December 12th, 2021 - Going In to Look Out

As we approach the winter solstice, we approach one of the most sacred times of the year in the majority of the traditions I know about. When we study the overlapping traditions we find a resonance that leads back to the Sun. As the Sun appears to stand still at the winter solstice (based on the shadow it casts), we experience the shortest amount of daylight and the biggest opportunity for rebirth by turning inward. Our traditions wrap this celestial journey in stories of death and resurrection.

Anyone whom I have accompanied through initiation OR is a participant in my Transcend Practice knows, we begin with surrender. We practice surrender. We play in the realm of surrender. WHY? Because it is rebirth (letting go and reemerging) that so constitutes our spiritual growth and transformation; even our healing. And at this time of year, the universe collaborates, the spiritual realm most supports this surrender for the sake rebirth. Think caterpillar to butterfly. Think going into chrysalis.

Afformation:
Why is it easy to accept the presence of the light, of love,
of the good regardless of appearance?

As I consider this year’s rebirth for myself I do the mental exercise of seeing the historical players on every side of conflict and imagine them as just that, players. I imagine them playing out a cosmic dance. A dance that sometimes looks like stagnation, stillness, but is in fact part of the evolution and expansion of the beings on this planet. I do this because I know this is the place of the most judgment for me. So, I do my practice there. Just like the sun appears to be still at a time when it is actually not; still at a time when it is actually moving toward bringing more light. After the winter solstice (from our vantage point in the northern hemisphere) the days get longer.

This is how we look out beyond the horizon, beyond the limit of the physical.

ASK:

1) What do you see as stagnant in your life right now?
2) How can you imagine and tell the story of an invisible shift taking place right now?
3) Can you offer gratitude for that progress whether you see it physically yet or not?

December 5th, 2021 - Hold Yourself

Holding self.

Holding self accountable.

Holding self accountable for this moment.

Hold self accountable for only this moment.

Hold self accountable for only this moment, no looking back.

This is a supercharging approach. This is a love practice.

We are not who we were. We have the insight and possibilities born of every next moment of expansion. Isn’t that amazing?

Afform:

Why is it so easy to hold myself in love?!?

Maybe I say to myself: You didn’t tithe last week. You didn’t make that gift you were excited to give. You didn’t call your mother. You didn’t do your homework. And on and on… But so? [Try this on.] I have this moment to choose different, to do different, to ask for help, to surprise myself with a whole different approach. I apply love not judgment. It is what it is. I allow it to be awesome… at least better.

I used to hear my uncle say on a regular basis, good, better, best, never let it rest til your good is better and your better is best.

This is a game of expansion. A practice of expansion.
Let us keep our energy and focus on we get out of the lessons, what we get out of the fruit and not the challenges or trauma that may have been imprinted by so-called failure. We have the power NOW! What will we do with it.

ASK:

1) Are there things I am too busy looking back at to move forward on now?
2) What are the actions that allow me to PRACTICE holding myself?
3) How will doing this action support me to move forward?

Listen to Held by Toshi Reagon and Alexis Pauline Gumbs and feel the love.
LISTEN TO HELD - POEM & SONG
LISTEN TO HELD - just THE SONG/CHANT

November 28th, 2021 - Internal Conflict

What if every conflict with another is our internal conflicts showing up in a way we cannot ignore?

So… the universe loves us so much! It has occurred to me that my internal conflicts have started showing up externally to reflect the lessons and insights that I have been missing, ignoring, not honoring in this season. I am discovering that there is a level of accountability and excellence that I have been waiting on others to unlock for me, with me. I think the lesson is that I have to release any old story that stands in the way of me unlocking it for myself.

AFFORM:
Why is it so easy for me to have all the support I require right here and right now?

