Olive Morris: A voice unedited

Just look at you
barefoot and free
commanding
me to see
your full face of pride
demanding
that I stand beside
you chanting

The Red Brick
knows no way
to drum your dreams
and anguish
and seems so silent
though a troubling pitch
of noise screams -
unfinished business

Rippling my miserable
mediocrity
compelling me to rise
from sleep’s wanton
inactivity
to talk much less
and for god sake do
something.

For Olive Morris –International woman

Certain admissions are woefully embarrassing. But the honest heart must attend to them in some way or other. Must be nearly two years now that I’ve had a picture in my house of a sister I hadn’t until now attempted to know. So why is she on my kitchen wall? She must have put herself there – at least spiritually. I did the physical action of printing it out along with other pictures of Black icons in the seventies and laminating it - this was for a ‘decades’ party I was having. After the party I kept her there – not through any kind of laziness – she just seemed to belong. She’s smiling beneath Marsha Hunt – ‘big fro... lil fro warriors’ is the caption I wrote. I didn’t even find the picture myself. A sister emailed it to me saying, ‘I had to forward this to you as Olive Morris and you so resemble...it’s a good resemblance to have as she was a warrior sistah,’ My reply was ‘thanks. My skin’s crawling.’

Spirit knows the significance of vanity on a feeble conscience. But it’s always a matter of time before the divine purpose of a connection is manifested. I didn’t take time to look for Olive. It seemed enough to parade her on my wall, utterly pleased at the physical resemblance. People would ask, confusedly, if it was me they were seeing. And I wouldn’t properly reply, I’d giggle - idiotically almost, basking in something I didn’t comprehend. Who was this woman? If they asked me her name, I really couldn’t say. I didn’t feel embarrassed that I couldn’t explain who she was; that I didn’t consciously register her name after being forwarded the email. The resemblance seemed to me to say all that was necessary. How shamefully wrong that was.

After the last Shout, which privileged three brothers it’s as if I felt her spirit straining for some of that – or the same. What about me – she was saying. Don’t forget me. The picture on the wall began to take on new life, pressuring me to look for, not simply at Olive. The purpose of those two years hence connection was manifesting. How many times had I driven past that building in Brixton where she has been memorialised? But on discovering this, something still bugged me about how little she is known. I don’t know if I’m saying that the building isn’t enough or whether there’s something too silent about it – maybe something missable as well as missing there. Online entries about her note unspecific birth and death dates – ‘1952-1979’. But when exactly? I needed, for some yet unfathomable reason to know the precise dates. I kept searching but every entry was thus limited and it annoyed me. I know the annoyance was probably more at myself for my belated interest.

I determined to visit the Lambeth Archives where I was sure I could find her exact dates of birth and death. That place – which houses archival material about Olive – was snaky to find. My heart was drumming as I drove round and round, knowing with each mistaken turn (no sat-nav in my beat up banger) that I was so very near to finding Olive. Once there, I was overcome with that satisfied feeling of achievement. The effort mattered. Two boxes – one they couldn’t find without some tumbling up – held images and recordings of a life briefly lived. My eyes lit up – this seems pathetic now- when I noticed a passport because I was determined more than anything to know how specifically brief that life was. Olive Elaine Morris was born 26th June 1952 and died 12th July 1979 after completing almost exactly 27 years of life. I breathed.

The life was brief but full. It expresses that utmost urgency of spirit that is beyond the weights of gravity. She was on spirit side from time and so utterly fearless. That’s what we see in that barefooted feature – some spirit up in the face of human oppressors. The warrior weapon is her voice – an unbounded one – whose pitch and dramatic soprano held accented Jamaican notes. The adorable lyrics of that line crucially said everything about what she meant. How do I know how she sounded? It is simply that the loudspeaker is still sounding: ‘stop police Nazi activity in Brixton’ shouts from one of her flyers. The leaflet highlighted the systematic harassment of Black youths in Brixton following one of the many Notting Hill Carnival riots. That harassment persists in differing signs.

