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Hello loved ones!
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I'm Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs,
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welcome back to Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday.
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Um... catching up! I'm catching up
on the Sundays that I missed,
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and this past weekend we were in Houston,
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facilitating Mobile Homecoming, grounding,
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with a team of awesome facilitators,
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The Fullness: an all day institute
on erotic power and spiritual wellness,
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inspired by Audre Lorde's
"Uses of the Erotic/Power of the Erotic."
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And it was incredible,
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about a hundred people
participated throughout the day,
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and it was powerful to witness all these folks
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stepping into their full, embodied power
in relationship to their sexuality,
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their sexual practice, their political practice,
their creative practice,
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their spiritual and religious practice,
everything.
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So, one of the poems that we used,
and did an oracle with during the institute,
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is Audre Lorde's "Love Poem", from her collection
New York City Headshop and Museum.
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And I'm gonna share it with you right now.
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"Love Poem"
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Speak earth and bless me with what is richest
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make sky flow honey out of my hips
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rigid as mountains
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spread over a valley
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carved out by the mouth of rain.
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And I knew when I entered her I was
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high wind in her forests
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hollow fingers whispering sound
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honey flowed from the split cup
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impaled on a lance of tongues
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on the tips of her breasts, on her navel
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and my breath, howling into her entrances
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through lungs of pain.
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Greedy as herring-gulls
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or a child
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I swing out over the earth
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over and over
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again.
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So, I love this poem for many reasons.
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Two that are really important in terms of
this whole context of survival,
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and re-defining survival
with the guidance of Audre Lorde,
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are that this is a poem where she talks explicitly
and makes a connection between
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her sexual practice, her intimate embodied love
for women or for a woman,
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and her spiritual practice of connecting with nature,
connecting with the earth itself,
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and the valleys and the rain
and everything.
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And I think that the Fullness Institute
was really all about that...
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how can we activate our embodied practice,
and our intimacy with each other,
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and our intimacy with ourselves
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as a resource that has us be more alive,
more connected with nature,
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and more in tune with our spiritual power.
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So, we're really excited about what all the participants in the institute will do with that
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as they go forward.
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We are thrilled about all of
the co-sponsoring organizations,
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25 different organizations who are doing this work,
helping people live fully in their bodies year round,
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and you can check that out if you go to the
Mobile Homecoming tumblr:
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mobilehomecoming.tumblr.com
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And the other thing that I think is
really important about this poem,
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--and this speaks to your assignment should you choose to accept it--
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is that when Audre Lorde first submitted this poem for publication with her publisher at the time,
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Broadside Press, which is one of the most important
publishers of the black arts movement,
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her editor pushed back
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and said that Oh, this is confusing,
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there's something you know about the pronouns,
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*"I" entered "her", you know, that doesn't...
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that doesn't really make sense...
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And Audre Lorde was like
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no, there's nothing wrong with the pronouns,
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y'know, I'm saying exactly what I want to say.
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But the way that Broadside Press
had been marketing her work
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was as a mother, as a Black Nationalist woman,
as a teacher,
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not as her whole self,
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as a Black, lesbian, warrior, poet, mother,
who she was.
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And she took a stand with this particular poem,
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which Broadside Press did publish
in her next collection,
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New York City Headshop and Museum,
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and she also read the poem publicly
all around New York City
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as one of her acts of declaring who she was
and how she worked,
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how her spiritual practice worked,
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what the role of her love for women
was in her life,
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not just as an abstract idea, but also as
an embodied way of engaging with the planet.
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And it was really a poem that allowed her
to unapologetically declare who she was,
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and when someone interviewed her about why she named herself in these ways,
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why every time she spoke she came to say
"I am a Black lesbian warrior poet mother,"
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doing my work, come to ask you
are you doing yours?"
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Someone asked her, y'know, why do you have this whole litany of words when you introduce yourself?
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And she shared that she had not known that
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Langston Hughes, a poet who had mentored her,
who she knew personally,
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who was very important to her as a poet,
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as he's important to all of us,
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but also as a person who she knew,
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who gave her advice about her own poetry,
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she never knew about his sexuality,
about that aspect of his life until after he was dead.
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And she decided at that moment,
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she wanted everyone to know
the parts of herself that mattered to her.
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And she knew that she wouldn't be able to predict
who would find healing
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in her ability to unapologetically declare
who she was,
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who would be out there who could identify
with a piece of who she was
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and would live to see her example.
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And I love that, I love hearing that and knowing that,
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because of course, I am a person
who found her work after she passed on.
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I'm absolutely empowered by the unapologetic way
she described herself,
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and I'm sure many of us, many of you watching
this video are also empowered by her bravery.
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So! Your assignment for this week
in the name of Audre Lorde
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is to think about that.
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What is something about yourself that
you want to declare more unapologetically?
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It could have to do with your sexuality
or sensuality or your practice,
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or it could really also be anything, y'know, like,
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if you are an artist but you've been kind of underplaying that part of who you are,
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what would it look like to unapologetically
declare yourself as an artist?
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To highlight your creative practice
where people can see it.
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Or whatever it is, you know,
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if you really wanna highlight your relationship with your siblings more...
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[ CANNOT HEAR THIS PART ]
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...what would it look like to say
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"Y'know what? Being a sister is a crucial part of who I am, and I really want to spread that to the world"
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Or for whatever reason.
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With no apologies.
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I mean, my siblings are amazing,
I'm obsessed with them.
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No apologies for that.
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So whatever that is for you, the idea is for you to unapologetically express that this week.
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If you wanna leave a comment, if you wanna
email me I would love to hear about it,
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and if you want a poem blessing
like the participants in the Institute got,
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distilled from Audre Lorde's "Love Poem",
you can figure out how to do that,
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either right below this video or at
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summerofourlorde.wordpress.com
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Thank you so much for listening,
for watching,
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sending you much much much much love.
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MWAH! Happy Resurrection Sunday.