A Revolution of Love

I often distract myself with the thoughts and words of others to avoid the painful process of trying to understand and articulate my own.
It is a cowardly act, I know, but through my yoga practice I've been exploring being with discomfort. Breathing through it, in fact, has help me find a little more space within my own being to begin to explore my truth and my words.
I don't recall the moment off the top of my head, but I do remember it was while I was living in Philadelphia that I came up with the phrase, "Love's Revolt". At first it was to represent a non existent art form that I had yet to express. I'm not a traditional artist (in fact what artist is, but I digress). I don't have musical talents. I cannot draw, and my dancing is questionable. Although I have always enjoyed writing. I know that being a writer is also an art, but my writing was not creative, more journalistic, so I did not categorize it as artistic in nature.
At the time I developed this phrase I was dabbling in decoupage and collages. I "up cycled " a coffee table and designed a collage on it. This, I thought, would be the prototype of what was Love's Revolt. But to no avail. I actually stop decoupaging all together. So now I was stuck with this idea with nothing to define it. I knew it would represent some form of art that I was later to imagine and develop, but in that moment, it was left in the fallopian tubes of my unfertilized artistic womb.
And then I found yoga. Not just my personal practice, but I became a yoga teacher. While teaching my classes I enjoyed using soul music as the soundtrack for the class. And the phrase, Love's Revolt emerged again, strongly, with a passion. So I named my offering of yoga, Love's Revolt Yoga. It has stuck and grown. I developed a simple website with that name and have identified myself as a yoga teacher under that name.
But yet, I don't feel like this is the final maturation of this term. For me, it still feels deficient. That my yoga practice is not enough to feel the space in defining this idea of Love's Revolt. And maybe I need to do more internal soul search to completely understand what this idea means.
Love's Revolt. Love's Revolution. Can they be interchangeable? I want them to be, but I'm not sure if they give off two different meanings.
For me Love's Revolt is a declaration of war. A manifesto declaring an end to hate, intolerance, but most importantly, indifference and suffering. It is an expression of humanness. A celebration of humanity; destruction of a disregard for human life . A reality that our power lies more in our ability to be thoughtful and concerned for one another as oppose to dominating another utilizing fear.
Love's Revolt is the kryptonite of fear. It's power and application is in dire need right now. As Stevie Wonder so eloquently puts it, "Love is in need of Love today". We are living in a society that seeks to punish and ostracize those who cause them distress and whom they fear. There is greater effort placed in exacerbating our differences and little concern in seeing the great commonalities we share as a human race.
Through my journey in yoga, I have come to learn that the fear begins from within. Marianne Wiliamson says it best, "it is our fear that frightens us the most..." not external fear but our internal fear. The fear of our greatness- our shared greatness. Our fear of abundance. Our fear that we can have the life we have imagined and dreamed for ourselves.
Love's Revolt is an internal revolution as much as it is external. A revolution of self love. A revolution of Ahimsa. The Sanskrit term that means non-harming, love and kindness. This term is defined in the Yoga Sutras as the first Universal Law to be practiced by all of humanity no matter their race, creed, religion, or orientation. It is the law of love. And in order to understand how to practice it externally, you must be able to apply it internally; to self first.
And that can be a daunting task. But not one that should be ignored. It requires a great deal of courage and bravery to explore the deficiencies and discomfort of loving self. An assessment of the good and bad of one's self. And an acceptance of what is. Being okay with what you find, and extending love and compassion to it. Once we are able to practice love and acceptance on self first, it becomes second nature to extend this to others.
Love's Revolt is how I chose to live this life on this earth. Indebted to those who came before me and in service to those that will inhabit this earth. My thoughts, words, and actions are funneled through the ambrosia of Love's Revolt. Everything I produce, from the exhale of my breathe to the institutions of radical revolution I create will embody the spirit of Love's Revolt.
Love's Revolt is more than just an art, it is a revolutionary act of being human. A humbling of one self to its internal power and a blossoming open to the infinite possibilities of humanity. Love's Revolt is a declaration of forgiveness! An end to fear and an embrace of peace.
I commit myself to this path, and I humbling seek the presence of your energy on this journey as well.
Peace and love

Wake Up Itches...