There is a part o me, maybe 4, maybe 8, that is sad, frustrated and maybe even feels unworthy of having my needs met. For a long time, this looked like personal provision (being able to provide, food, shelter and do “adulting). I worked through that. Yay! But there is still more healing. I can sort of see it like my 8 year old self refusing to tie their shoes, insisting that someone else come and do it; acting out because there are things the adults in my life are not providing that the should provide. So, in this metaphor the 8 year old me is exerts the power they can by slowing down the progress, faining an inability or at least a lack of commitment to tieing their shoes. This week I am working on this. Join me!

ASK:

1) What is the thing, the one thing I am ready to change now?!

2) What are the parts of me that are resisting this change? What are their names?

3) What is the old story they hold that keeps me in resistance to this change/expansion?

4) What part of me can offer a new perspective or a safe space for this part of self to release the old story?

I trust we can report back next week that something major has shifted! Love to you!

November 21st - I Don’t Wanna Be Right

Celebrate Pauli Murray’s 11th Birthday with us! Live Service at 11am.

October 17, 2021 - Transcend

Provocative sermon and exciting announcement from Sangodare. Sassafrass Cypress and Indigo Oracle in honor of Ntozake Shange’s birthday (coming up on Monday.)

Announcements

Big news!!! After many many requests and an impossible to ignore cosmic demand Sangodare has created a structured process and community for people seeking to put into practice the spiritual technologies Sangodare preaches about here each month. This community is open to all seekers AND centered on the divine role of BIPOC who transcend gender binaries. To learn more check out the website: https://www.transcendpractice.com/

Also in celebration of Ntozake Shange’s birthday, which is also the 5th anniversary of Alexis’s father Clyde Gumbs joining the ancestors, Alexis is hosting Fierce Love a writing hour in honor of Ntozake Shange on Monday 10/18 at 8pm ET. This event kicks off the launch of Sculpted Impulse: A Ntozake Shange Immersion, a curriculum for embodying change based on Alexis’s research and work as the literary advisor to the Shange Trust.

We are also excited and grateful to announce the success of the first workday on the loveland at Soul Sanctuary, Mobile Homecoming’s emerging retreat space for spiritual practice. We can’t wait to see you there soon!

AND there are a couple of spots left for our in person Black Feminist Breathing Retreat at the Soul Sanctuary coming up November 6-7. We would love to see you there.

September 19, 2021 - Soul Sanctuary

Soul Sermon by Sangodare. “Homemade Field of Love” oracle by Alexis.

Staying peaceful amidst technical difficulties. Streaming issues prevailed, but we recorded and posted the video below.

September 5, 2021

Birthday Month

My favorite thing to do for my birthday is create and share. So, this month I will be sharing something special and announcing gifts during the service. Check back!

If you want a word now check out the archive below.

August 29, 2021

Believe what you know?

My trip to the desert two weeks ago was one of the biggest gifts of my life. It happened exactly when I knew I could have it. I have invested so much in my work to serve community, to share what’s coming through with community. And when I decided I could have the thing I (I, me, one) wanted most my world opened up! There were three things that I “know” that my actions were not in alignment with:

1) Giving is receiving.
Whatever I want to create with/for others I have to be willing to create for/with myself.

2) We/I have the power to create. PERIOD!
What I vision, intend and move consistently and (almost) effortlessly toward will show up in my reality.

3) I am a channel.
I get to refine the channel for light/love/energy/creativity to flow through BUT it is already flowing!

AFFORMATION:
Why is it so easy to live the truth I know? …to practice the truth I know?

The land for the retreat center is being cleared as we speak. The collaborators are showing up. Seeds sown years ago are bearing fruit now. To the extent that I can get out of the way, everything is here for the vision we have heard in the (a)ethers, the very same that comes from community. #resonance

ASK

1) What do I know that I also don’t fully believe?
2) What could happen that would help me believe? and act?
3) Who with and How can I create the ceremony that supports me to walk (act) in alignment with my divine vision AND power to tranifest*?

*tranifest - a word I use to articulate the ways that transformation is neccessary and occurs along with manifestation.

August 15, 2021

This Sunday’s service was via zoom. You can watch the playback here.

