Remembering Toni Cade Bambara for The Women on Wednesdays Art and Culture Project

Dear Sista Mama Toni Cade Bambara,

When I was 19, I sat at your feet in Howard University’s Blackburn Center, hungry for the secret to a word smith’s brilliance. I listened to your words with awe, though there was much in the meaning I could not have understood, because I hadn’t really lived yet. I had no idea how close to transitioning you were. I only knew that I found home in your cadence, the weaving of your thoughts and imaginings in language, your magic, your truth.

Eighteen years later, I returned to your novel The Salt Eaters, and I was immediately struck by the healer Minnie Ransom’s first words to Velma Henry, after Velma’s suicide attempt: “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”

Bam. Right in my face, inside my heart, and down in my gut. I knew that this time The Salt Eaters would rock me to my core, because in the 18 years it took me to get back to that novel, I had become mother of two, divorced, single and often troubled. I was also an activist and cultural organizer, and a vulnerable woman, wide open and daring a lover to enter, afraid he would stay, and see me less evolved than I often professed. And, I'd become an artist and educator, under-paid and losing sleep to debt, wondering why make art if I don’t matter. I was finally that perpetual giver and healer sustained by a deep commitment to love. And I was walking contradiction. My own life missions unveiled me as a woman veering far too close to insanity far too often. I was skilled at wearing various masks and hats, covering my own less than holistically well self with a righteous focus on doing good work in the world, while a series of moments inside my own head would tell anyone the truth – I was perpetually uncertain about whether I wanted to be well myself. There have been hives, swollen limbs, boils and a tendency toward grinding my teeth in sleep, causing fractures. I pummeled myself, directing my rage inward because uncontrolled anger was counter-revolutionary. I neglected myself, my very own heart and health. I trained my attention on any and every thing that would stop me from cleaning the dust from the mirror and seeing the mess I had become. A beautiful mess.

And there was Velma Henry – mother, wife, activist, silenced artist, under-valued laborer for the people, trusted friend, the invisible corner stone at the foundation of the community. And Velma had sliced her wrists and crawled into the oven to die. I knew her. I knew her in my own nicotine tinged finger tips; the loss of health coverage, and too many years of economic hardship; a quiet depression; the eyes that cannot shed another tear; the near-crazed mind that considers what it would take to stare death in the face, because maybe it would be easier. And I read on, letting it all find roots in my blood stream, forcing me to consider Minnie Ransom’s question, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?” I found an awakening of the inward eye/I through Velma’s journey toward her ancestral mothers and their strength with her community gathered around her in a sacred cipher, merging their own stories with Velmas, and calling on spirit guides and Lwa to create a quilt, a communion, a shelter inside understanding.

When we began the process of organizing the “Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project” for 2011, I offered my experience of The Salt Eaters, and found camaraderie among my sister collaborators. We all knew the novel’s road, its weight, and urgent importance to countless women artists and conjurers, mothers, sister, and daughters -those of us born into the world with the mission of caring for it, while pretending our own scars and hurts and real down right ugly could hardly be worth the trouble of healing. And we agreed that you would be the ancestral foremother for the Series. Not just because of The Salt Eaters but for your life, your walk, your body of work, your calling and your way of loving us from the spirit realm, giving us a wake up call we wanted to pass on to our entire community. We pose the questions: Are we sure we all want to be well? And if so, how will we get there? How will we forge community, and build holistic wellness in ciphers that both liberate and nurture our voices, our lives? It is our prayer and intention that the “Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project” provides a sacred space for us to answer those questions affirmatively, and set about doing that work together in your

light.

*

Toni Cade Bambara - the ancestral mother for “The Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project (WoW)” 2011. We honor her for her creative approach to social justice and holistic wellness for the individual and communal woman. Ibaye Toni Cade Bambara, Ibaye!

For more information about "The Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project," visit us at www.wowproject.yolasite.com. For WoW 2012, our ancestral mother will be Audre Lorde.

Itagua Meji by Nina Angela Mercer

ITAGUA MEJI is a new play in development.

In ITAGUA MEJI, GirlChildWoman battles against the divinity of her own head, Ori, eventually learning a simple lesson: just listen. ITAGUA MEJI is a choreo poem and black woman’s manifesta that travels from the side walk cheers and dance halls of our youth to the long journeys home conjured by a healing rooted in a celebration of ancient cleansing rituals, survival recipes, and folk sayings passed on from one generation to the next. It troubles the problematic tradition of racism in this country, challenging us to accept and celebrate every aspect of our fractured cultural identities in America to create wholeness and well-being through spiritual discovery and a re-membered self. In ITAGUA MEJI, recipes for spiritual baths using plants and true stories gathered from the writer’s own ancestral history are shared with the audience as the performers encourage us to reclaim and sustain those crucial survival tools and stories that belong to us all.

