Hello, loved ones!
It's me, Sister Doctor Alexis Pauline Gumbs,
and today is 21 years from the day
that the great poet warrior mother black lesbian icon Audre Lorde transitioned to become an ancestor.
So to honour Audre Lorde
and the fact that she is eternally with us
this is the 1st edition of a 21 week series
called Resurrection Sunday.
Bringing us from Audre Lorde's death date, back around through her re-birth.
And we are going to bring Audre Lorde's work
robustly into our lives
through an examination of her poetry on survival.
I feel especially excited about survival today,
because I just completed a full circle doula training
with the International Centre for Traditional Childbirth...
yaaaaaaay!
And I'm so excited to support us all in birthing the next warrior poet geniuses onto the planet,
and welcoming them with love.
So, today we're gonna hear Audre Lorde's most famous poem on survival, A Litany For Survival.
"A Litany For Survival
For those of us who live at the shoreline,
standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone,
for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice,
who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns,
looking inward and outward
at once before and after,
seeking a now that can breed futures
like bread in our children's mouths,
so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours:
For those of us who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads,
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk,
for by this weapon,
this illusion of some safety to be found,
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us.
For all of us,
this instant and this triumph
we were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain,
when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning,
when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion,
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again,
when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish,
when we are alone we are afraid love will never return,
and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed.
But when we are silent we are still afraid,
so it is better to speak,
remembering
we were never meant to survive."
So Audre Lorde famously wrote in the Cancer Journals
that if she did not speak her truth every time she was afraid,
she would be trying to speak her realness from a ouija board from the beyond.
She really encouraged us to speak our truth despite our fear.
And when I think about A Litany For Survival today,
after being immersed in a beautiful, African centred context
of what it means to support the practice of birth,
what it means to support the breakthrough, of allowing life to happen,
I think about what we want to give birth to,
that we are now ready to claim, and push past our fear to achieve and bring into the world.
So, I want to invite you to journal about that,
to write about that, to name that and claim that:
What is it that you are birthing into the world?
You -never meant to survive- that is already a triumph because you can imagine it.
And I would love it, love it, love it even more
if you cuold share in the comments that which you are birthing into the world,
so everyone can see.
And, if you want, I'll be making an oracle this week from A Litany For Survival,
and you can check out the School of Our Lorde website at the link below
to find out how you can get a custom email, poem, blessing, one on one conversation,
blessing, oracle, poem from Audre Lorde for that project, that adventure, that reality
that you are ready to birth.
So excited to doula you into your dreams!
Hope to hear from you soon,
happy Resurrection Sunday.