Alexis facilitates this Sunday’s Service while Sangodare is on a solo retreat. Sangodare sends an Epistle (a letter) from the desert.

ASK

1) What situation or conversation do I want to wait for clarity to have?
2) What am I avoiding that instead I can practice non-judgement (of self or other) as an offering toward resolution and progress?
3) Who or what can hold me accountable to being present and intentional even as I wait to move forward with clarity?

THE T…MI
(as in Too Much Information, TMI)

The Isley Brother’s song I reference here could suggest a sexual overtone that even I wasn’t present to when this song was in a number of so-called children’s movies like Home Alone back in the day. The title of the song is Shout. This was a song that came out in the late 1950s born out of an ecstatic moment at an Isley Brother’s concert. After a cover of Jackie Robinson’s iconic Lonely Teardrops (so powerful was the song that decades later even my father has a sermon called Lonely Teardrops they improvised a call and response that had the refrain “You know you make me wanna shout”.

I recognize that moment. The moment when you are in a secular space that takes you to such heights that it recalls a perhaps religious or spiritual catharsis that makes you wanna shout. I know another moment too; the one where someone’s actions or inactions so anger or frstrate that you want to cry out, lash out, even fall out. Reading the lyrics of Shout at first it seems like the song is about someone else which I believe it was intended to be. Just like often we ascribe our negative emotions to being caused by someone else - YOU! make me wanna shout. However, when I take a second look at the lyrics AND when I take a second look at conflict or challenges, if I will surrender AND do my practices, I will 99% of the time find that it is and was me all along. I need to be “a little bit softer now” as the song says… When I get still and quiet and allow myself to find the lesson, I do… usually.

When I can find and take 100% responsibility and find gratitude and find the lesson THEN and only then am I ready to engage the person or situation. Now, this is not such a horrible practice for me usually because I have intentionally created space to have relationships with people that I feel excited to extend grace to until I find the clarity. In the grace (which is grace for myself too, lest I say or do the “wrong” thing) I find the clarity. In the waiting, the grace, I find clarity.

In the grace I find the love and righteousness present all along.

Conditions: A New Story - July 18, 2021

Sangodare’s Sermon by the sea this 3rd Sunday is I Can Tell You and an Undrowned Oracle from Alexis. Join us.

Announcements:

Running To or Running From - June 6, 2021

Which way are you headed?

We are either in motion or we are in stillness. There are two kinds of motion and two kinds of stillness I want to consider. When considering stillness in my life, it is relatively easy for me to determine whether my stillness is stagnation or a watchful, peaceful stillness. But when I consider my motion it is sometimes a challenge to determine if I am moving toward something or moving away from something. I feel like my dreams give me hints. Where ever our hints come from, they can be really helpful because we (and I) can be quite skillful at disguising my motion (sometimes running) as progress, forward motion, expansion, etc. when really it is regression, fear based, panic.

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to move toward my expansion peacefully?

ASK:

1) Am I in motion or in stillness? What kind of motion or stillness am I in today, this week?
2) What am I moving toward?
3) Am I moving peacefully toward my expansion? my goal?
4) Who can help me discern the difference?

Coming Out - May 30, 2021

The elements required for our emergence

Fire requires oxygen to burn, to create heat, to create light. A spark will get it started but it requires fuel (a material that it consumes and transforms) and oxygen, breath. If you have ever built a fire you know fire requires breathing room. And from the moment we were born we had the spark, we began to breath and soon we met fuel - nourishment - milk.

As we continue to grow and transform, don’t you feel like we require a more nuanced breathing and more expansive fuel for our bodies but also for our minds and still yet for our spirits. It’s a matrix of ongoing expansion (3 x 3). And I won’t get into the magic of the number NINE but I invite you to consider with me What breathing room and what fuel you require at this time? Once we learn this science based on combustion (fire) we can advance to the science we learn from nuclear fusion (the sun). For we are star…

AffOrmation: Why do I have all I require to create the transformation, heat and light I came here for NOW?

