Cookers gon' cook!

woah! blowing the dust off this blog and deciding I'm going to share some recipes here. I'll be back!!1

Moonlight

We lie Wrapped in sky Bathed in moonlight Our dark in its brightness And the slightest breeze teases me Like his breath Leaving me breathless Cosmic conflict Raging in veins Silence, in vain, attempts to restrain My cry Starbursts behind my eyes Leave me blind But I can see 3rd eye open completely Begetting the gift of intersensory Perception Clairvoyant reception – excellent It is evident What is cumming And it is me And it is us We’ve coupled our energy And transformed lust Into lunar rainbow An ethereal white glow Dancing upon our skin As we enter in-to Multidimensional pleasures We take measures to stem The tide but inside a monsoon Triggered by the moon and his movement Is eminent Is too intense to withstand And I understand, now, black holes Because the whole of my black soul Quakes and implodes Synergistic overload My star bursts and slowly dies And then is rebirthed through your borning cry I’m reminded of my name in your tantric chant And I can’t remember any time but now I try to speak but I don’t know how So I just Wrap us in sky, and hold you tight Until the last strains of pale moonlight Give way to the illumination of dawn The veil of memories now gone I see you, dimly, in the light of the sun Your perfect clarity, I , now, know only comes In the light of the moon. RareEpiphany A Rare "Ren"dition 7/16/12 all rights reserved

Life in the hereafter

so yesterday was funny...not funny...but funny. I did my laundry up at the common house (I'm at the LES Center) and somewhere between locking the Common House door and going to my car, I lost the keys to my cottage and the common house. I have walked up and down that area and the driving trail in the POURING RAIN trying to find those keys. I dumped out my purse and laptop back and shook out all of the clothes I washed and nothing. So we had to get copies this morning. I feel like a bad house guest :-( Anyway, I got a piece finished and started another that's almost finished. Got a lil inspiration from my sweetheart. I realized yesterday that when I see his name on my phone when it's ringing or a text, I go str8 8th grade!!! I start grinning like a fool and get all giddy and excited. It's really pathetic hahahaha. After all these years, he still makes me feel like a school girl. God I love that man!!! I talked to my son this morning and he sang to me. man it makes my raining dreary day much better. I'm sitting here in such a grateful space. I have enjoyed my time here so much. I'm honored to be in this place at this time. I feel like I can go back and face these biopsies and the probability of cancer and it's spread to my lymph nodes. I'm not afraid of it. I am more in tune with myself and my calling and what I need to do.

I Write for who?

I was checking out some online poetry today to get some motivation and I got pulled into some pieces by the incredible Narubi Selah. She's a wordsmith among wordsmiths. The piece in particular that spoke to me was "I Don't Write For You". Now the piece is dope. You should really check it out on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfemKdUs30 I thought about this piece...turned it over in my head and really, I have to admit that most poetry is selfish. It's selfish in the way of most art. As an artist we write about our experiences and opinions. There is a lot of "I" and "Me" in poems. I discovered that about most things that I write. I was once under the false impression that because all of these poems centered around me and around my experiences, they don't mean anything to anyone else and they are for just me. That isn't always the case. Poetry is extremely cathartic for me. It reveals some things harboring in my psyche that I've either refused to deal with or did not have the tools to deal with at the time that they occurred (incidentally, I still don't think that I'm equipped to deal with some of the issues that crop up. I've been in the middle of pieces and my pen stops - or fingers stop typing- because I've hit a place that is going to take me deeper into an abyss in my soul than I am prepared to dive. My oxygen tanks aren't that full and I don't have enough provisions to survive there so I stop.) We block ourselves - either consciously or subconsciously - from writing in order to protect ourselves. At any rate, I'm saying that things get personal and ish gets real. I discovered, however, that I am not special. I am not so great and so singularly important that God chose me and me alone to go through certain experiences. Sometimes my story isn't my story. It's the collective story of millions of women; of millions of little girls; of millions of frustrated artists stuck in the grinding wheels of corporate america; of millions of single mothers; of millions of mothers or special needs children; of millions of black women struggling with medical tragedies...I'm just one artist who has been blessed to put my experiences on paper. I'm one artist of many. So I cannot, in truth, say that I don't write for you. Perhaps, on some level, I do. If you were a little girl who was raped daily for years. I write for you. If you, then, introverted yourself and set out to make yourself as un-feminine and un-lovable as you possibly could so that no other man would ever touch you that way again, then I write for you. If the loneliness of that existence broke you even more so you decided to sacrifice your body to any man who wanted it to make yourself feel loved and needed, then I write for you. if you struggle with self-worth and single motherhood, and bills, and therapists and a job you hate..then I write for you and you and you. I thought I wrote for myself and I do, but this isn't just my life. I realize that if it were not for a songwriter, musician, pastor, poet, writer, artists, I would not be alive. I would not know that there is life after my tragedies. I would have never known that I could survive and still flourish after the things I've been through. As self important as it seems to some people, SOMEBODY needs my words. Somebody needs to read or or hear my music; my poetry; my words. They need it to survive. Last night a DJ saved my life. Really, last year a songwriter saved my life, by writing his truth, singing his truth and releasing his truth so that a DJ could play his truth in a place where I could hear my truth in his song. We are a complex myriad of consciousness in symbiotic relationship with one other. Something greater works in us and through us to heal our wounds individually AND collectively. I am my brother's keeper. I need you to survive. No man is an island. it takes a village....ALL of those things we repeat until they become cliche' are true. Sometimes my truth is OUR truth because it springs from from THE TRUTH; THE TRUE AND LIVING. THE I AM. So when I say "i"..sometimes it's "I" and is born from "I AM". anywho...that's my morning rambling. Be Beautiful today on purpose.

LES idea

So I'm the 2012 Lillian E. Smith Foundation Writer-In-Service winner. I won a 2 week residency at the Lillian E. Smith Center and a lil cash. YAY!!! I'm on day 6 of my residency and LAWD. Can I just say that I have had some revelations and tears and breakdowns and breakthroughs. Whew. It's amazing the things that you can unpack from your psyche when you are given the time and space to do so. I've discovered a few things and have been reminded of more than a few more. What struck me just now was the need to do a one woman show. I don't think of it in terms of me doing a performance of my work though...so maybe one woman show is a misnomer. Perhaps what I mean is that I want to put together a performance of some of my poems. Some of the pieces will be acted out while the poem is being recited off stage. *pocketbook* being one such poem. one woman/young girl or a little girl with a precious and beautiful pocketbook. An older man smiling and talking to her and then he reaches for the bag. She tries to pull it back but he keeps trying and speaking nicely until he gets hold of it. he pulls and tugs and they tussle over it a bit and he breaks the strap..reaches in and rips out the lining..takes everything in it..throws some away and keeps some. She's on the floor with the purse gaping open...trying desperately to pick up the torn pieces and the valuables that were inside.. she cries. others go buy and she tries to hide it then another man comes and touches her face and asks what's wrong. She holds her purse in her lap and reaches into her purse. I'll find some others and maybe come up with a 45 min show.

sautee's veggies and Tofu in a sweet chili glaze with navel orange slices. Delish!

I love cooking. Here is grilled salmon (it was marinated in a tomato basil balsamic reduction) on a Kale salad (massaged kale with himilayan salt and lemon juice, quinoa, and bruschetta). garnished with a little extra bruschetta. Yuuuuummmy!