"Learn to accept love fully and to express love completely. Do nothing while doing everything. Self-care is paramount in self-empowerment. Remember who you are. Remember who you were. Remember what you must do. Do it!"
-a scroll from Black feminist same gender loving feminist spiritual leader and activist, Ifalade Ta'Shia Asanti
This Sunday after an epically bright Saturday full of cars overheating, corner preaching, gas station parking lots, auto part stores and street mechanics who would probably be surgeons in a different ecological manifestation...Julia spent Sunday getting resurrected with the sisters, aunties, mothers, gender queer uncles and brothers of the Shades Retreat in Pine Mountain Georgia. As a hymn that I have recently appropriated for the spiritual practice of black feminist self/collective/multiversal transformation says, "I Know I've Been Changed." So I want to testify, to the heat, the light and the tangible power of sacred space created by our love for ourselves and each other.
The recognition and faith in each others faces is the space that we would go through hell to get to . Pay for in countless paypal installments whenever we can, keep like a light in the center of our foreheads to remind us where we are going on hard days. We are the heaven we know about.
I want to testify that the presence of black feminist transformers of different ages and approaches is a sacred invitation to the revelation of the universe, a call for love to show up and show OUT!
With huge congratulations to Kat Williams and the Shades Retreat organizing crew....some quirky black dreamers if ever there were any, I want to give thanks for US. For the community that saves my life everyday. For the true context for eternal life. For our love.
In the year since the first annual Shades Retreat, Julia and I have visited and interviewed several of the amazing women that we met for the first time in an unassuming cabin in a not at all famous state park in Georgia we have been to their homes and met their communities. We have been able to act on and witness our belief that family is made out of the choice to take risks for each other, to believe in each other more than we believe what we have been taught is practical. We have become unstoppable, made it across the country and come back.
I know I've been changed. Because my soul gets renewed when you speak my name.
This year I have asked for help more times than in the rest of my lifetime added up. I have become a person who dances on purpose, and daily, and in public and without shame. I have become a person who prostrates on the floor greeting elders. I have become a chosen daughter and granddaughter over and over again. I have become a person who is emotionally available. I have become a person who actually takes days off (UNIMAGINABLE!), who can be still and present. I am now a person who is less and less afraid of being known as who I am. I have begun to expect you to love me anyway. Any way. I have begun to walk the unconditional.
I am grateful for the holy space that we create when we are together. And I am so humbled and honored to live in the sacred, divinely possible, miraculous space of your heart and your mind, and your recognition and your reflection. Loving you has invited me to love myself better than I ever woulda known to. I accept your love fully. I commit to expressing my love completely.
Oh what a joy. To wake up and be reborn. With you.
Love always and all days,
QBG Lex
P.S. QBG Updates!
Creating Sacred Transformative Space Online!
Dedicated: The Black Feminist Request Line of the Future!
Ask Sista Docta Love (aka Lex) a question or make a dedication via http://blackfeminismlives.tumblr.com/ask
Come Correct: Because Black Feminist Sex is the BEST Sex Ever!!!
http://bettacomecorrect.tumblr.com/
Submit your sexy brilliance or ask questions at Come Correct...the hottest tumblr ever if we do say so ourselves :)
And follow QBG on our new Tumblr site: http://quirkyblackgirls.tumblr.com/
And for sacred space IN PERSON save the dates for some amazing and mostly FREE chances to be together
May:
Towards an Intellectual History of Black Women: An International Conference
April 28-30th at Columbia University in New York City (Lex is speaking about blood, water, land and love between black women in the US, Haiti and South Africa on Friday morning at 11am!)
Register for free here: http://www.iraas.org/node/203
Everyday Brilliance: Resilience Practices from Black LGBTQ Elders
May 15th, 2pm Stone House 6602 Nicks Rd Mebane, North Carolina
email mobilehomecoming@gmail.com for more info
(http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/may-15-everyday-brilliance-resilience-practices-from-black-lesbian-elders/)
Rainbow Reclamations: Blue-"Once I Was Pregnant" (a discussion ritual for women of color and genderqueer people of color based on Ntozake Shange's choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf")
May 22 in Durham, NC place to be announced
for more info email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and see http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/lavender-rainbow-reclamations-2-love-between-us-beyond-competition-and-sacrcity/
THE 6th Annual Gemini Jam: Friday May 27th in Atlanta, GA (memorial day weekend) Celebrate with some of your favorite Queerky Black Geminis AND listen to our beloved QBG hip hip duo The Lost Bois!!!!!! We are so excited! Save the date and be in the place!
Place to be confirmed soon, to get more info or to put your name on the reminder list email quirkyblackgirls@gmail.com
June
Indigo Days: A Gathering for Black Warrior Healers (June 9-15 in Durham, NC) a free grassroots gathering, housing, childcare and food provided! For more details see: www.indigodays.wordpress.com
Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Revival Summer (Every Thursday in June at 6pm at 204 Rigsbee St. in Durham, NC) F0r 5 Thursdays in Lucille Clifton’s birth month of June we will gather as survivors of child sexual and physical abuse and sexual violence and parents and caretakers committed to ending cycles of abuse in our families and communities to do writing activities based on Lucille Clifton’s poetry and the ShapeShifter Survivor Rebirth Broadcast video series.
For more info see: http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/announcing-lucille-clifton-shapeshifter-survival-school-summer-session-2012/
or email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com
The Allied Media Conference June 23-26th at Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan! Quirky Black Convergence. Enjoy the Women of Color Skillshare, the Mobilehomecoming Elders Track and SO much more!!!! For more info and to register (see alliedmedia.org)
August
Educators save the date for the Juneteenth Freedom Academy Summer Intensive: Rituals for Classroom Presence. This is a week-long gathering especially for transformative educators. August 15-19th in Durham, NC!!!!!! email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for more info!!!!
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