Friday night at Centennial Hall, as I watched Alvin Ailey’s dance troupe perform his signature piece, Revelations, I imagined Trayvon Martin on stage, in the middle of all that beauty and movement, his soul being rocked in the bosom of Abraham.

Revelations was first performed in 1960 and its three parts tell a story of the pain of racism, a pain borne by millions of individuals throughout our nation’s history, and borne still by every one of us today.

The opening section of Revelations, entitled “Pilgrim of Sorrow, begins where we are today in the story of Trayvon:  bodies heavy, arms reaching toward heaven, bearing the pain of the death of this 17-year-old, yearning for deliverance from all that our shared history of racism has wrought.

The dancers, dressed somberly in earth-colored skin tones, transform in the second section, “Take Me to the Water,” into lightness of being. A ceremonial baptism is enacted, a dance of purification. The dancers wear white, and one holds aloft a large umbrella draped in white satin that performs its own dance of sorts, lilting and swaying while at the feet of the dancers, yards of billowing blue silk stretch across the stage.

‘Bathe that sweet boy,” is all I can think as I watch the fabric rise and fall, moved by dancers on either end of the stage who are invisible to the audience. The motion of the fabric is hypnotic, so real I can hear the splash, feel the cool drops on my face.

“Wash us all,” I think. “Wash this nation and all of us in it who carry in our bodies the deep, deep scars of racism and hatred.”

Just yesterday, as I waited to turn left on Campbell Avenue, a black man crossed the street and I watched, aware that while I consider myself enlightened and non-racist, there is that place in my own belly that can quicken and hold, a tinge of fear lodged deeply in my bones can be triggered by the color of a person’s skin.  It was placed there not by the words of acceptance and peace my parents taught me but by a long, sad history that dwells deep in our collective blood and bone. Set my people free.

A giant sun dominates the stage in the last section, “Move, Members, Move!”  Dancers dressed in shades of yellow cool themselves with hand-held fans that move rapidly and in unison, demonstrating how deep belief and faith can air us out, transform and heal.

I imagined Trayvon in the middle of these dancers, cooled by those fans, smiling broadly, held in the circle of faith and belief.  His body transformed by the healing yellow light and energy of the sun.

“Tell us, Trayvon, tell us,” I thought to myself as I watched.  “You were taken so that we might all awaken. Cleanse our own tired bodies of the stink of racism that remains alive in our nation, in our lives, in our hearts.”

We need to sit still a moment, let ourselves be rocked in the bosom of Abraham, the bosom of nature, the bosom of faith.  In this quiet, we can reach across the lines of color that bisect our nation and speak and live with truth, work together for justice, allowing his death to heal and transform.

This is Zoe.  She is our rescue beagle.  In the years before we got her, someone tatooed her ear, severed her ability to bark and let her wander the streets of L.A. until found by a child on his way to school whose teacher lived next door to our niece who called us; my husband drove to LA to bring Zoe to Tucson.  Quite a back-story for a 23 pound beagle.

Given her history,  I do not blame her for sticking out her tongue.  Not sure why she is doing it in this shot since the one who took this picture was our niece who was the reason Zoe found her way from the streets of L.A. to a very cushy and pampered life  in Tucson. Zoe lives most hours of the day sleeping in the sun on her own little pillow in the backyard or on one of our several couches or chairs.  In our house, Zoe rules.

I want to make a poster of this picture and flash it every time Antenori opens his mouth.  Among his most recent assertions:  “I’ve been fighting communists, socialists and for liberty and freedom since the day my feet hit the ground,”  Not sure how many of those we have in Tucson or how crucial that is to his ability to represent this district in Washington, D. C.,  but I think it is a statement for which Zoe’s gesture is well-deserved.

And then there is Jesse Kelly who invokes God so often you would think he was his campaign manager.  Since god is just dog spelled backward, I think Zoe takes this one especially personal.

The list could go on and on, and I am sure there are Democratic politicians running around who deserve the tongue of Zoe.  I know also that any one breathing the words, Rio Nuevo, or griping one more time about the street car or even questioning whether there has been any progress downtown – Zoe, tongue, please stick out now.

