I want to be the change I want to see in the world. I want a world of creating a solution to heal my own personal demons. I want to live outside of fear and defeat. I want to live inside a sustainable world where I can walk the streets with my head held high in the daylight of the sun. I want to be able to lay my head down at night and not just dream of world peace. I want to be proactive and stand up and be counted in this forever changing modern world.
Being raised as a teenager in the sixties attempting the act of free love, ingesting mind expansive drugs while wearing Beatle boots, bell bottoms, doing Transcendental meditation, singing buddha chants during the surge for women’s and gays rights and cheering for the raised fists of black power, it all caused me to believe in the possibilities of change. I saw the phenomenon of people being challenged by the process of change, but these same people were crying for the possibilities of a change. Changing one’s habits of living can always be a challenge, even when you want the change to occur. Still, I believed so deeply in the change and I was willing to walk the mile to get to received the gifts of the promised land. I believed in the slogan “WE SHALL OVERCOME.”
As the world began to overcome its problems, I continued to work for the hope of change to occur. The evolution of the of our society seemed certain as gays, transgender, people of color, women and immigrants began to gain their rights. There seemed to be a new light in a darkened room. We had a black president for eight years and the possibility of the first woman president. We recognize the coming of the eighth fire. Then the lights went out.
Tonight has been the first night in years I turned the lights off in my living space before I attempt to go to sleep in a darken room. In the midst of my fear of feeling safe, I am choosing to have faith in a positive outcome. I am lying in bed with my eyes wide open as I acknowledge the truth of the matter, the fact I am living in silent fear.
I close my eyes to wait for the coming of the morning. I close my eyes to allow the truths of the dreams of the night to unfold. I ask for answers for my prayers to be love in action and count the rhythms of my breath, as I attempt to fall to sleep in peace. I ask for a power greater than myself to assist me in my hour of fear. I pray I will find answers on how to be proactive in my steps in the coming morning. I am falling asleep in silent faith.
I have been a performance artist since the 60’s, addressing the personal and the political in our society. As a poet, I used language to illustrate the emotions of the human story, the open armed dances of the heart at twilight or the dawn of day. As a singer, I was a male Billie Holiday learning how to sing the blues and not live it as a ritual of living. I wanted my voice to be spark for a fire from the soul of revolution. I wanted the voice of my story to matter for myself and someone else. I wanted to honor the stories of all creation, the spiritual essence of the human breath. I wanted to honor life by using my gifts to support it, as it has supported me, so I studied literature, philosophy, critical thinking, the humanities of the human story to know the fabric of the human bloodline. I learned from my grandfather who built churches and taught a cappella gospel music to lift up and honor the soul as he weaved stories of Africa for my eyes to hear, to teach me the lessons of the web of life. I have been a dreamer of love, compassion and healing all of my life.
I understand the beauty and importance of each individual human voice, as a singer and an artist. I understand unified force of power and creation when you blend and bend it to create the sound that ignites and supports the heart and soul.
The voice is a powerful tool of social change. Voices of protest have been the game changers of our society. When T. Eugene “Bull” Connor sanctioned the use of clubs, water cannons, and vicious police dogs against nonviolent protesters during Martin Luther King, Jr’s protest march of the Alabama city of Birmingham, during the 1960’s.
“The violent response enraged the nation and President John F. Kennedy to endorse the civil rights movement at the risk of his political career, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act opened America’s social, political, and economic system to African Americans and other minorities, such as women, and those with disabilities, and the gay and lesbian community.” – Reve Fisher
We are living in a time of transnational social change. We are living in a time of choices that will carve the sculpture of our human society. We are living in the midst of extreme privilege and extreme poverty of mind consciousness, material wealth and spiritual practices. The call for balance, the echo for peace is the call in the wind. No more waiting, for it is time for change.
So, I have gathered up all my different artistic human voices and put them all in one big basket of creativity. The title of the basket is “A Sacred Artist in Modern Times” and it is my traveling art/performance story of me being my true self demonstrating the importance of the human voice by using spoken-word and spoken-song, sacred musical sounds, dance and images of photography and mixed media paintings.
It is a collaboration between artists who are in a process of becoming one in spirit and performance, going home to wholeness, the healing of the spilt existence of the divine feminine and the divine masculine, love and hate, being and doing and the unification of the personal self. It is a celebration of attaining peace within our community.
Within the midst of this process, I have finally found peace within because now I can turn off all the lights before I decide I want to go to sleep. I can dance on my own and have found my “Place of Belonging” and my sense of “Home.” Within the last year of development I have gone from performing a large venue to an intimate, solo show. It is now a multi-cast show entitled “Going Home, A Journey” and it is the best yet, a story and performance that is like a well-made American quilt given as a gift on a hungry plate. I will eat until I am full, as I hum, WE SHALL OVERCOME.
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