Una Navidad feliz

I spent some of Christmas singing with my mother. Songs I learned last year in Peru (Navidad, oh Navidad. Vive siempre en mi pensar.... Que bueno es saber que pronto nacerá....Brilla estrella.....). Songs I've heard my mother sing (Belén, campanas de Belén....). And new ones I didn't know out of an old song book my mother brought with her from Nicaragua when she first arrived in the US, given to her my her younger sister, Nhordia.

It was beautiful. 

A song I wish to share with you, not from the Christmas song section, but from the Cantos Nicaraguenses. Think about it. =)

Cristo Ya Nacio en Palacaguina

En el cerro de la Iguana
montaña adentro de las Segovias
se vió un resplandor estraño
como una aurora de media noche,
los maizales se prendieron, los
quiebra-plata se estremecieron
llovió luz por Moyogalpa, por
Telpaneca y por Chichigalpa.

Cristo ya nació en Palacaguina
de Chepe Pavón y una tal María,
ella va a planchar muy
humildemente, la ropa que goza la
mujer hermosa del terrateniente.

Las gentes para mirarlo se
rejuntaron en un molote, el
Indio Joaquin le trajo quesillo
en trenza de Nagarote. En vez
de oro, incienso y mirra, le
regalaron – según yo supe –
cajetitas de Diriomo y hasta
buñuelos de Guadalupe.

Jose el pobre jornalero se
mecateya todito el día, lo
tiene con reumatismo el tequio
de la carpintería.
María sueña que el hijo igual
que el tata sea carpintero,
pero el cipotillo piensa:
"mañana quiero ser Guerrillero."

A prayer

I just found a prayer card that was given to me by my mother when I left Los Angeles for Milwaukee. I would like to share it with you. It is remarkably accurate to how I have been blessed in Milwaukee thus far. Mamita, what did you know that I didn't? =)

May God bless you with discomfort with easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equity and peace. 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and be with them to hold their pain. 

And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done. 

Amen. 

To everyone who is worried about me

I've recently had a whole slew of people contact me in one way or another genuinely worried about how I am doing. Calls from friends, emails from acquaintances, that kind of thing. It's fascinating to me because I'm really doing fine, well even. Do I have a lot of stuff I'm working through? YES. Do I have a lot of healing to do and be? Definitely. Am I struggling with the oppression of white supremacy and racism? Of course. But I'm doing well. I've been through much worse. My capacity to hold myself, to hold my feelings lovingly and to be in the discomfort, and to stand in the fire and not shrink back has not been overwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, it's tough and I'm tired. But I'm good and I'm nowhere near giving up. I am blessed to have support, too. (Thank you, Marcia, Shelly, Yvette, James, Peggy, Tia, Ramsey and all the prayers that I know my mother sends my way)

What is really fascinating to me, though, is that people really started to worry about me when I started talking about white people. I can't know what is going on for each individual person, but I think there is a general trend happening here. Here's my shot at it.

People in this country are generally terrified of talking about racism, white people in particular, but for people of color too. For people of color it brings up trauma and it makes us uncomfortable because we have been taught to take care of white people. For white people I think it brings up white guilt for being an oppressor and a lot of confusion and fear (I'm sure its more complicated than that, though). Even the term 'white people' makes people uncomfortable because white people are hardly ever identified by their race. There are African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans.... and Americans? Why don't we call them White Americans, or European Americans? Because white people are thought of as "normal' and "raceless" and by the same token everyone else is "abnormal. " Let the discomfort commence.

So I think part of what is happening is that people read my blog, feel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, and then project that discomfort on me and think there is something wrong with me, or something overwhelming me. I've seen this happen before, and the last time it happened there were some severe consequences for me. So, to those of you who are worried about me, I offer you some questions to ask yourself to really dig deeply into what is going on in you when you read me write about white supremacy. Sit with the questions for a while. Feel where they manifest in your body. Hold them. Understand them. And be gentle but urgent with yourself.

What words make you uncomfortable? Why do those words make you uncomfortable?
What on my blog triggers you? Why does it trigger you? What feelings come up?
What are you resisting?
(White people) Do you feel guilty? Why do you feel guilty? What do you do with that guilt? How can you move away from acting out of guilt?
(People of Color) Do you feel a need to protect white people? Why? What's that about for you?
When do you talk about race? If you don't, why not? What is uncomfortable about it for you?
What is your experience with race in the United States? Where do you and your ancestors come from? In what ways have you benefited from systemic racism and/or in what ways have you suffered from it?

None of us chose what race to be born into. None of us. But ALL of us, Brown, Black, Red, Yellow and White, inherited the baggage of our race. And we ALL must choose to heal.



So come with me now.

if

If you stop and check yourself, find the worms that digest your food, cut yourself open to get them out but you didn't even know they were there.

If you stop and crack your thumbs and see your face in your feet. Dig heels into necks contorted by ignorance.

Your power has given you ignorance.

My face reminds you of what you hate about yourself. My presence scares you because you do not know who you are.

You have never had to.

If I dig my nails into my stomach and cut myself open until the worms fall out. You fed them to me. And I ate them of my own will. I had to eat something. I had to survive. I didn't know that to survive I had to medicate my soul until it stayed within the lines.

The worms. At least I know they are there. I can dig into my gut and release the maggots before they eat me from the inside out. No wonder my gut is inflamed.

The taste of worms is so familiar I don't notice.

I'm starting to notice.

And choosing to notice.

And choosing to dig my nails into my depths and releasing the worms that eat my gut alive. And choosing to flax oil fiber fruit my insides until they might choose to heal.

If you fill a room with worms, is it possible to breathe without breathing them in? They crawl into my nostrils and I choke.

I'm okay with the mess but not with the hatred.

None of us chose this exactly. It was given to us.