I know that civil behavior is having whole institutes built in its name, and I applaud these efforts.  But I figure when we live in a world where you need to create institutions around something that should be as natural as breathing, we are in a peck of trouble.  And with 24-hour news cycles and all that dead air to fill, civility ranks way below ratings and trying to be heard among all the babble.

In truth, Zoe is her own little institute of civil behavior.  She doesn’t have an aggressive bone in her body, she knows how to say thank you with tail-wagging vigor, and she is the best darned cuddler in the world.  I think she could lick the meanness right out of any politician or pundit.  We need more Zoe’s in this world.

In the dream, a blue-robed woman commanded me to come, follow.  There was a black wall, long and tall, that had kept me back for years, centuries, forever.  I sat down beside it.  I was with a man who did not want me to go.  He said, “I am afraid.”  I asked him, “Must I also be afraid?” and he said, “Yes, you must, you must.”

The man fell down upon his face and wept. He said, “I cannot do it. You are strange and terrible. You command me to lead you into fearful places.”

 I looked down upon him.  I saw a living picture upon his white back change. A mangled red bird gnawed at his throat until his head fell off. A new head grew upon the man.  Then the man looked down and saw the red bird pecking at his throat. He seized the bird and killed it.  When I saw this, I felt great pity. I knelt down beside the man who lay weeping upon the ground. I picked him up in my arms, and sat beside the black wall. I said to him, “Wait, I have seen what is written upon your back. You will be healed.”

Grief then, my own, overwhelmed me. I sat and wailed.  Cried the tears of forever, for all that has been and that should be no more. Suddenly, a gate appeared in the wall and out flew many phantoms. They whirled about us, but I told them to leave him alone. “He sleeps.”

They vanished.

Before me, fire sprang up from the earth. It became a tree of fire. Above, I beheld the star. I laid the man upon the ground and bathed his face with water.  I turned and went toward the great gate in the black wall. It sprang open for me. I entered a cavern. It was dark.

A woman in a blue robe walked ahead of me. I approached to speak to her. She put her finger to her lips and said, “Follow me.  You enter upon a place of fear.”

I said, “Why should I follow you?”

I saw that she was an old withered woman. She said, “You have little faith. Behold.” She pulled off her robe. I saw a beautiful woman. She was all green and about her was a green light.  She put on the blue robe and changed again into the old woman.

She said, “You enter among the ghosts. Cover your face with this gray veil. They must not see you.”

I did as she bade me. We entered a great circle in the rocks. I saw ghosts and phantoms whirling around, moaning, writhing.  Some reached down to clutch us with great claws. Others were beautiful and voluptuous. Still others with pinched and haggard faces screamed and rent the air.

The woman at my side said, “I will show you.” She walked to the center of the circle.

There the phantoms clutched  and tore at her. I cried out in fear. Then by some strange magic, she became whole again and led me forth from that place of dread out upon the narrow path beyond. I asked, “How did we emerge?”

She said, “I was with you. Without me, you would have been lost. You have passed through a dark region of your own soul.”

Sunday morning and a wisp of old moon hangs low in the sky.  The dark moon this month falls on February 21, the two-month anniversary of  my brother’s death.  It was a waning gibbous moon on the day he collapsed, a waning crescent on the day he died.  It was fat and full on January 8, 2012, the one-year anniversary of the Tucson shootings and the day we held a service for my brother in Southern California in the Methodist Church where all five of us Jackson kids had been baptized.

This Sunday morning, I feel like it is finally New Year’s Day.  The blur I have traveled through that began with bullets on January 8, 2011, and ended with a deadly butterfly brain tumor in December is beginning to lift.  The lifting has not come easily.  It has required therapy, exercise, journal work and painting.  It has led me toward wine and carbs and then pulled me back to healthier ways of being.

Damn Thirsty is one of my very favorite poems of Hafiz, the great Sufi mystic who lived in the 14th century.  When you read his poetry, the words blend Christian/Muslim/Mystic into a seamless whole.  You forever have to remind yourself that he wrote long ago because his words, even now, simmer and slam with truth and beauty; he is just so damned wise. 