One of the photos in the archive - and there are so many that depict snatches of a full-on activist’s life – is particularly grievous. It is 1969, Olive looks mashed up – you can see the ashy skin even though the image is black and white. You notice still a troubling smirk escaping despite the ordeal. She looks much older than 17. The picture was taken at Kings College Hospital following a police assault. At the back she found it necessary to inscribe “taken at about 10pm on 15th Nov ’69 after the police had beating me up.’ You’ve read the verb correctly – that’s exactly what she wrote, ‘beating...’ Why struggle to find the past tense of a verb for which the action is perpetual.

Yet there's an image that delighted me – made me smile someplace surreal - one where Olive is up in the face of two policemen. The veins in her neck are straining as if she’s attached to invisible chains pulling her in the opposite direction. A white woman is watching, as others are, stunned, silenced by this warrior’s unrelenting will.

On 14th March 1986 she was honoured with the naming of Olive Morris House in Brixton. You will have passed it many times. But I don’t think that if you’re now compelled, as she has made me to really look for her that’s where you need begin. Spirits don’t remain where they’re buried - in cold coffins and tombs. Memorial buildings tell you that they’ve once lived but hardly say for what and how. And if you’re really curious to know why so brief the life and for what purpose it came, perhaps you’ll have to be ready like Elisha when Elijah was mystically caught up and had to leave behind the prophetic mantle.

Shout Out

Living Lights

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity." Malcolm X

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our mind. Have no fear for atomic energy, cause none of them can stop the time. How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look. Some say it’s just a part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book.” Bob Marley, 'Redemption Song'

“I believe I'm going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I'm going to die high off the people. I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.” Fred Hampton

Certain energies come in with a force so swift gravity alone cant keep them down. They’re beyond gravity’s pull. They almost seem as though they weren’t born or as though they aren’t real or living as you or I. Yet they are very real because it feels as though you know them – as though you’ve always known them deeply, intimately, truly. Throughout this month, three brothers have been riding my spirit. I don’t know what I mean by that but perhaps I can briefly illustrate in these words which I trust will serve as libation to their memory.

February, though annoyingly short (thanks to Roman egotistical dalliances), is significant for various reasons. I came to England in February over thirty years ago. It was treacherously cold and I’d been stuffed into an awful hand sewn blue suit whose style was still hankering back to the 70s to make the special, life changing trip. I looked ridiculous – it was some strange prickly fabric – I think I even had on platform shoes with those never-ending rubber heels! Anyway we had been here for just one year when I vaguely recollect hearing that Bob Marley had died. He was born in February. I cant quite explain it and I don’t care how curious it sounds but there has always been in some remote part of me a belief that I was related to Bob Marley. Rather, that he was someone I really knew.

The song that sticks most in my mind is ‘War’. As children we used to play about with the words, unaware then of their import; rhyming ‘East with ‘sheh crease’ and ‘north’ with ‘under sheh skirt’ and so on; childstuff (obviously male inflexed). I know now that they stemmed from an address made by Emperor Haile Selassie to the league of Nations in 1963. I’ve since used the words of this song as part of my lectures to reveal that the cry for human dignity will ever be prevalent – that as long as one group of people believe in their superiority over others there will always be a humanitarian struggle; that, as we see across the middle east, this struggle is also about systems of beliefs that deny people their human rights. And as we almost voyeuristically watch what’s unfolding there we might take some sordid pleasure in believing that this human struggle is an abstraction that is removed from our experiences. But subtly we’re being pressured and squeezed and frustrated but we have too many distractions to really deal with how crucially we’re being affected. How should we describe a government for which the majority of a nation’s people did not vote? How should we regard the chop and slice of crucial social and community services (libraries, schools, hospitals/NHS care, etc), and the arbitrary increases in everything (especially and despicably the price of education) by our government? And hauntingly as ‘War’ alludes Africa continues to be raped of its resources, its people enslaved by the global economic trade system that denies their right to self sufficiency. So the chant for freedom and redemption that we hear in the undying rhythms of Bob is like a constant invective toward those systems that have no regard for humanity. But systems topple; ‘none can stop the time.’ It is only a matter of time.