ASK:

1) What is the transformation I am here to facilitate?
2) How does that transformation live in me? change me?
3) What feeds that light I bring?
4) What smothers the light/transformation I bring?
5) Who can I share this reflection with for support?

Right is Right - May 23, 2021

Is it possible to rise to the challenge of love as right no matter what? love over everything?

This week’s post draws from my reflections since we last gathered as they always do. May has been a time of Alexis and I expanding our field of Love with our chosen family and friends and doing so with intention and specificity. It is a vulnerable place to be with one another and with our loved ones - letting so much tenderness and desire be seen. Everything that is right its not always expedient but it helps to know that love IS always the right choice. THEN! (hopefully) what right action is in each situation can be discerned.

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to reflect the love that is coming my way now?

ASK:

What are the ways I am afraid to express my love?
Who am I afraid to express love for?
Who or what stories try to dim or diminish my expressions of love?

Mother(ing) Bridges - May 16, 2021

Happy Mother’s EveryDay!

WELCOME!

This Sunday we join you from home and on the road. Use the webinar link to join the service.

(NOTE: It’s not a zoom meeting.
You will not be on camera,
only Alexis and Sangodare.)

WATCH IT HERE

What if Mothering Will Save Us ALL from EVERYTHING!?!?
What if FAMILY is simply a space for mothering?

What if the mere act of seeing us all whole perfect and complete (no scarcity, abundant) is the core and substance of all it takes?

According to Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (edited by Gumbs, Martens and Williams). Mothering is a bridging act. The radical practice of mothering is key to our collective liberation. Lex writes, MOTHERING is “the practice of creating, nurturing, affirming and supporting life.”

aka “the creative spirit,”
aka “love”
(June Jordan, 1977)

Mothering is less “a gendered identity and more a possible action, a technology of transformation.”

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to move and act with a mothering approach?

I, Sangodare, am toying with a definition of family as the gathering of sentient beings to maintain a space designed for mothering.

ASK

1) How am I mothering myself today?
2) What would be a nurturing practice of everyday self-mothering?
3) What would you be doing differently if you made decisions about your time and energy from the perspective of mothering your sacred inner child?
(your inner child who is wise, worthy and perfect!)

Enough: Happy Birthday Essex Hemphill Sunday April 18th

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Announcements. Stardust and Salt Daily Writing Intensive is 10% off for Poetry Month! Sign up here.

Space Enough to Live and Die Free - April 11, 2021

Culture in fact is a story we tell about what life is and what life means. Free story, free living, maybe.

Last Sunday I was thinking about pride, still. And also grief. Today, I’m thinking about what culture has to do with both. I am writing stories, for myself,  ceremonies for me that represent a world and community that relate generatively to self-creation, family-creation and even life transition (aka death) in ways that honor what I really believe, what my values really are.

“According to Making Waves, it has two primary meanings: 

1. The prevailing beliefs, values, and customs of a group; a group’s way of life.

2. A set of practices that contain, transmit, or express ideas, values, habits, and behaviors between individuals and groups.” ^1

So, culture is a space. 
belief, values, a group identity - a being;
Culture is a practice,
habits, traditions, activities - a doing.

Culture is made by makers, crafted by artists, produced by producers AND the participants, users, consumers that engage it. It’s not static. Culture is ever changing. ^2

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to hear, show and tell liberating stories?

ASK:

1. Am I creating stories I do not want with my listening, viewing and watching practices?

2. In what areas of my life am I seeking to shift the culture?

3. In what areas in my community do I want to shift the culture?

4. Who can collaborate with me on generating new stories for a new culture and therefore new reality?

I am writing stories where I/we dance out our grief to the point of exhaustion and catharsis. I am writing stories where our beloveds do not work and live alone (pandemic or not) unless they choose to do so. I am writing a story where we all receive nourishing touch and thoughtful intimate connection as a norm for wellness. I am practicing the ceremonies that usher us into a new age of care, accountability and trust. An age I affectionately call LOVE!