Damn Thirsty 

First

The fish needs to say,

“Something ain’t right about this

Camel ride –

And I’m

Feeling so damn

Thirsty.”

The image of a fish trying to ride a camel hits homes.  How much I have done in my own life that feels just like that – me being or doing things that match up with what I think my family and the world wants me to be, actions  in sync with the way my external body happens to look, but that felt alien to my own innards, my own dreams and the deep stirrings of who I really am.  The lesson I take from the last year is that my insides and outsides simply must live in harmony.

I have always been intrigued with the synchronicity that our unconscious minds ignore but that are right in front of us if we tune in. This morning, after several encounters with “orange,” I finally paid attention.  I had an orange for breakfast, chopped up the orange flesh of a butternut squash for a dish I am making, and just changed my Facebook to an orange-hued frame.  “What is this about?” I wondered when I realized the orange-tinged theme that was coloring this nearly moonless Sunday morning.

I immediately went to my chakra book and was thrilled to be reminded that orange is the color emanating from the second, sacral chakra.  Part of my healing work has involved a much deeper tapping into this body of mine.  Learning the places inside my body where grief grabs hold hard and refuses to let go; I have taken on these areas with meditation, yoga, and a much deeper tending of the type of foods I am using for fuel.

It is the Sacral Chakra that associates with the color orange or red-orange, that area just below the belly button that is paradise central, holding the magic and mystery of female sexuality and generativity.  As the book told me, “This chakra often offers us the opportunity to lessen our “control issues” and find a balance in our lives…making changes in our life stream through our personal choices…maintaining a healthy yin-yang existence.”

All this orange, to me, is a great sign of life force beginning to again flow through me. I imagine a bright orange light emanating from my pelvic region, alive, pulsing, compelling me to create, breathe, sweat and live. I have been “so damn thirsty,” but am clearly making progress in taking in what I need to sate my thirst.  I am a fish that has finally jumped off that camel, and gotten back into the pool of life that sustains.  Today, I am going to eat one more orange, blend that butternut squash with pungent herbs and spices, and prepare to light one more candle, on what will be a moonless February 21, in honor of my brother, whose death is serving to move me toward a much more authentic life.

The other afternoon in yoga, I got the giggles.  I was lying there among the other black-clad women, my right leg dutifully twisted beneath my torso, and me, bent over that right-angled leg, nose to the floor.  Pigeon is what they call it, and I am lying there, my hip muscles screamingly open, and I started to giggle.

Our teacher, a former ballet dancer, was versed in Ashtanga yoga – the one where you hold the poses and let your breath ease its way into stuck places.  This beautiful, graceful woman, who managed to slip in a demonstration of her mastery of the splits, was not as adept when it came to counting.  Five was her favored number for holding all poses except pigeon and then she glommed on to 15 – which is a hellishly long time when lying face down with one leg twisted beneath your body.  She counted to 15 slower than a turtle ambling through a vast sea of honey, and all I could do was giggle.

What struck me as I had religiously and with great purpose folded myself into pigeon is how damned serious everything is – the economy, the next election, shrinking stock portfolios, the horrors of our educational system and whether a yoga pose is correct.  It is, without question, a deeply serious time.

But as I watch Newt bad-mouthing the media, his truth-telling ex-wives and lobbyists everywhere,  I can only laugh.  I am so sick of listening to all of them, every one, male and female, Dem, Repub, liberal, conservative.  Spouting, promising, blaming and preaching while all of us everyday Americans just keep on struggling.

We need laughter desperately.  We need humor and perspective and nuance and patience.  And in this uber-speed world we live in, none of that abounds.

So I began to focus on pigeons – those nasty birds that mess up the sides of buildings and seem to be everywhere, and I decided to learn more about what they represent.  What is this bird that led me toward giggles and glee, even as my body was folded into excruciating angles?

According to the books on the symbols, pigeons represent “return to the love and security of home.”  Doves and pigeons are interchangeable in the symbol world, and I realized this pigeon pose that got me laughing was leading right back to the center of myself, to a far more honest way of being, to feeling and being utterly at home in my own skin no matter what is happening in the greater world.

One other detail about pigeons that delighted me:  “they breed rapidly and publicly.”

