ArtCOVID-19Music

community check in: poet sarah white has words for you

April 8, 2020
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We asked our talented creative AFROPUNK community to submit their work to our platform during these turbulent times. (EMAIL US: contribute@afropunkworldwide.com)

We’ve received an influx of amazing visual art, writing, spoken word, music, fashion and more so far! We look forward to sharing them with you throughout this COVID_19 quarantine period on afropunk.com and our social platforms.

Meet Sarah White, a self described lover, with thoughts to share amid this moment.

Where are you based?
Minneapolis

How would you describe your writing process?
Inspiration from spirit and the pull to find Liberation from systems of oppression and limitations in the mind.

Who inspired you?
Who inspires you? Adrienne Maree Brown, Bell Hooks, Moses Sumney, Mycelium, Black Farmers, Seed Savers, The Black Panther Party, My Mother.

Anything else you’d like to let our audience know?
Like many other artists and bodyworkers, I have lost all of my work at this time and I am looking for collaboration and cash money support. (Links to support included at end of article). 

The Revolution will be served on a plate.
by Sarah White
March 25, 2020.

Intro: Pleasure during a Pandemic

I woke up and I knew what to do…..
Write.

Sarah, WRITE.

I made a cup of coffee this morning and mixed it with Reishi, Turkey Tail, and Lion’s Mane made with love in a LIBATION by Sassafras Healing Art. Duke Ellington and Coltrane in the background.
Woke up feeling like a whole ocean is resting at my tongue, yet my ancestors are telling me to move slow.
To listen.
To stop.
To breathe.

We were born for this time.
And the kids we are investing in RIGHT NOW,
Will be the only ones here to lead the future.
Eventually, if we invest with our full body self, into the seeds…

They will grow.
That’s what seeds do.
This is the nature of life. Things change. Shift. Evolve.

The question is,
What will YOU do when it happens?
When we are in the upside down?
When the collapse is on its last leg?
When the SYSTEM itself is taunting you to return to “Business as Usual”?

Let me just say this: NOTHING IS FUCKING USUAL right now.
Things were messed up before this virus, yall.
Things have been fucked up for longer than a tree remembers.
And tree’s remember.
Tree’s hold our grief.
Tree’s move with mycelium, connecting the full earth and moving like an embryo through time and space.

What a time to BE ALIVE! I breathe deep into this.
What a time to get grounded.
Root into this moment so we can begin to flow in what is next.

My first trauma response and Ego, at first, made me feel like I needed to START THE REVOLUTION! As if I was that important.
Next, I let the collective fear drag me through a cosmos of dark and light.
Chaos.
Confusion.
Overwhelm.
Breathlessness.

Settling, I dug into my home.
Ritual. Food. Skin. My Heart.

Oh to have this much space for my heart, feels like dancing in a placenta.
Something so nurturing it feels like a sip of cinnamon.
Raw honey.
Afrobeat.
Knitting.
Epsom Salt baths.
Pressing Masa.
Soaking tea.
Dusting books.
Burning Copal.
Touching your skin.
Climaxing.
Breathing.
Resting.
Remembering.
Gratitude.
Reconnection.
Home.

These times are not easy, and they will continue to get more complex, but now IS a time we can restructure and start new.
None of us know what the future will look like right now.
No amount of privilege, money, class, beauty or wit can change that.
What we do next, will frame a whole universe.

I started bleeding this morning, with the NEW MOON in Aires, after Saturn entered Aquarius and visions are starting to look like sacred geometry and new pathways are doing a light show.

We all have to collectively grieve, and then we start.
Slowly.
We start by Land Redistribution, Reparations, Listening to the voice of the Earth.
Getting back into our Bodies, Relearning our Pleasure.
Leaning into Spirit, surrendering.

This is intense, but this is not the time to rest into Privilege.
Did you let that resonate?

This is not a time to rest into Privilege.

This morning I watched my 9 year old, eating her spelt english muffin toasted face down in a cast iron, in local butter, with bilberry jam.
She’s belly down on my laptop, covered in stickers about alchemy, love, dismantling systems, the force.

Her teacher sounds like a hero to me.
I can FEEL, as his certainty in his voice , neutralizes her nervous system in minutes.
As hers normalizes I feel more space in mine.

The teachers are on the frontline.
The parents too.
The food coops are the frontline.
The doctors.
The farmers.
The healers.
The builders.
The advocaters.
The dancers.
The Black and Indigenous bodies used to what uncertainty feels like.
Hello, yall JUST starting to feel this?

We have been working for so long, no wonder it feels so good to rest.

“This is not going to be easy, so ease into it, slowly.” I hear, whispered into my spine as I hold a whole tornado.

I stretch.
I breathe.
I eat.
I rest.
I express.
I cry.

Ways to support –
Venmo – @sarahwhitteblack
Paypal – sarahwhitesings@gmail.com
Patreon – Patreon.com/sarahwhiteblack

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