1. Making Waves: A Guide to Cultural Strategy
by The Culture Group, a project of Air Traffic Control, wrote and produced this guidebook.
© 2014 Air Traffic Control Education Fund, Inc. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0. All third party and underlying copyrights contained in the guidebook are reserved.

2. From #PopJustice: Volume 1, Social Justice and the Promise of Pop Culture Strategies
by Liz Manne, Rachel D. Godsil, Mik Moore, Meredith Osborne, Joseph Phelanwith Thelma Adams, Michael Ahn, Brian Sheppard

I AM too proud to beg - April 4th, 2021

Life is a cycle. Just like seasons come and go, many times the challenges and triumphs in our lives come and go… again and again in different forms. The Nile River and other rivers have cycles that the people living around them have structured their lives around. And! River imagery is used in many cultures to represent a boundary between life and afterlife or a path between life and death.

This week I am thinking about the many loved ones that have transitioned over this last year. I think about my grief and the grief that I have and am witnessing on a regular basis. And i can see the way emotion wells up and would have us, any of us, beg for the life, the wellness of those we love, before and even after they’re gone. And I think about what our ACTUAL power is to have an impact on when and how we take the journey across that great river.

My pride has stood in the way (fear of rejection and everything else) of saying the things I want to say to my loved ones. Of making the invitations that I really want to make. Now I have decided I may be too proud to beg but I am NOT too proud to create the reality I want from a generative place. We are a part of the great infinite. We do not have to beg for what we want, need, desire. However, we have to cultivate our ability to create. Regret is what triggers my grief. Pride is what causes my regret.

I want to unwind from cycles of regret and move through my cycles of grief.

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to take advantage of the opportunities I have to love?

ASK

1) Do I have any agency when it comes to having “no regrets”? or the quality or longevity of my own life?
2) What do I do with my grief? Who can support me in my grief process?
3) Does my pride or fear of judgement have me suppress my grief process?
4) How do I stay connected to those who have already crossed over?

Let love land -March 28, 2021

Could be as easy as Rolling on the River?

We are still dealing with the theme Rolling On The River. I’m extending last Sunday’s sermon, Run Proud Mary Run, from the general interpersonal challenges that arise when we have an imbalance in our relation to pride (i.e. too much or not enough). Today I’m thinking about pride in our romantic and intimate relationships.

First, I am making a distinction between romantic and intimate. We mostly know this word romantic supposedly from the Greek eros - connoting the type of love we have for a spouse or physical lover. An intimate relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic. For example, think of someone who works outside the home let’s call her Mary. Mary works at a company with coworkers. Imagine a sweet spirit and gentle soul that notices when Mary is up and down. Over time this person (let’s call them River), River’s attentiveness has turned into actual comfort and support.

And it’s mutual. When either of them are going through something perceived as positive or negative, a victory or a loss, they celebrate and support one another. Familiar. Including hugs, gifts, giggles, birthday wishes, wiping tears, holding hands, adjusting hair or clothes. Imagine a relationship that is close, full of trust and very familiar. Maybe you have an example in your own life.

I think about the years it takes for some of us to develop these types of relationships and those of us that never do. I think about the fast friends made at retreats and conferences or those from living on campus in college or those from living in close proximity as neighbors. And I think of the boundaries and prideful protections we set up so no one can get close enough to see our highs and lows. Are we trying to avoid our imperfection or that of other’s? Do we avoid jealousy and judgement like this? I think about the boundaries we impose on ourselves and our romantic partners lest they ever have intimate friendships beyond blood relationships. What do we lose when we block the roll, the flow, the abundance of the river?

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to let love land peacefully?

Today, I challenge us to examine where we are and are not available to intimate friendships; where do we NOT allow blood or chosen family relationships to emerge or deepen in their intimacy. Not that anything must change but let’s be conscious of what’s there for us. Just like a cell, we can not protect ourselves and grow at the same time. As spring has sprung let us be fruitful in the love we allow.