Ohhhh, Lawd have mercy, we all going to need to take a collective sigh.

So much stimulation going on, it's overwhelming.

If I did not have yoga, Lawd only knows I could be holed  up in here self-medicating on anti-depressants and bottles of vodka instead of marijuanna and wine.

Too much is going on all at once.  Hell since Obama's re-election in 2012there has been a visible crisis everyday.  The 300 hundred plus extra-judicial killings of black boys and men.  Beginning with Raymarley Graham, but gaining media attention with Trayvon Martin.  Snowden. Schools Closing. Syria. Government Shut down. Record breaking stock market. Food stamps cuts. Sequester. Stop and Frisk. Fruitvale Station.12 Years a Slave. Drones. Nelson Mandela. Beyonce. Rkelly. Cuts to Unemployment Compensation...

A lot has been going on.

There is an immediate need to take several deep cleansing breathes (the yoga teacher in me is coming out).  

Once we have collected ourselves, at once, we need to figure out what the hell is going on.  Right now there are too many analysis focused on individual politics.  All these things are separate entities that cannot be discussed  in tandem . One issue at a time.  We have to fully dissect one issue at a time, instead of seeing this madness as a whole body that needs triage stat!

Well this is unrealistic.  What we are dealing with is a disorder.  As described in "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making (Harvard Business Review - David J Snowden and Mary E. Boone) .  The Cynefin Framework is a logic model designed to explain complex, multi-faceted issues or challenges - or what the framework calls 'disorder'.  "Here, multiple perspectives jostle for prominence, factional leaders argue with one another, and cacophony rules. "

This precisely explains what we as the black community, are currently functioning in- a disorder.  There are too many issues that are overwhelming us; prohibiting us from dealing with  them individually.  On top of the most pressing issues like the killing of black children, the rabid unemployment, and a failed education system, we have to deal with the politics of respectability, of individual freedoms, of  internal self hate; that Fanon described, Kanye West, R Kelly Creflo Dollar, Barak Obama self hate.  (Its okay, breath through the discomfort)

We need to sit down and figure this thing out rationally.  Using logic, science, thought, spirit.  We are inundated by all these distractions and attacks at once and we are suppose to know how to deal with it? Lets be very honest.  The X-Genreation was appropriately named.  We don't know shit, except  for what the ruling class wanted us to know.  How many of us in grade school studied about Communism's role in the victory of the New Deal? How many learned about the Black Panther Movement and its 10 point plan, in school?  How many of us were taught that Dr. DuBois was an integrationalist who was half white?

Malcolm said it best, "We've been hoodwinked, bamboozled..."  We don't know shit about what is going on.

Did you know there was a militant wing of the ANC in South Africa that were training in Zimbabwe in the 1980's poised for a militarily strike against the Boar South African regime?  Did you know in 1985 the U.S. government dropped a bomb on its own citizens; in the city of "Brotherly Love"?

Of course we are utilizing valuable time and scholarly intellect on bullshit like Beyonce being a bad bitch.  Who cares!  Hell ever black and brown woman is a bad bitch.  That's what we do.  And to be completely honest, Beyonce is faux-chicken fries to the likes of Ramona and Pam Africa who walk through fire and call a mutherfucking pig and mutherfucking Pig to his face, after he's  knocked her two front teeth out of her mouth, while she was defending her man!!!!!

Y'all don't understand, but you are going to.  If it will be sooner, where you can be apart of the solution. Or later, when you are on the other side of history.

We are moving into the age of Humanity. The epoch of Europe has collapsed.  We are now in the between time, or as Baldwin eloquently defines, "the long meantime." The next 30 years will determine how the rest of the 21st Century will shape. In the same way, the first 50 years help determine how the 20th Century would be remember.

Lets take a collective inhale, together.  Regroup. Use logic and strategy to map out our plan. and exhale through the process of resurrecting humanity.