Tuesday, February 10, 2009

In Your Hands


Introducing In Your Hands: A Letter Receiving Project
Since love is not scarce, our ancestors bathe us in it every moment that we dare to receive.

I have learned that there are sources of nurturing that are older than us and swifter than our bodies. I am noticing that those who are no longer here in physical form are teachers in the wind, showing us how we must relate to each other, if we want to survive longer than our bodies and longer than a system that denies us.

I have been writing urgent letters to my ancestors since before I knew they were watching and on the cusp of this new year they whispered a suggestion to me. “How about for this new year, as a gift to yourself, you receive some letters from us, the spirits of women that love you from eternity?”

As ever, my answer was yes. These daily letters from the most beloved of my known and chosen ancestors on behalf of all of the ancestors who have sent us love with their lives and dreams without us knowing came at exactly the right time. When I was afraid to trust myself, I was not afriad to trust their guidance for me. I re-learned a shifting methodology of loving myself firstly as their vessel and secondly as their recipient

Here is the first letter I received, from June Jordan:

june_jordanFor Alexis:

Kiss the corners of your face for me. Curlicue the edges of your hair. Your heart is a place for writing the word yes, and you will say no outloud for yourself and this planet when you must.

I will be the bravery, okay let’s be real, the righteous outrage, of waking up and bringing a whole bunch of sleeping mf’s with you.

It’s the littlest ones that overflow with defiance, because we have to. We fit into the cracks this world makes on the bodies and land of the silenced and it is that intimacy, filling, rubbing up against oppression, feeling the jagged spaces with our own constricted breathing, imprint of limitations on our lungs, that makes us scream.

Audre told you. Your anger is not an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is an atomic bomb. Your voice is the bell of our spirits in the world, clanging rememberance of what whole feels like and what it would look like if we, the planet, really got our stuff together.

When will you seize the world around you with your freedom? NOW and NOW again.

You know I don’t write long letters, and thanks to the technology of heart I don’t have to type this (yes!)

I love you in every piece of your growing soul.

Always,

June

And my ancestors are socialist, so of course they would ask me to share these intimate insights and gifts with you. Of course they would want me to bring their messages to your waiting ears, but more than that I want to share this practice and encourage that you engage it for yourself.

I don’t know what ancestors speak to you or why and when they do, but I have been asked to ask you to listen, lovingly for what the universe wants you to know.

Can you join me? Think of the people who have influenced you, while they were living or through their written, or retold legacies. Just think about them and let your mind relax, let their energy surround and fill you. Create quiet times in your days in case they have something to say.

I encourage you to add your insights here on the “your letters” page if your feel that what you have received could provide healing and wisdom for the rest of us. I encourage you keep your writings for yourself if you feel that they should remain private. The messages of our living dead are sacred. They transcend the norms of intellectual property, and they should be treasured by your best impulse.

My intention here is to share with you an abiding sustaining faith in presence of those who have gone before and their participation in our everyday.

I invite your observance or participation with love.

Always,

alexis