*The title of the choreo poem, ITAGUA MEJI is based on a sign in the Yoruba divination system of Obi, during which four coconut shells are thrown and consulted by a priest for an individual present for a spiritual reading. When the four shells fall in the pattern of three white sides up and one side down, the diviner must throw a second time, invoking a sacred prayer. If upon the second throw, the shells fall in the same pattern, it is called the sign of Itagua Meji. The loose translation of this letter is an affirmative response to a question. However, it is a “yes” that comes with a difficult journey. There will be rough twists and turns that can lead to both the realization of one’s goals and many hard-won lessons. It is a road of intense discovery with high stakes.

ITAGUA MEJI has been workshopped at The Brecht Forum, NYC (Feb 2010), Rutgers University-Newark (March 2010), and The Alernate Roots Annual Meeting in Arden, North Carolina (August 2010). Its development continues ...

Gutta Beautiful by Nina Angela Mercer

GUTTA BEAUTIFUL is a multi media, interactive stage play which takes place in the contemporary urban hyper-reality of the nation’s capitol, and tells the tragic and comical love story of Lola, born to Mama Say (an ancestral spirit and guide who lives by the power of food and its preparation), and Papa G (an energetic, cosmic force, who is both trickster and surrogate father to the “word” and its myriad deeds). After her birth into womanhood, Lola meets Mike, a lyricist and seeker inside life’s circumstances, while hanging out on the block with her best girlfriends, Suga Sweet and Orchid.

Together, Lola and Mike dare to make it beyond mere survival in the bitter sweet landscape of Gutta Beautiful, a contemporary urban obstacle course where choices often find them confronting the haunting history of enslavement and imperialism embodied by the alluring and ever-changing Aunty Sam, as well as Aunty Sam’s contemporary masks – the harsh realities of the drug trade economy, violence, and the capitalist demand for consistent cash flow. For Lola and Mike, their home, Gutta Beautiful, becomes a political battle-ground where the most common and innocent choice to fall in love and raise a family is a revolutionary act with no easy path to victory. Though Mama Say and Papa G provide some ancestral guidance, it is ultimately a battle Lola and Mike must wage with the power of their own imperfect wills.

GUTTA BEAUTIFUL does not offer easy answers. There are no mythic heroes here. Instead, it provides a raw and honest depiction of our ordinary and spectacular lives, and the most gutta and beautiful circumstances we all choose to live. Lola finds herself in this journey, and so does Mike. They, along with Suga Sweet and Orchid, are our mirror reflections, asking us to discover our gorgeous imperfections toward a potential shared space of discovery and transformation.

GUTTA BEAUTIFUL dates:

-The Warehouse Theatre, DC (2005)
-The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company/DC Fringe, DC (2006)
- Woodie King Jr's New Federal Theatre at Henry Street Settlement/Abrons Arts Center (2007)
-Wings Theatre, NYC. stage reading (2008)
-The Corner Bar, Woodbrook, Trinidad. stage reading (2009)
-The Little Carib Theatre, Trinidad (November and December 2011)

Gypsy and The Bully Door by Nina Angela Mercer

In Gypsy & The Bully Door, Sara Josephine James – hairstylist, fortune teller, aspiring rock star and member of the “We Bomb Truth Over Lies” graffiti rebel movement – is haunted in the nation’s capital. The City eats its residents and exiles their spirits to her apartment. When her childhood friend Nate Bledsoe gets killed by the police after returning from the war in the Middle East, his spirit demands that she create a response that the local authorities cannot ignore. But when she gets her comrades, Roy Peoples and Khadija Freeman, to rebel with her, they are forced to disband, escaping capture by the same authorities who took the life of their friend. They set off on their own individual journeys to freedom in a country where democracy seems to be falling apart at every turn. And what they once thought was their rightful destiny becomes a dangerously perilous journey through exile, poverty, and the loss of love, funk and rhythm. It is a battle for the one truth they thought could never be lost in America – their voices and the solidarity that made them believe they had any power at all. While Sara sets up shop in NYC, using her fortune telling and hair styling expertise to pay the bills & manipulate clients for her own entertainment, Roy travels the world in search of the ever-elusive and sublime perfect beauty, and Khadija dares to continue the wandering rebel movement alive in DC alone. All hope to forget what they lost together, only to realize some doors to freedom are more difficult to pass through than they ever knew.