February is also when Malcolm X died. I’m not sure when Malcolm entered my soul. There was always a picture of him floating about the house – that one with him and the gun, guarding his home peering through the window; the words ‘by any means necessary’ were on the bottom banner. Again, Malcolm came to me as no stranger. He looked like someone I knew; someone I’d always known. There’s this black and white picture of my father which must have been taken in the 60s. He’s wearing thick rimmed spectacles just like Malcolm. He has that same penetrative, intelligent, serious stare as if there is so much contained within him. Like Malcolm my dad died young. I didn’t literally know him - so it’s the same spiritual soul deep type of knowing of an ethereal presence that I have for Malcolm.

That quotation about the light is my favourite because it speaks again about the middle meeting toward human compassion, dignity and intelligence. It’s urging us to reach toward the spirit of humanity which is our light. Malcolm here is at peace with himself and conscious of his light. That consciousness was deep enough for him to know, be prepared for the death that would come when he was only 39. In his ‘Redemption’ song Bob was conscious too of his mortality, of his light; of his time to return. Redemption has a lonely sound, because that road Bob knew he had to tread alone. And Malcolm was that prophet gunned down when he was surrounded by so many – that’s the way of assassinations, it's true, but it was timely, unstoppable – his light was that swift force, that fleeting star. Although swift, he left his light on. When you listen to him or look at a picture of him after a while it stops appearing as though you know him, but it’s as if he knows you. Actually it’s as if he’s marking you or demanding something of you. Maybe it’s that you never forget or that you acknowledge the greatness of his light. It might get to that point of anxiety because you’re not sure how deeply you would be or whether you know anyone who is prepared to die if that’s the cost of expressing their truth.

The only connection with Fred Hampton and February is that earlier this month I saw the screening of a film that looks at his murder. Another prophet – it cannot be denied – gunned down by the system of white supremacy against which he fought. Not only fought, but, as the above quotation illustrates, he was prepared to die denouncing. Most remarkably Fred was only twenty one. Twenty one. His light was so immense, so bright it shone all through his face, deep into his sharp dimples and lit up his everywhere. His light terrified the ‘pigs’ –the white supremacists who weren’t down for his kind of Truth. What was so wrong in demanding that African Americans protect themselves against the terrorists that were the American Police primarily but also the system that denied them human rights? What was so wrong, so criminal in creating a food programme for children? What was frightening about providing free medical care for poor African Americans and actually European Americans too? What was so outrageous about persuading street gangs that they were not each others’ enemies and to stop fighting one another? Anyone who looks at that kind of manifestation of pure light and Truth and declares it threatening, as J.Edgar Hoover did, is by contrast uncompromisingly evil. For just as there are light beams there are dark forces. Hence the struggle of humanity is not something that happens in specific decades – like the 60s (Civil Rights), or 70s (more Civil Rights, Vietnam War; racism in the UK), or 80s (unemployment, more racism in UK) and so on – but it’s perpetual, an ever present phenomenon. And you can feel it now – that revolutionary thing biting, but we sit and we watch and hardly believe in what we’re feeling because truly it’s frightening.

None of these prophets really died. That’s a physical thing that they seemed beyond. That’s why they were ready for death, knew it had to come but that it was nothing for them to fear – a necessary fulfilment of their book. In The Murder of Fred Hampton there’s a clip of his girlfriend, Deborah Johnson (now Akua Njeri) describing the morning he was brutally murdered. At the time she was 8 months pregnant with their child, Fred Hampton Jr. As she’s talking baby Fred is upfront in the camera, bubbling and sounding and all lit up, demanding we focus on him. And we do; we cant help it because Fred Jr bears perhaps not only the image of his father – nothing uncanny about it – it just is – but he is also brimming with the same kind of ‘high’ and light for which his father lived. He was born about three weeks after his father was killed – his mother barely escaping with the two lives, despite also being shot at by ‘pigs.’ The undying light of his father’s spirit resounds in his words ‘you can kill a revolutionary, but you cannot kill the revolution.’ But the ‘pigs’ will keep trying as Fred Jr will attest.

