Never

(Election night in Harlem C.2008 By Aja-Monet)

Last night
after the lips
of a desperate raindrop
came over the New York City skyline
and flooded the autumn
of our shedding faces,
a skeptical skeleton of joy came to me in a foiling dream
there was a childish laughter
giggling
in the faint voice
of my singing blood
and I lifted my face to a screaming world
a world of one old, weathered man beautifully, brown, bruised
walking down the drunk midnight of Bowery street
with a long trench coat wrestling the tug and tear of the wind
the warmth of a retired sun in his eyes,

we
did
it.

as he left into the disappearing point of distance,
amidst the honking horns of foreign taxi cab drivers
and the strained throats of jubilant by standers
I watched a city lit by a light no electricity could ignite
a skyscraper no building could reach,
a ceiling has fallen in some corner of the earth
where there is no sky and no breeze.

Tonight,
Obama is
our echoing mantra, our generations great romance.

Never
have I been more proud
to be an owl-wise woman
of shackles and shambles
of nooses
and deeply rooted tree branches,
of clarinet oceans and violin passages,
ambulant picket signs and riot flesh,
of thick waving curls and frowning hot combs,

Never
have I been more proud
of the strutting finger snap of a woman scorned,
carrying the earthquake stretching in her hips,
of the marching tap-dance misshape in my toes, bunion, and corn,
the fantastical saxophone in my voice,

Never
have I been more proud of the forbidden love of this land,
the large worn
lines and wrinkles of my mother's hands,
to be a woman
of
this
color
now, still.

There is more.
So much more
to come
and
go

This morning,
at the wake
of a Harlem dawn
yawning on the sweet brown-sugar blanket
hugging my bones,
I awoke a splinter in the wild forest of this country's eyes
shrugging at the worries of yesterday
floating down the enormous spine of Malcom X blvd
I could feel a humming in our gaze
an infectious spirit in our lilac children
and I watched as a police officer
pale-ridden as the ghost of his ancestors,
hugged a stinging homeless sun-man
carrying the weight of forgotten shores in his eyes

what awe it is to have lived
in this day, on this morning
of all days
and all mornings.

c.aja-monet



(Election night in Harlem C.2008 By Aja-Monet)

WOMEN: maybe this matters...

Dated September 13, 2008

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not so sure where I fit among my male counterparts in this artistic realm of performing and literary arts but I've been going through this phase of investing more energy into the feminine. and i'm tired of feeling estranged. Not in the ways that we most stereotypically assume but it seems I lacked a certain degree of encouragement on that side. Its quite strange actually. I have grown up around a lot of stern and strong minded women but it did no good for the ways in which I defined 'woman' and all that it entailed. In fact, most of those women are regarded as highly aggressive and masculine because of their strength and yet possess this rather humbling vulnerability to a man's presence and in particular those whom they love dearly. It's so much more complex than the average person cares to understand. I've been having a lot of internal conflict with my womanhood and how i should define it, my sexuality and those who make their business to comment on it when im not there, the ways in which any woman with any ounce of power or voice and strength is constantly and continually facing ambiguous forces but I digress, I am currently away at Omega Institute participating in a Women & Courage conference held here annually. I was invited after conducting a workshop that I do called 'surrendering to the metaphor: a search for meaning' (its a more holistic approach to performance and poetry, looking at metaphor and articulation as a healing mechanism etc) Anywho, when I did this workshop here earlier this summer a lovely woman from the Women's Institute here at Omega came to sit in on my workshop. She enjoyed the work that I was doing and I believe in some way shape or form she gained something and I was invited to participate in this years Women & Courage conference.

This leads me to writing this blog. I keep vowing to entertain more folks with my thoughts and concerns via internet but all I seem to gain out of this function is a few good excuses to change my profile pictures, receive friendly comments and messages, in hopes that some great miracle allows massive amounts of people to all of a sudden be concerned with who or what i am. and in the process what it is that i do and love. how vain the internet has made me. i realize more and more how important it seems for a woman to look beautiful on these things. maybe then you can get more profile views and perhaps even more blog reads and audio listens because you're pretty enough to be payed attention to... i hope then, that my beauty pleases you. thank God you are reading this now. grammar errors and all. may that prove nothing of my integrity and intelligence.

never mind my issues with sexism. I rather address an altogether neglected issue, feminine energy, female encouragement, and how that translates into creating substantial relationship and support and a weighing of our intelligences. It seems we are in a miraculous time. I know this has been said before about many eras in our history. but this time fascinates me more so because of the collective consciousness and in particular, after being half way through this conference here at Omega, with all these women coming together discussing so many crucial issues, and more importantly sharing stories and love. I have realized in a very new way how magnificent we truly are. In ways that transcends our pathos and validates our voice and spirit.