Gypsy & The Bully Door is fueled by the live music of the GoGo band, “The Pocket Roll Call,” and its leader, The Mayor; the often conflicting truths of the unofficial super stars of daily life – the folk who keep it poppin’, no matter what; and the spirits of our ancestors, who push and pull us, even when we doubt their meaning in our lives. It is a story of race, class, sex, dreams, and the magic we conjure to make it in America, and the world.

Dates for Gypsy & The Bully Door:

-May 28, 2011: Stage Reading at The Classical Theatre of Harlem's "Future Classics Reading Series"

-July 2011: Workshop Production for DC's Capital Fringe Festival at The Warehouse Theatre

-January 14, 2012: Stage Reading at Howard University's Ira Aldridge Theatre for HU Theatre Arts Department's "Roxie's Swagg List Reading Series"

a calling, and an answer

the ol' man tells me there's a new spirit sitting right in the middle of my back. new, 'cause he aint never seen it there before. funny how somebody else gotta see what's already decided to claim me. guess it's too many of 'em rotating seats right up on my spine like they playing musical chairs. i need ol' man to alert me to shift changes. he says this one is a real bonafide african but not born from the kongo, which aint really saying much considering africa is a whole damn continent. hell. i been to ghana. all the way up to paga through kumasi and on down to elmina and cape coast, where the atlantic don't hardly play with silly tourists wanting to swim on they backs. nah. that big water roars. bones and the souls what owns them beating out a rhythm gonna force you to surrender. and all up and through that country, you can't even count how many peoples and tongues roaming the land. so, i can hardly focus on what this spirit's name could be or how it should sound coming off my lips. that's the least of my concern.

right now, i want to know what she come for, 'cause since my cutting and the oath i been negotiating since that night, i am almost completely certain that any spirit come 'round me come to work. those that's sent for mischief get tight pretty soon as they catch light up in here. them ones ... they don't have much truck with me. but the others, the ones that come of their own volition, they definitely come to work. and while that might make some big head conjurer excited, quick to doctor up some new gris gris, pot, or mojo bag, it gives me caution. i know what it means to be called, to be a door-way and safe haven for souls what still got work to do in this world. they see you got a strong back, and get to plotting how to get you razor sharp and ready for some serious business. it's best to go slow.

i know some folk get it easy. spirit choose 'em and find it sufficient to give 'em good luck at shooting craps or attracting easy lovers. but not a single pact with a ghost has let me travel a road so simple. nah. used to be i would feel all special and righteous for the company, lighting plenty candles and sitting in the dark, trying to decipher what they talking between my own voice and the bare silence in my living room. got so i would let 'em run me ragged, doing whatever they missed out on when they was wrapped in flesh without considering whether i really wanted that mission to begin with. but now, i'm straight up. i want to know the deal.

if you somebody called to know a spirit's whisper from the wails and shimmies of the wind against a wood shingle, you better know how to bargain. and well.

mama's a rock and a riddle.

i was scanning through my blog posts this morning, thinking on why i can sometimes be so maudlin and other times so raw, when i realized that i have never written anything about my mother. we're close. closer than many mother-daughter pairs i've known. not in an "oh, i need my mama to hug me" kinda way. i don't think my mom and i hug very often. she doesn't really like a lot of close body contact. to her, its invasive and generally indicates someone wants something from you. there was a time when i didn't get this, but at 37 years old, i realize that most hugs are completely unnecessary. why you gotta get all up on me? just say, "hello," or whatever makes sense in the moment. and please don't perform undying love when ya know you'll cut me up sideways soon as i'm gone. this might seem a bit tangential, but it's crucial to how i understand my mother's love. it is not syruppy sweet or romantically nostalgic of first baby steps, and "my how you've grown; i remember how you used to sleep, looking so cute." more like, "i remember when you used to throw tantrums every time someone looked at you." and, "you were hell as a teenager." yeah. my mom keeps it very real. she can laugh about it, but she's certainly not going to sugar-coat the difficulties of motherhood or the stone cold ways you have to love folks sometimes. she's over the "blondie" phase some mother's think they want and deserve. and she would totally consider "baby mama drama" extremely tacky.

despite her seeming detachment and less than "hey, sweetie. i miss you." stance, my mother never hit me. there's not a single spanking or open-palmed slap in my memory. sure. she could give me the most incredulous stares and chew me up with a few select words if the occasion warranted, but she really practiced a non violent and free kinda love during the years we lived together. she gave me space. she expected space in return. she accepted me for who i was becoming, and it often seemed as if she was happiest when i diverged far from her own path.

when i became a mother for the first time, she told me that i'd better prepare myself to do it alone. and she was serious. she didn't descend upon my home with bags of groceries or prepared meals during my first daughter's infancy; she told me the ingredients to the spaghetti sauce and let it ride.

