was instilled, erroneous perspectives handed down, ways of being taught.  I'm a combination of my father's acceptance and liberalism, and my mother's fear and closet racism.

I'm an adopted child and am descended from the Native American Southern Cheyenne tribe.  The pure Native American blood was a few generations back, but my mother at one point admitted to me that she had worried that I would look "like an Indian" when I grew up.  She was afraid that my skin would turn too brown, that my eyes would darken, that my nose would become too prominent, that any number of things she deemed "Indian" would make themselves obvious in my appearance.  How strange to tell your child these things.  How strange to burden a young mind with these types of distinctions.  These concerns from my mother in terms of what I looked like, and therefore how I reflected upon her and who she was, were only the tip of the iceberg in terms of inappropriate things she decided to share with me as I was growing up.  I've often looked back and wondered what she might have been thinking when making the choice to so negatively impact me.  But, I've come to think that it wasn't a conscious decision on her part to inflict damage.  It was just who she was and she didn't realize that some restraint and discretion in terms of what she told me might have been prudent.

There are images in "I Am Not Your Negro" that are painful to see.  I was born in 1950.  I remember what was going on racially in the fifties and sixties.  Memories of injustice and violence will always be with me.  But, it's not all in the past.  The film helps us realize that, as much as we'd like to think we're farther along than we are in terms of racism, it is still very much alive.  The backlash of those who were so threatened by the election of a black President of the United States is being felt right now.  President Obama and President Trump are two ends of the spectrum.  The conservative pendulum has swung back with a vengeance.

The United States is a country built on slavery, racism, greed and genocide.  These are things that can not be denied.  We all carry this legacy in our very DNA.  We've been shaped by it and continue to be shaped by it.  And, in large part, it continues because there is such denial in our culture about these influences.  Awareness is the first step toward change.  And, in order to change the racial, power-over-others, mentality that pervades the United States, we must become aware that it's operating and how it impacts everything.  None of us are innocent.  We're all responsible for the culture of our country.  We're all complicit in how our culture is shaped by what we allow and what we don't, by what we condone and what we punish, by what we encourage and what we discourage.  Each and every one of us must look within and root out the causes of our own contributions to our continuing racist, power-over-others society.

The question James Baldwin says that each of us must ask ourselves is, "Why do we need niggers?"  What does it say about us and our society that it was built on such inequality, such disregard for our fellow humans, such a lack of respect for Life itself?  How did it ever become acceptable for one human to own another?  What makes it possible for one human to perpetrate violence upon another and excuse it due to a difference of skin color...or sexual orientation, or religion, or economic status, or gender, or any number of issues?  The list is long.  Why must we put ourselves above anyone for any reason in order to make ourselves feel better?  Why do we have such a difficult time with those who are different than we are, on any level?  Why is it so hard to accommodate a difference of opinion, or way of life?  What is the fear that makes us want a homogeneous society?  These are some of the questions that are in front of us.  How are we to go forward as a country?  What values are important to us?  Who are we as Americans?  What is it we want for ourselves?

James Baldwin moved to France and lived in Paris for many years.  In the film, he says that by doing so he was able to eliminate the terror of racial violence that he lived with every day on the streets of the United States.  He says that he didn't miss the United States at all.  But, what he did miss was his family, and black culture itself.  And, he was ultimately drawn back to the United States because he felt it was his destiny to be a witness to and document the stories and issues of the racism of the society out of which he came.

I live in France now; not for the same reasons that James Baldwin did.  But, I do understand the freedom from racial violence he experienced while he was here, even though I am not black and can't even begin to know the level of fear he did.  But, when violence is present, it affects people of all races and persuasions.  It is absolutely true that violence to any one of us is violence to all of us.  In a society where violence is as prevalent as it is in the United States, everyone lives in fear.  For some that fear runs deeper than for others.  For some that fear is denied.  But, it is present, and it affects all levels of life.

The United States is in crisis.  Many of our traditional values are at risk; values that have been held so dear they've been written into our Constitution.  Much of what shapes our identity as Americans is in question.  Our present trajectory, which continues to be based in racism, violence and greed, will only create our ultimate destruction; and, due to our global impact, the possible destruction of our planet.  I'm not being dramatic.  According to many scientists of varying disciplines, we have already crossed the threshold of destruction from which there is no return.  But, I remain an optimist.  I still believe in miracles.  I still think it's possible to turn it around.  We just have to decide to do it.  We have to decide what is really important.  We have to decide that our planet and our values are worth what it will take to initiate and sustain the change necessary to pull ourselves back from the brink of destruction and learn to accept each other and work together for the common good.

We are at a choice point that is writ large for each and every one of us.  Racism and violence and a fear of diversity are pieces of the pie.  We've pushed ourselves into a corner where the decisions we make now will not only affect the generations that will come after us, but the very life of the planet herself.  I'm not sure why humans need a crisis in order to change, but here we are.  This is no time to deny or hide or think things can either go on the way they are or go back to what they once were.  No.  This is a time for awareness, responsibility, creativity and change.

The old ways are dying.  New ways are being born.  Old patterns of power, greed and destruction are leaving as those who hold them die and take them off the planet.  Children who are wired for this change are being born and bringing with them new solutions to old problems.  Our society seems to be doing a very good job of trying to suppress the difference and the brilliance of these children, but it is a losing battle because the new Life will prevail upon the old.  There is a lot to be done, and a short time in which to do it, but I remain convinced it's possible.  Humans love the last-minute save.  We love the drama of pulling it all back from the edge.  Well, we've created a doozy for ourselves this time, and the clock is ticking, but I'm convinced we're going to make it.

If you have not seen "I Am Not Your Negro" I would highly recommend watching it.  It's a wonderful, intelligent and thought-provoking work.  It will move you and touch you and challenge you.  Allow yourself to open to all that it triggers within you.  Thanks Raoul Peck.  And, thanks James Baldwin, for all you were and are...wherever you are.  You're still reaching through and teaching us and lifting us up.  On wings of angels, Brother!