Hi, it's me, Sister Doctor Lex,

and welcome to week 5 
of Audre Lorde Resurrection Sundays.

Can you believe we've already been doing this
for more than a month?

Thanks for watching again.

Right now, I am in Anguilla visiting my family,
and I am <i>so</i> happy to be here,

and definitely feeling very close 
to the energy of my ancestors

and the divinity that I always feel 
when I'm here.

So this week's poem is called "Call",

from Audre Lorde's 1986 collection 
"Our Dead Behind Us".

And she explains the name of the goddess that you will hear repeated in this poem,

Aido Hwedo is the Rainbow Serpent,

and also in this powm, 
the name for all those ancient divinities

whose names and faces have been forgotten.

"<i>Call</i>

<i>Holy ghost woman</i>

<i>stolen out of your name</i>

<i>Rainbow Serpent</i>

<i>whose faces have been forgotten</i>

<i>Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me</i>

<i>with a lighter burden</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>On worn kitchen stools and tables</i>

<i>we are piecing our weapons together</i>

<i>scraps of different histories</i>

<i>do not let us shatter</i>

<i>any altar</i>

<i>she who scrubs the capitol toilets, listening</i>

<i>is your sister's youngest daughter</i>

<i>gnarled Harriet's anointed</i>

<i>you have not been without honor</i>

<i>even the young guerrilla has chosen</i>

<i>yells as she fires into the thicket</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>I have written your names on my cheekbone</i>

<i>dreamed your eyes</i>

<i>flesh my epiphany</i>

<i>most ancient goddesses</i>

<i>hear me enter</i>

<i>I have not forgotten your worship</i>

<i>nor my sisters</i>

<i>nor the sons of my daughters</i>

<i>my children watch for your print
in their labors</i>

<i>and they say Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>I am a Black woman turning</i>

<i>mouthing your name as a password</i>

<i>through seductions self-slaughter</i>

<i>and I believe in the holy ghost mother</i>

<i>in your flames beyond our vision</i>

<i>blown light through the fingers of women</i>

<i>enduring warring</i>

sometimes outside your name

<i>we do not choose all our rituals</i>

<i>Thandi Modise winged girl of Soweto</i>

<i>brought fire back home in the snout of a mortar</i>

<i>and passes the word from her prison cell</i>

<i>whispering Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>Rainbow Serpent who must not go unspoken</i>

<i>I have ottered up the safety of separations</i>

<i>sung the spirals of power</i>

<i>and what fills the spaces</i>

<i>before power unfolds or flounders</i>

<i>in desirable non-essentials</i>

<i>I am a Black woman</i>

<i>stripped down and praying</i>

<i>my whole life has been an altar</i>

<i>worth its ending</i>

<i>and I say Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>I may be a weed in the garden</i>

<i>of women I have loved</i>

<i>who are still trapped in their season</i>

<i>but even they shriek</i>

<i>as they rip burning gold from their skins</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>We are learning by heart</i>

<i>what has never been taught</i>

<i>you are my given fire-tongued</i>

<i>Oya Seboulisa Mawu Afrekete</i>

<i>and now we are mourning our sisters</i>

<i>lost to the false hush of sorrow</i>

<i>to hardness and hatchets and childbirth</i>

<i>and we are shouting</i>

<i>Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer</i>

<i>Assata Shakur and Yaa Asantewa</i>

<i>my mother and Winnie Mandela 
are singing in my throat</i>

<i>the holy ghosts linguist</i>

<i>one iron silence broken</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is calling</i>

<i>calling</i>

<i>your daughters are named</i>

<i>and conceiving</i>

<i>Mother loosen my tongue</i>

<i>or adorn me</i>

<i>with a lighter burden</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>

<i>Aido Hwedo is coming.</i>"

So of course, I love this poem.

I love that this poem is about collective survival,

about the survival of that black, feminine, 
transformative, warrior spirit,

divinely flowing through Audre Lorde of course,

flowing through anyone who reembodies 
and narrates this poem,

flowing through, as she names, the sisters,

the daughters, the sons of the daughters,

even the closeted women who she loves and 
who treat her like a weed in their garden,

still, that energy moves through.

And I am so grateful for the way that energy 
can be with us,

and the way this poem makes space 
for that energy to move through

as faith, as wisdom, as each of us.

And speaking of South Africa, and clearing space,

and black feminine transformative warrior divinity,

and calling names,

Gloria Joseph sent out a very timely and pointed email recently,

asking from a black feminist perspective

why is it, that as we honour 
and uplift Nelson Mandela,

and his recent transition to join the ancestors,

the name Winnie Mandela 
has been conspicuously absent,

and has not been lifted up 
in the way that it might be.

And so in the spirit of honouring that inquiry,
which I think we could all think about,

and lifting up the name of Winnie Mandela 
as Audre Lorde does in this poem,

I want to offer the Poem For The Letter W

that I distilled when I was reading through, 
working with this poem, 26 times.

So this is the Poem For The Letter W.

Woman whose worn

we weapons without written worship

watch woman women warring

we winged word whispering

who? what woman?

whole worth weed women

who? we

what? we.

we, Winnie Mandela."

And your assignment this week

is to call the names of those ancestrally present,

those living, those who you intend to live one day,

who will carry this warrior, transformative energy 
that we so need in the times that we live in.

So call the names of your own ancestors,

call the names of the warriors you admire,

call your own name in the mirror,

this week, making space for that transformative energy that you may need,

as a warrior in your own life,

and that we certainly, collectively, need

as those who have the stewardship 
for carrying this energy forward

among our species and on our planet.

As always, I am so grateful to Audre Lorde 
for giving us the space, giving us this poem

as a ritual to bring that energy through.

And I'm so happy to be able to share it with you.

Please do check out the School of Our Lorde website

and hit me up if you are interested 
in having your own custom poem,

or in working more with the energy of the Lorde,

and... yes! I will see you next week,
from Anguilla again,

on Resurrection Sunday.