Race Excavation 2020

I am grateful to spirit for handing me the poet's pen. 

I ask spirit to help me get out of my own way so that the words flow through.

Feeling the pain of a thousand daggers in my neck, my back, my belly.

Being pulled out and in. Do you feel that?

My body is healing now while on this excavation journey. 

No amount of changes in diet, yoga classes, pills, bottles of wine, or reading lists 

Would have been able to heal these wounds. 

They are collective, and not mine alone. 

They persist and fester.

Facing my role in personal, familial, community, institutional, collective, systemic racism. 

Doing this is starting to bring some healing to my body. Our body.

I invite you to truly be with this pain, this unease, this discomfort, this fear, this anxiety, this Sadness.

Begin to digest it, metabolize it.

Let it transform you.

It’s not a one time thing.

It’s a lifetime thing.

I cannot hear over the voices of my ancestors and descendants right now.

I know this is it. 

It is now, it is always now. 

Spirit moving through me and you in more visible, hearable, painful ways.

If my personal excavation, my spirit made visible makes you uncomfortable,

I invite you to get curious. 

Open your heart and ask yourself 

What you know to be true of me.

I commit to staying open hearted.

I commit to being better.

I commit to doing better.

I commit to being honest about my mistakes. 

I commit to being willing to get messy in this process of healing.

I commit to always going back to me and the ongoing learning and healing journey 

That I was sent on when I arrived breathing in this body. 

I invite you to be my accountability partners.

Keep me honest.

Be loving with me when you do, and I will do the same in return. 

If you are white bodied and confused or feeling uncomfortable these days, let’s talk. 

Let’s really talk.

Let’s try to get some things right before we lay more burden on the people who have been trying to educate us for centuries.

I am not an expert on any of this. 

I am a fallible human, making my way toward peace, rooted in love and hope. 

May the pain and healing, the rupture and repair, the truth and reconciliation in me ripple out and be a medicine for our time.