Not that I am going to take on that kind of behavior, but the idea of being all of who I am, me, in my very own skin and letting all that breed “rapidly and publicly” filled me with delight. What kind of world would this be if we all learned to trust and live our own instincts, not worry about the rest of the flock and listen, truly and deeply to the songs of our unique souls?

Two days before Christmas and we have not a single gift beneath the Christmas tree which itself is 8-feet tall with multi-colored lights and ornaments that span forty years worth of  living.  Just two days ago, as the light of the Winter Solstice began its shift from darkness to light, my beloved brother Don slipped through the shifting rays.

This year has thrust upon me too many humbling lessons of grief.  Split seconds when time and light shift and shimmer and take away the ones we love.  On January 8, it was a storm of bullets that I watched spew from a small gun that took away Gabe, that utterly transformed Gabrielle and that threw Pam and Ron to the sidewalk sparing their lives but profoundly altering their sense of safety and sanity.

Nine days ago, I was sitting in our kitchen, the first day of nearly three weeks off – quiet time needed desperately to do a bit more healing from what I witnessed  last January. My brother’s partner Cynthia called from Austin to ask me our family history of seizures and cancer.  My brother Don, the strong, healthy, athletic one, the songwriter, chiropractor and father of three wonderful children – had collapsed in his office and was in ICU.

This one call produced a frenzy of more calls, plane reservations, car rentals as all the rest of us raced to Austin.  We are and have been forever the Jackson Five – oldest brother Dan, then me, then Don and his twin David and Gayle.  I understand the power of five, know the dynamics of five-way interaction – and Don was the one who would outlive us all.  The one I always thought if anything ever happened to my husband, I could move to Austin and live close to him.

Don was the one with the roaring sense of humor, who always called me Jack and who could nudge my shoulder when I tended to get too intense and gentle me right out of it.

He was taken out not by a single speeding bullet but by a brain cancer so aggressive that he was gone in seven short days.  He went from jogging last Monday to dead on Tuesday.

And so I sit here, no presents under the tree, having no idea how we will survive as the Jackson Four, wondering what it is I am supposed to learn from this year of grief and the unexpected.  I have no answers, I have no bitterness, I have deep, deep pain that is now a part of my being and the fierce desire to make good of all this – to more deeply appreciate the sound of our beagle chewing his breakfast and lapping up his water, to keep my own heart – so altered by all that has gone down this year – open to possibility, love and trust.  That, I believe, will be a gift that can’t be wrapped but is there for the taking.

It is hard to claim sexism in the Redistricting Commission debacle when it is one woman hustling another woman out the door without pause for due process, cause or a bit of politeness.  But I keep trying to imagine a male head of the Commission being ousted with such breathtaking speed or that a man would have been subject to such intense speculation about his wife’s political connections as Chair Colleen Mathis has had to deal with about her husband’s politics. Colleen Mathis has not been swift-boated, but instead has been swift-booted.

It is especially tough this week watching the story play out while at the same time Candidate Herman Cain is spending his time in front of cameras calling four, that is four, different professional women, utter and complete liars.  Cain is in the middle of not just a classic case of he said/she said but rather a grand operatic saga of  he-said-she said-she said-she said-she said.  And the poor victimized guy can only claim he didn’t do a thing wrong.

The song that is stuck in my brain with all this latest news is Go Away Little Girl – a song that apparently has such a compelling message that it has been recorded over the years by, among others, Steve Lawrence, Bobby Vee, Johnny Mathis and Donny Osmond. If you haven’t heard it, the song tells the story of what must be an older guy who has the hots for a young thing and is gallantly urging her to go away cause “our lips must never meet,” and given their age difference  “it will never work out.”

If Cain had minded these lyrics and tended to his lobbying, he wouldn’t be having to defend his fine honor against so many lying, scheming females.  But since Cain ignored the important message of the song, and urged the younger women to come hither instead of gallantly urging them to go away, it is not worth rewriting the words for him.

