Good morning y’all,
Today I woke up with James Baldwin on my heart, which isn’t unusual for me. He seeded some of the most foundational organizing architectures of my life and has been an unparalleled (r)evolutionary force in my becoming. His exquisite and uncompromising relationship to the commitments required of us in this human life grounds me in kinship.
This man-made wold is so committed to relegating the artist to insanity… when the irony is, we are all artists. Baldwin was a critical force in normalizing the agony and ecstasy of fully feeling. Reminding us that nothing about that is insane. What is? Normalizing the contrived constructs that manufacture suffering and compound hardship.
Baldwin, like any artist living in their integrity, sought to wake the collective up. He gave prolific testimony on having the courage to confront oneself as quite possibly the only portal to actually alleviating the chaos we see all around us – instead of masking our pain through projection, whether that’s upholding a facade of petty politeness or villainizing some fabricated “other” because it’s too hard to look at ourselves, at our inheritances, at our truths, and to live with responsibility to the human condition. Baldwin doesn’t shame us, he brings us to account with a kind of love for humanity that would lift us into our higher selves if we could open ourselves to it. Baldwin was/is a constant invitation to be in our humanity, to allow everyone their humanity, to watch the world change through that choice.
Here is an invitation to a stunning speech I revisit at least twice a year:
In the spirit of Baldwin, poetry has held some of the most tender territories within me that ask me to bring my brave self forward. Today I speak about grief and about love. Perhaps one of the most potent places within the intersecting landscapes of both grief and love exists between what we feel, and what we can express. I want to close that gap in a way that transmutes, not transmits, whatever pains we feel – from unprocessed toxicity to integrated medicine, from wounds to wisdom.
I would love to hear your reflections on the poems, on James, on any of it, if you’d be keen to share and come a bit closer in to this weekly fireside.
With undefended heart, til next time.
Rach
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