This poem is, among several things, a celebration of Black creators in whose works we are reminded of our beauty and dignity. Their creations are our mirrors – the reflection is truth.
Black Dignity, 2020
This Burden/This Strength (for Ahmaud)
This Burden/This Strength (for Ahmaud)
by Tiffany Nicole Fletcher
1.
My sisters and I bear a strange burden:
we anticipate, we push back this ghost of fear,
we take in the story of the latest one and we steel ourselves—
we manage the threat of a silent war.
Even those who don’t believe find themselves offering supplication
to the Most High
to cover their sons and brothers fathers and uncles—
cover my grandfather and husband, they pray.
That they would not be hunted down like dogs and killed,
that they would not end up martyrs because of the fears of small men.
Quarantine Spring 2020
Quarantine Spring 2020
by Tiffany Nicole Fletcher
What is survival
What is eating and drinking
is it having paid work
is it being able to go outside at whim
is it having love?
How do we measure the worth of our days
what is the sound of overcoming
Of all of our efforts, what is it that lasts—
what remains;
which fiber, which thread we’ve woven
cannot be torn?
Love is an element—
burning, cleansing, enveloping, steadying:
a force,
a purifier,
a solid ground.
An opening, a freedom—a hope;
a hope that our days
will have counted for something
in the end.
We are entering the eternal
where communion becomes greater than consumption
and we are made new again.
Spring has emerged and all of Earth is singing that
we are ripe for remaking.
Listen,
the center is forming now.
Facing Challenge, Healing, Nature, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Wellness
Rooted in the Source: Spiritual Connection and Resilience
One of the most important things you can do right now is to locate your true Source and keep drinking from that well. In “normal” (non-pandemic) times, we enter into our relationships and lean on each other to varying degrees, ebbing and flowing in that way based on who has energy to give, the dynamics of our relationships, how we manage stress, etc. But in these times, everyone is under intense, chronic stress in different ways. Everyone is a pot leaking water, and you are a pot leaking water, too – so if you need to truly be refilled and replenished like never before, you can’t look to another leaking pot. You have to go back to the water source.
Continue ReadingThe Crucible: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Experience is Like the Spiritual Awakening Process
Yesterday I had the realization that many aspects of this COVID-19 pandemic experience are similar to what it’s like to go through the process of spiritual awakening.
To be called into a spiritual awakening usually entails finding yourself in some kind of retreat from the world you’ve known. As you go deeper into the process, there are periods where you can feel like you’ve been closed off in a solitary interior room, for a time frame that you have no control over. Some people are actually physically isolated from others during the process, whether by leaving a familiar community, loss of relationships, or by undergoing a drastic change in life direction. Sometimes illness is the cause of this retreat from “normal life.” The temporary isolation is necessary and protective.
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