Instead, I have been moved to rewrite the lyrics for Governor Brewer, who boldly smacked Mathis aside as if she were just some little girl instead of a Yale grad, who oozes class, restraint and intelligence.  So this is for you, Governor Brewer, written so that you can sing for us what I imagine to be the true motivation behind this swift-boot controversy:

Quite a stir over the internet recently about a major issue facing our nation:  Michele Bachmann’s choice of manicures.   Tasteful, tacky or totally off-limits?  We are asked to decide.  She prefers French nails with their pink bodies and white tips, a style that most likely is done in a salon and more than likely involves…fake nails.  (In the mode of full disclosure, the nails of my own hands, clicking right now across the keyboard, are mine, and each one has been lovingly filed and painted by me in OPI’s Chocolate Moose.  Not a chip to be found.)

While some might question what on earth Bachmann’s nails have to do with the economy or national security, I believe that instead of pulling back from what some might consider trivial, we need to focus the same level of scrutiny on all politicians.

I will start with Hillary. I imagine her sitting down with heads of state all over the world with her newly long blonde locks brushing her shoulders coquettishly.  Now I am not one to judge, but when hair is allowed to grow beyond one’s ears, it is just too easy in any given conversation to flick  those locks, gently tilt the head, your inner flirt just dying to come out.  I know; I have had long hair most of my adult life.  Believe me, it is an asset and one that is easily engaged and quite effective when put to good use.  A viable tool in the female arsenal, but is this what we want of our Secretary of State? An important question:  Are Hillary’s longer locks playing any role in the European economic turmoil?  A question demanding an answer.

Obama: Does he own a single piece of wardrobe that is not a slim-cut black or navy suit?  And what is with all of those white shirts, so starched and austere looking?  He does, to give him credit, change up the tie colors, but I have yet to see him in a shirt with a hint of baby blue, a soft pink or yellow pastel, beneath those black or navy lapels.  Come on – I want a president who can change it up, who knows how to effectively use color to add spice to his demeanor.  As Americans, we deserve a president who is not afraid to say it through fashion.

Herman Cain: Did you see the picture of him in a blue shirt – top button wantonly open – displaying a gold chain?  Ok, there is no hint of cleavage, but there is definitely a virile, full-bodied chest beneath that shirt.  Hilary took it on the chin for her hint of cleavage a few years back (how dare show something as brazen as a vertical line down the chest, there are young, innocent children in this country who must be protected). She was rightly chastened.  So, Cain, take note and keep that button buttoned!

And I may be seeing things, but I am pretty sure that Rick Perry has put on about 5 pounds since he started spouting his flat-tax-mantra.  A bit more pudge there?  Just sayin.  How can we trust a presidential candidate who is not disciplined enough to mind his own weight?  America may be waddling in obesity but we want our leaders slim, austere.  Keep an eye on that, Rick baby

One last observation:  Mitt – Marlboro man Mitt – I detect a hint of botox in that steely jaw.  Not that there is anything wrong with that since reigning in jaw jowl is a vital pursuit. But it could interfere with the sincerity of a smile, or even the ability to smile.  Careful, Mitt. Know your limits.

And to all of you – Mitt, Rick, Herman, Michele, Barack, Hillary and anyone else who dares pop their head into the maelstrom of the on-line world. We are watching, we care.

Briana Amat did something this week that merited a half-page, two photos and a jump in the New York Times:  She kicked a 31-yard field goal for her Pinckney Community High School football team just a few minutes after being crowned homecoming queen.  A blonde jock with a 4.0 average, I cannot imagine the New York Times would have dedicated all that ink had she merely kicked what turned out to be the game-changing field goal.  But throw a tiara in the mix, and you have a story.

I still remember a rerun of the old television program Father Knows Best in which eldest daughter Betty dashes across the finish line with the winning time for her school’s track meet and is hurried to the locker room to don a long gown before being crowned homecoming queen.  Briana accepted her crown dressed in her uniform and pads, but other than that  the story hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years.

Why is the combo of beauty/brains and sweat a story? Why does our world forever try to cram flesh-and-blood four-dimensional women into two-dimensional cages?

Multiple dimensions were on full display when the Nobel Committee selected three diverse females for the Nobel Peace prize.   Tawakkol Karman, the “Mother of the Revolution” in Yemen, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Liberian Peace Activist Leymah Gbowee of Liberia were all recognized for their courage, commitment and fearlessness in their human rights battles.