so many men will preach about 'queen' will talk about women and how they're all heavenly and gifts of light etc. yet they lack the basic principle of what it is that we are, the ways in which even our faults are dictated and how we need to free our spirits from constant repression . there is no real connection in ways that offer validation and healthy confrontation. it is incredible how many wounds women carry. how often we seek validation from everything and one but ourselves. it is only until our wounds are validated by the other that we the healing begin to take place. the ways we internalize the relationships with our mothers and lack there of with our fathers. in spite of all of this i have learned to channel this sense of true pride and ownership of a true and divine female energy that often times is mocked or devalued. i challenge the ladies to dare and be courageous in the dwelling of our emotional and spiritual intelligence. its okay to admit we have no clue. leave it to men to prove they know everything, they're ruled by their minds when absorbed in their masculine energy. egos and all that machisimo. it is up to our true beauty to set examples of a true courage that only mothers can foster and sisters can share, only daughters can learn...

well, i wanted to use this forum to create discussion and incite the connection between us all. the internet is a mimic of collective unconsciousness. i figure we start somewhere. and be it good or bad i rather us deal with the issue at hand. yes we are facing a very political time with the current state of elections. but something that has trailed the subject of conversation at this conference is how being a woman does not mean you are in tune with the feminine energy you possess. dont forget that both women and men have feminine energy and masculine energy and if I must say so myself, it seems Obama is much more in tune with the balance of that energy, in ways that begs for peace, offers change, and nurtures a true spirit of hope that every women has learned to enable from birth. Sarah Palin, I am ashamed of everything you represent in the name of a God I so love and devote myself to...im certain it isn't your fault to have been raised in the way that you have, but i surely hope for the sake all women and people, may you become accountable for the world you live in ways that forces you to see beyond your repressions and the ways in which you hope to and continue to repress the women around you.

it seems the nature of this discussion will fall on deaf ears or even may carelessly be put aside as a gender issue. but i've come to discern a far greater fear for a human threat in doing so...

if i am writing this blog for anything... it is for every woman i have ever come across and never said thank you to. for being a reservoir of some of the most remarkable healing energy in the grandest gifts of God. there's no support like that of a woman and to all that have ever even remotely been concerned with what it is i hope to do with my life or share, thank you, thank you for even pretending to care, for fighting the better half that has brought us among each other as competitors. let us make joy a deliberate choice in spite of our adversities.

may your hands be extensions of your heart and may we do the work of love with them. women, remember to pleasure yourself...to enjoy the beauty in your breasts, your thighs, your mouth, your stomach,your toes more importantly--your vaginas...every little being of you is an extension of the God we so love, graciously. remember this.
especially on days when your desire is the butt of the patriarchal worlds joke.


i'm not sure how much more i will learn to compromise myself in a world where i want to be nothing but the ambiguous creature God has made me...to not be limited and defined by my identity but to be given a space where i can nurture an appetite for exploration, growth, change, hope, and love.

women, we must forgive our mothers. for the things we're mad they didn't have the capability to teach us. forgive ourselves for ever wanting anything less from the world. for ever wanting anything more. learn to strip every ounce of this life for whatever joy it can bring you.

men. lovely men... you are not perfect. no one expects you to be. stop fooling yourself. your ego wont miss you when you leave it. let go. yall are so beautiful in so many ways you wont even allow yourself to be. challenge each other in more ways than physical. i get it. you guys like the body. you enjoy the energy that manifests itself in the body. learn that your body is a temple, a tool, a vehicle of traveling. it doesnt end here. i challenge you to help me learn how to love you to let me help you show how to love me. i challenge us to work together in ways we never prepared for...to create a world of true harmonious energy, at the very least we have to work towards a love our children can feel, and look forward to...


i have so much to say about this. about everything i have been feeling and thinking since i was a little girl. the ways ive learned courage. i don't know too much but what i've experience and felt and the ways of dealing with that is what translates into some sort of substantial wisdom. i'm trying. i'm hoping to grow. i may not always be the most exemplary of women but im not asking for women to be exemplary or to fulfill some impossible idea of perfection...in fact i am hoping we embrace our flaws and find the beauty in that...to rejuvenate the healer in us...the creative energy that can only build and love, and the scorn that truly only asks for appreciation and validation,
this discussion is so much more for our healing process than any harboring of negative energy. release. breathe. and remember the power of your words.



always,
aja
trying to grow.