ASK:

1) Who do I love that I protect myself from?

2) Who loves me that I protect myself from?

3) What does the fear that has me in protective mode want me to know?

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Announcements

Be Alright. - Sunday, March 7th, 2021

Be Alright. It's an unrealistic imperative. But do you ever try to will yourself or someone else to just "Be Alright."?

There is an old congregational hymn that I love (I'll share it with you in the live service*). The first line is "It will be aaaaaaaaalright." But when it gets good the leader just bellows, "Be Alright." The congregation answers, "Ri-i-ight, Right." The next line is "When I make it to that city it will be alright."

Still the song is a comfort to me. And it may be because I have the great gift of memory... being in a congregation full of Black folk sAnging, willing, raising, activating the vibration of "that city"! I can re-call that space even if it takes days to get "there" to that city. Even if I only get to be there for a few minutes. It is comforting in a way that reminds me, even if I am not alright right now. Be alright.

Be alright soon. Someday. For a little while. or always and forever was and will be. Be Aaaaalright.

AffOrmation: Why do I conjure up my own peace with grace and ease?

ASK:

1) What is it that I am soothing with my "Be Alright." today?
2) What is the recipe for my on peace? My "Be Alright"?
3) Who joins me in that (physically or energetically)?

*Patrons I've shared the video of me singing the song with you today.

New Stories and New Power - Sunday, Feb 28th, 2021

every round gets higher when we allow our stories to evolve continuously

Is there a difference between Self-love, Non-judgement and Intention?

I overheard a conversation that sparked me to reflect on these questions. Someone said something like: “I’m not judging myself anymore. I’ve got to forgive my bad decisions and mistakes. With grace, I can allow myself to be happy now.”

Well, that's beautiful but it's still judgement.

Let's try this on: The statement gets things moving because applying forgiveness and love to judgement is still generative.
But it kinda demonstrates a sort of disempowered relationship to life and living.

Compare that quoted statement above to: “The road I have taken has led me to and through some challenges and some things that I struggled through. And I am grateful for the lessons I learned.” I’m not saying either are bad but one is clearly still in judgment and the other statement is, at least, much less so. It suggests a bit more agency, a bit more fruitfulness to the journey.

>>>Let's try this on.
Self-love and Non-judgement relate to our current or past action. When self-love says "I forgive" and non-judgement says "I accept". There is still an old story that's measuring one's actions up against some standard. Then we decide if the action or person is left wanting or not. But what about a whole different approach.

What about a powerful approach to our actions that says I see my destination. Says, I find the legacy and legacies of those that have walked my chosen path before me. I choose to walk that path and act with intention toward MY particular destiny, destination. I take intentional action to begin with.

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy to move with intention?

ASK:

What is my destination?
Who has taken that journey? Whose on it now?
What action can I take with intention today? Who can I ask to take it with me?

Show and Tell-Sunday February 21, 2021
(aka It’s Showtime at the Apollo)

In celebration of the birthday season of Audre Lorde, Claudia Jones and Toni Morrison enjoy a Black Feminist Breathing live meditation in honor of Jones and Lorde, a sermon by Sangodare and an oracle by Alexis using Audre Lorde’s own copies of her own books.

811 9th Street
SUITE 120-136
Durham, NC 27705

It’s Showtime -February 14th

Do you have things that you are trying to get? Putting our desires into the future, lamenting about their absence, or even manipulating people or situations to get something is the exact opposite way to bring the object of your desire toward you. We must show the thing we want to receive. Let’s make today showtime for our expansive visions and dreams.

AffOrmation: Why is it so easy for me to give all that I wish to receive?

ASK:

What do I desire to actualize most in my life now (a feeling, an object, etc.)?

What are some ways that I can NOW share, give and show that thing to myself and others?

Who is one person that I can engage to support me in this activity today?