see ... my mother gave birth to me while she was in dental school after deciding against a career as a classical pianist (a choice i don't think i would have made). she finished school and went to work while i was less than a month old. she was present for my dance recitals and special school assemblies, but she never stopped living her life. she became an example for me ... she lived the walk of a woman who understands that her self image is not bound to her children while accepting the responsibilities motherhood brings with consistent energy and force. she has always been there for me with real questions, "what do you need?" and she has always tried to provide that within her means... be it some financial help, an ear for the sorrow songs, or the most insane laughter over the absurdities of life. and in the most painful moments, she has only inspired me to keep walking, come hell or high water. and she never lied about what that hell or high water might include. she would only remind me that i chose it.

folks who know my parents often think that my father is the most radical of the two. he talks more. he's louder. he loves to be the life of the party, smiling and joking and "holding court" during any discussion. but if my mother chooses to grace you with some conversation, you will find that it is she who holds the most progressive view points and rebellious stances on politics and being. my sister has said that if dad would give mom the room to talk more, they'd likely be on the government's most wanted list. i'm not sure about that. i don't think he takes words from her, or refuses space for her to share them. i think that she chooses to speak less and say more. and i am lucky to be one of the few people she talks with at length ... about everything. this continuing dialogue has taught me that she is one of the most intelligent, free-thinking women i have ever met. this should really come as no surprise. she comes from a lineage of powerful women - educators, business owners, and community pillars stretching back into the early 19th century.

she doesn't need a chorus of people backing her up to know that her truth makes sense. she only looks on society (and family) with an amused eye when the trouble comes, as it often must, wondering, "what the hell is so-and-so doing now? you know, some people are really certifiably crazy. and it won't do you any justice to understand that crazy, 'less you want to become that yourself." and she doesn't keep a large group of close friends. i have recently taken a page out of her book in that respect. she says that things are simpler that way. and really, how many people are truly capable of loving you intimately in the ways that you need and want it, and why should you expect that? people are messy.

that doesn't mean you become bitter; that means you love loose and free. you love with the understanding that such a path sometimes means distance. and that's okay. that's healthy. the ones who get the up-close view are the ones who get to see (and sometimes minister) YOUR mess, YOUR brilliance, and the stumbling, fumbling, crazed step-step-pause we do on a regular. those folk ... those are the ones who'll be there when it matters. and that's cool, 'cause who wants a whole chattering army of people feigning some version of proper concern when you just down and out? can we all have some privacy please?! and beyond that, you sure gonna have a hard time keeping up with your happy, if you are parceling it out to everybody and they cousin's sister's brother. measure the emotional shared space. in that sense, she has taught me that moderation is crucial to a life beyond obsessive extremes and luke warm survival, and that learning to be comfortable and appreciative of one's solitude is urgently necessary for the living.

yeah. i love her. and i am thankful to have her in my corner. rock. riddle. beautiful woman, and ride or die friend.

ONE: art, sex, freedom, and the divine

i have learned that there is no distinction between the creation of art and freedom ... both are journeys closer to the divine, both require an awareness that is often met with human imperfection, a bumbling about for lost keys just found beneath a stack of boxes. and sometimes, you gotta craft keys with teeth and fingernails. there are bags coming undone and ugly. loose change at the toll booth. maybe all pennies. but you get there ... with no shortage of fierce courage and stubborn will.

each time i set out to write my way out of a cluttered landscape ripe with possible stories, i also find myself inside a thick quest toward some intimately crucial and inherently spiritual process of becoming more liberated, more giving, more open ... i write my way out of the hard spaces, the bitter juice life squeezed out of me, the often oppressive and less than truthful ways of knowing. i write myself into a transformation and healing with the knowledge that i am always and only getting closer to god. i surrender.

i have learned that there is no distinction between the creation of art and the sensual awareness of my body, it's hunger and full expression. this too is a walk closer inside god. when i get free inside the touch of my lover, we are creating a boundless space of divinity. i come with intensity and often. i receive what my lover gives back to me with gratitude. and i take that energetic exchange as seriously as i take the pen inside my hands, and the words that strive to reflect light born from the depth of our universal womb and its flow. there is god there. and there. it is all one.

when i am considering the culture of violence and the many lives we have bartered at the expense of global freedom, i am also writing myself closer to sanity and god-love. i am creating the antidote for the deathly blows against my body ... this body, which is inextricably linked to the world. and i am loving m(w)e out of silence, transforming hurts into awareness, because violence imposes silence. it depends on our consent. and we give that consent, submitting to murder and becoming murderers of self, soul, and world, whenever we do not speak, whenever we do not dance, paint, sing, whether the song/story/dance be one of sorrow or glory. it is all one.