Betty Shabazz, Malcolm’s wife was also pregnant when he was assassinated. One of the twins born six months after her father’s killing made more news this February for a trail of offences that we’ll never truly understand. We daren’t think it’s a shame because we don’t understand how deeply she is affected by the power of her father, and mother’s light. The struggle of their family is ever, like that of humanity – it’s ancestral if we recall the wicked way Malcolm’s father was killed and the torment of the family by KKK terrorists. For Bob also there was a child born weeks after he died. Whose skin doesn’t crawl when we hear one of those children extending their vocals not merely to exact their father’s sound, but to perfect the image of his light?

I don’t mind that they have toyed with my spirit this month. It has been a kind of comfort. I don’t ever want to forget them; nor do I ever feel weirded out by that feeling that I’ve always known them. When I hear their sound, watch the manifestation of their light through their orating/singing, when the rhythm of their words penetrate my soul I feel both at once alive and enraged. And both I want to feel. In that way I can bask a little, meditate somewhat in the reflection of their light and get a bit closer to that something for which I too might be prepared to live and die.


Shout Out

Our Year?

I was in contemplation with an ancestor
the other morning.
She told me that she had seen darkness
in my aura
and she said that I would be betrayed
during the revolution.
I stopped the thing I was doing
and asked her - ‘what revolution’?

The revolution she said
that’s fomenting inside your head
pumping boiling blood around the circuit of your heart
the one that zealously gnaws at your intestines
churning your insides
devouring your cells like an embittered
vengeful tumour

It’s the one unleashing barricades of freedom
the one that raises empowered fists
to impassioned hails and chanted vivas
the one upturning stones and
unearthing dis-remembered truths
one that is a race against the atrocities of time
the one saluting your self-will and self-reliance
reclaiming untold legacies
it is the one repossessing your blighted prosperity
the one that is reviving your felicity

it is the revolution, she said that is
sparking your intuition
the revolution that is wombed
and waiting to be born of a
much more determined push somewhere
a little further from your imagination...

Stirrings that won’t simmer

There is a context for the year that I imagine most people are not aware of. The UN has declared 2011 the ‘International Year for People of African Descent.’ I’m trying to understand what it really means. Here’s some of the online blurb about it: “The year aims to strengthen international, national and regional cooperation to benefit the people of African descent, and to recognize and promote their political, economic, social and cultural contributions from their diverse heritage and culture.” (1) The same source mentions that the Guyanese Government is planning to mark the year with a series of activities that promote the historical and cultural legacies of Africans in Guyana. I imagine at the assembly that President Jagdeo gushed out these promises to trump the charges of racism against his government. No one’s fooled. This, of course, has queasy political vibrations because of the upcoming election when everyone tends to find their own racial shelter. Still, I suppose other countries with sizeable African communities will be knocking similar drums to mark the year.

I’m not sure how the year is being ‘marked’ here though. Where has it been mentioned so that we all heard and understood it? Was it amidst the popping of poppers and champagne, the stomping on balloons, in the warblings of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that signalled the New Year? As declared by the UN at the 2009 General Assembly, “the Year aims at strengthening national actions and regional and international cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for their diverse heritage and culture.”(2) It therefore urges member states to actively participate and promote the event, self-funded, of course. But is this order too tall for the UK as a ‘Member State’ to take seriously? What does this silent drum mean? What is being planned by the UK government to mark this momentous occasion?

One month into what’s supposed to be ‘our year’ and the Tories and ‘Dems have made it clear, they’re not interested. There’s a global recession –that’s the only tune. The cultural, social, economic and political rights of AFRICANS are just not items for this country’s agenda. But we’ll get a day to roll our eyes at that yawn of a wedding beautifully timed to distract the masses. Some of us will shamelessly catch ourselves fawning at the bizarre pompousness we’re paying for whilst we’re yet denied social, political and economic rights.

So for those of us who want to strut with the UN’s gesture I think we’ll have to make ‘our year’ ourselves. Each one will hopefully remember not only to teach one, but to express mutual respect for each other. We don’t need any more crumbs, if that’s what the mask of this year really is. We want to be economically empowered for real, but no one is going to help us enjoy all those rights we don’t already have. It’s incredible to think that they have to declare a year (the Indigenous Peoples’ had their ‘Year’ a while back) in which to recognise the (Human) Rights of a particular group of people? I think Malcolm sums it up better when he seriously asks “how can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?"