For example, maybe I desire to have a large, clean and organized home where everything is in its place. Today I can clean off one desk. Today I can draw or print out an image that represents the living room and office space that resonates with my desire. While doing or engaging both (the clean desk and the images) I feel the feelings that my fulfilled desire generates for me - joy, pride, peace. I tell my partner and you about this victory… this victory that took me 15mins to generate from start to finish. Practice can be quick and easy! The power to start is the first step and sometimes the hardest part. Will you taks 15mins and do this activity? Knowing it is perfect and whole regardless of the short amount of time it takes?

Who knows the Sandman - February 7

Are we dreaming, dancing or dying?

What if the hardest truths to swallow are the ones that force us to wake up to the truth of our own power. Truths like, The world is what we make it. I’m quite convinced that we create what we dread. And what do we dread? For one, the fear of death consumes us.

AffOrmation: Why is it easy to celebrate the fullness of life above all?

Just try this on… Consider the food we eat, the pollutants (e.g. plastic) that we surround ourselves and even wrap our food in. Consider that when naivete is no longer the excuse, often we do not change the habits that harm us and those we love. And there is no finger to point outside of ourselves. I think there “100 ways” to create above and beyond this type of dread loop. We can dance a new dance even while the old song plays.

ASK:

1) Do you see that it is possible to shift our fears 1-by-1 and liberate ourselves?
2) What’s an example of 1 small choice we’d make differently were we not afraid?
3a) Can we say thank you to fear for protecting us and
3b) commit to learning how to let it go?

For example, I have so many unmade requests. I could find a practice that helps me release the fear of being told no. I could choose to make a request a day without attachment and see how much further I could get, see how safe I really am. What’s your example? What’s your commitment?

My Name is My Own

One more revelation from the Beavers…

Sunday - January 24th

What do our names reveal about our purpose? June Jordan says, in Poem About My Rights, “I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name / My name is my own my own my own”. In the poem we journey through the limits, labels and problems around the world when someone determined we were the wrong [insert identity or characteristic hear]. But the truth is we are not wrong. Never wrong. And I wonder how/if our names remind us of this.

AffOrmation: Why is it easy for my name to be a presencing force in my life?

ASK:

• Does your name resonate with you?

• How can the meaning, the legacy of your name presence you today? this week?

• Are you willing to do the research to find the love work your name has been doing with you thus far?

• Can you make your name it’s own ceremony? even if you have to change it?

And what does this have to do with the beaver? Well the beaver is the largest rodent on this continent. A beaver’s name supposedly comes from a word that meant brown and a word that meant hardworker. And we know that a beaver’s hardwork provides for whole ecosystems where they live. But do we value their labor? What are the rumors that spread about them and “their type”, yunno rodents… And then I think about how a beaver’s home is called a lodge. A beaver’s home is so fortified that even a bear can’t break through. It’s built in layers. Built tough as concrete.

And just this morning I realized with Earthshaking clarity the lodge, the fortified home that my name is for me. I realized it means and symoblizes more than I knew. I realized that as I expand my name and NAMES’ES’s meaning expands as well. Today I invite you into that ceremony - to embrace all your names as your own, your own, your own.

(June Jordan photo by Gwen Phillips)

January 17th, 2021

Give a Dam Devotional: Love Maintenance

Building on Sangodare’s meditations on beavers and purpose, Alexis and Sangodare have a live version of their (usually private) daily testimony practice. Live participants can ask questions based on any of last year’s sermons or oracles (see below.)

See “Sunday Service Archive” below for past services and other offerings.

Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals

Sunday Service Archive

Sunday November 22nd - 2020

Happy Birthday Pauli Murray: Row Row Row Your Boat

Sermon by Sangodare, visual oracle by Alexis Pauline Gumbs co-sponsored by the Pauli Murray Center

We invite requests, comments and reflections at each service. Service Notes is where I comment on the notes congregants put in the collection basket.

Visit our Vimeo Livestream Archive.

Archived