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As I approach the day of my birth
(June 30), I sit with questions. How do we take care of each other? How do
we take care of the planet? How do we take care of the fragments of the
earth, otherwise known as us? With all this talk of recycling, global
warming and sustainability, we must also know that emotional,
psychological and spiritual sustainability are part of the cause that we
are fighting for. What does it mean to do the least harm to ourselves, each
other and the planet?
More and more, I am accepting that my
healing is my cause, my commitment and my service. I am diligently working
to rewrite the internalized script that I am less than whole. Many times,
my intention of being less than who I was, was to
give and receive love. Sometimes, I looked for love in moldy places, broken
down cars, abandoned buildings and in between cracks of couches as if to
say, "Where is love, I know it is here somewhere?!" I did not
realize love was in me the whole time.
I feed myself a teaspoon of honey, to
sweeten the self-judgment on my tongue and tell the story of unconditional
love and acceptance of myself, to myself. I did the best I could with what
I had. We all did. With my eyes softened towards myself, I can see you. As
you tell yourself the story of unconditional love and acceptance, I can
hear you and you can hear me too. We share wine from a full bottle. This is
how we love in present time.
Yes, it is this separation from the
truth of who I really am, this move from my
authentic center that, allows me to feel separate from you, the earth and
ultimately Creator. As I see myself mirrored in the world, I know that it
is a sense of internal separateness that leads to large land fills,
environmental racism, drive by shootings, domestic violence, mass greed and
over consumption, 'isms' and war-internal, domestic and global. There is
abundant evidence of hurt in multiple manifestations in the media, in
diverted eyes of random strangers who are too afraid to connect and in the
stories we tell to ourselves, about ourselves.
I trust as we raise our lanterns in
the dark, we make our way home to our authentic center, our truth, our
power, our beauty, our softness, our radical need for each other. I trust
as we make our way through grassy fields with barren feet, we create a path
for the world to follow.
Towards Healing,
Kisha
The theme for this e-newsletter is
Healing Separation:
Prose: Afraid of the Dark- On disrupting
the inheritance of racism in our children: http://www.kishamontgomery.com/prose.htm
Blog: Trees-On getting lost in forests of
self-deception: http://blog.kishamontgomery.com
Podcast: What Color is Green? In this podcast, bay area activist Christopher Maeda-Pease and
I discuss the dynamics of being black, brown and green in the context of
mainstream environmental movements: http://podcast.kishamontgomery.com
Digital film: Wanamakuka's
Daughter:
I wanted to challenge
myself to see if I could put together a short film in a day: http://www.kishamontgomery.com/digital-media.htm
Film Summary: A film
about right livelihood and doing the least harm as represented by the life
of women entrepreneur Wanamakuka. Wanamakuka lived in the 1700's and prospered by using
porters in a trade business. She prospered without using slaves. This is
filmed on location in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
Bagamoyo was one of the sites of slavery in East Africa. Bagamoyo
translates to, 'lay your heart down'.
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