These women were the first females honored by the Nobel Committee since 2004, but the Nobel citation made up a bit for the seven year lapse in judgment. It stated:  “We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.”

I stare at the photos of these three courageous women and marvel at the strength, focus and determination that shines from their faces.  Crowned by headscarves and not tiaras, these are the photos I want all of our daughters and sons to memorize, emulate.  No hint of Barbie or princess, just grit and glory in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges in the nations in which they live.

In the U.S., we like our girls and women locked in the “beauty” box, obsessed with external appearance and saturated with relentless advertising that demands extraordinary and expensive efforts to appear young, taut and pretty. Beauty remains today the single ascribed power granted to women in our country.  We continue to fight to achieve on many fronts, but package us in long shiny hair, taut skin, straight noses and white teeth, and we more readily show up in the print and broadcast media outlets, 97% of which are owned and operated by white males.

Last weekend, I watched the documentary Miss Representation at The Loft Cinema.  Check out their web site at www.missrepresentation.org. This must-see film, which premiered at Sundance, tells the story of the tiny cages in which we daily trap our females. These cages are on full display in all forms of advertising, music and media message.  Just turn them all off, you might suggest.  Not that easy, and getting more difficult with all forms of media image coming at us through not only television but computers, cell phones and every manner of pad and pod.

As the film notes, “You can’t be what you can’t see.”  Images lodge in our brain differently and more deeply than words.  Imagine a world where  strong images of female and male potential and diversity were a constant stream in all media. Whether donned by helmet, headscarf or tiara, what a world we would create for our daughters and sons.

The last day of August forever sets off inside me a deep longing for all things summer.  On this day, as September looms just one moon-rise away, it is my taste buds that ache the most, desirous of a few more dollops of summer. I crave flavors that transport me in an instant to the ways in which summer days used to unspool in seemingly endless fashion, offering themselves up each morning to be tasted, filled and played.

I am the daughter of a Texan mother and Georgian grandmother and homemade was both an economic necessity and a cultural mandate.  I remember watching in painful jealousy as my classmates pulled from their lunch pails Hostess Cupcakes or Snowballs snuggled so beautifully in their own little packets, all squiggled and rounded with gooey centers that never failed to surprise the tongue.  My home baked oatmeal cookies, crumbled a bit in their waxed paper bags, forlorn raisins bobbing at their surface,  looked so oddly misshapen, not a hint of pre-packaged precision. Conformity, in the fourth grade, is lodged in one’s DNA and those cookies called out my differences.

It is on this day, this last day of August, that I ponder just how much I have forgotten how to taste.  I don’t think I am alone.  Our culture of diets and counting and weighing and measuring has hogtied our taste buds so tightly that food can slither right down our throats without first checking in with the 10,000 taste buds that are there, in the ready position, eager to taste of all the wonders of nature while offering up memories so delicious and fine.

Smell may be the most ancient of the senses but taste is the most sensuous, the most wicked. My tongue speaks a different language, knows a different world. I plunge its craggy surface into the heart of a chocolate-covered cherry and slurp the sugar, explore the round cherry surface. Eyes closed, the tongue sees differently, it transmits images to the brain that defy words.  Salty, bitter, sweet – the diagrams tell neatly which flavor resonates with which part of the tongue. My tongue collapses each flavor into a single glorious whole.

A ripe, red tomato excites my tongue. Basil pulls deeply to the heart of me.  Peaches, peaches – the word alone causes your lips to curl upward in a smile of gratitude.  Try it, say peaches, and then sit back smugly happy.

One journeys the continuum of desire with the tongue. And just like summer should be, the tongue refuses to be rushed. It needs time, sweet and languorous, to truly shine. Try to speed-lick and your tongue aches in the effort.  

I think we would all be better off if we let our innate tongue wisdom take over. If we slowed to the textures, tastes and colors that are central to life’s mysteries. So take some time today, create your own ode to the tongue, the mighty muscle that can keep us healthy, sated, satisfied. Our gatekeeper, memory holder and love.  If we let you do your work you will tune in, turn on, and take us there.