maũndũ makwa #23
(my things): on empires, burnout, and spring
wa Ngamĩro, meaning of or from Ngamĩro. Ngamĩro, a gourd used to hold milk and my maternal great-grandmother's name. an ode to vessels and also my grandmother who was of — from Ngamĩro. this is a space for exploration, curation, na meciria makwa (and my thoughts). wa Ngamĩro is a free monthly-ish newsletter.
I might dye my hair and learn to be braver. I may nap and rise to resist with what I have and know and can share.
There will be stains and scars but living means sometimes leaving marks. The colonizers have it all wrong, we ARE nature. There are seasons we must follow and interconnection needed.
Yes, sometimes we get it all wrong but at least we try. There are some saying they are just following orders, but free will is for dissenting moments like these. No is not a bad word to say.
Apologies are not a punishment, but do not become one. Do not walk around saying sorries for existing, stepped on and no longer your own. You are the world’s, in a lovely loving way. You belong enough to shape the places outside doors, the insides too.
I am community member and aspiring accomplice for total freedoms. Gotta free us all from the grips of shame too. Feel it in my body. Prescribed a body scan, to close my eyes and notice, but sometimes I rather not know.
Do my deep breathing to prepare for the living and loving and laughing, and the crying too. No longer watching news first thing in the morning. Now tea and poetry. No longer going to all the meetings. Now less tired and more time to really heal.
Never can keep up with the bombings and bombings and bombings. I am older than all the dead children. I am younger than all the dead elders. I am witness and worried. I am in the in between of ages and life, no safer or better. I feel it in my body.
Pink or green for my hair. To feel alive and like spring has not shifted because of climate catastrophes. Gonna still bloom even with this wilt. Petal soft and sharp as a thorn.
Practicing no-ing in the mirror. Practicing feeling it in my body. Practicing having a body. Practicing having a mind like mine.
Drink the calming tea and read the poems. Take loud slurpy sips, make noises when it’s just right. Memorize the words and taste them too in your mouth.
It is a honor to care deeply. More proof that I am real. More weights carried across shoulders. More hands to hold. More hugs and shared watery smiles and laughs.
More power to the people and less rich people in power. More time outside the doors and always remembering we ARE nature.
gũthikĩrĩria (listening to)
These songs:
Maria Landó - Susana Baca
Bad Case of the Blues - Linda Martell
We Love Your Apathy - Skunk Anansie
These 2 music sets / playlists:
kũrora (to look)
I Must Become a Menace To My Enemies by June Jordan
How many of my brothers and my sisters will they kill before I teach myself retaliation? Shall we pick a number? South Africa for instance: do we agree that more than ten thousand in less than a year but that less than five thousand slaughtered in more than six months will WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME? I must become a menace to my enemies.
Not In Our Name (The Pledge of Resistance) - Saul Williams
we believe that as people living in the united states it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government in our names. not in our name will you wage endless war. there can be no more deaths. no more transfusions of blood for oil. not in our name will you invade countries, bomb civilians, kill more children, letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless. not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for. not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil. not by our mouths will we let fear silence us. not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil. not by our will and not in our name. we pledge resistance. we pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity. we pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom and peace. another world is possible and we pledge to make it real.
gũthoma (to read)
books i’ve been engaging with lately:
Deeply moving and felt. Thank you for being you, being real and being bold. I love you.