Perhaps if nothing else, we should embrace this year to seriously reflect on the depth of our collective experience – where we’ve been and who we are self-determining to be. It’s easy to lose (in)sight in the midst of these blinding Western lights. Any kind of revolution towards our self-determination is down to us. Revolution needs to be realised in ways that creatively channel our energies toward economic liberation and the liberation of our minds, hence the poem (Stirrings) I Shouted a few years ago. This fleeting, almost mocking homage of our humanity should not discourage us. It should make us fully alert to the hypocrisies that continue to deny us the substance of human dignity. There is yet a dehumanising philosophy that ‘holds one race superior and another inferior’ – this is our reality. We do not have to convince ourselves of the Rights of all peoples. This is what we have always known – that the world is diverse and that diversity is its richness. I say this not so that we might feel some kind of self-righteousness, but so we might understand why the drums are silent in the mainstream here. Since the UK takes lead from the US I’m not truly surprised by the silence. Did Barak Obama make a beat that recognised the significance of this year? I didn’t hear it, if he did. Didn’t his year begin with a roll in the sack with China’s Hu Jintao? This should tell us where his priorities are. I hear you; the man’s doing what the man has to do, right?

Fact is –as it’s always been - we have to beat our own drums, not for a month here (Black History) or a year there, but always. We have to create our own opportunities for economic enjoyment, tough as that is. That’s how we achieve self-respectability. If we do not have easy access to certain gates and doors we have to create new entrances. We have to keep bracing that wind and endure like the 'Ayo'. If there was no such thing as ‘employment’ – being paid pittance for the labour we give to someone else – what is it that we can do to claim our economic liberty? I’m no economist; I diverge on the territory only to try to understand the meaning of the UN’s gesture and to highlight how quietly ‘our year’ has crept in on us. Any beating of drums we’ll hear by keeping our ears to the ground, and we’ll feel that beating in our blood with every drop of libation we pour this year in honour of our ancestors.

Shout Out

I’ve listed a few links that might interest you.

(1) http://www.timeanddate.com/year/2011/african-descent.html
(2) http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41031&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://www.un.org/observances/years.shtml

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/events/african_odysseys/african_odysseys_the_murder_of_fred_hampton_death_of_a_revolut

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2010/12/special-event-launching-of-the-international-year-of-peoples-of-african-descent.html
(this shows the lack of seriousness about the year...)

http://www.footballgambia.org.uk

http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk

http://adinkra.org

The Phoenix and the Blues

Some days the melancholia is a chain encircling your neck. You despise yourself, everything and everyone. The previous day you were all smiles; you noticed the sun, a patch of blue in the sky. Today the birds outside your window are irritating – what makes them keep chirping tuneful melodies? Deeply you resent them. Not a lark, not a robin, nor a rare dove cross the sullen silver sky. Only pigeons, blackbirds and single magpies flitter through the pale opaque canvass outside your window. Trees shorn of leaves and cloaked in dusky browns depress your soul. The uniformity of houses whose colours match the trees’ dirty browns stimulates only a desire to return to the world of dreams. You remain as long as possible in bed- if there’s no work and there is no work because you have no energy to do anything or there isn’t anything to do. Without money – that accursed blessing without which there’s no beginning to attune yourself to its divinity. No – no money since some sod has refused to employ you or forced you to quit their employ or outrageously fired you when all the shortcomings were undoubtedly theirs. There’s a bubbling guilt churning through your insides for your flippancy with the preciousness of time. You know you must do something. But seriously what? Has anyone ever suffocated from this kind of nausea? For that’s how you feel, that the sickness in your stomach is a noose swiftly tightening around your neck, swelling its veins. You can’t breathe; though you are breathing and know you’re alive. You feel worthless, helpless, weak, lost, angry, sad, depressed, lonely. And alone. Beside the silly bird sounds, their wings drumming a collective beat from their occasional flight pebbling the sky, an empty stillness is your only company. This thing – well you know what it is and probable cause though you dare not name it - is predatory and pristine. Its severity is timeless. It has always known you. You reach to the cleft in your history that birthed it and settle at some childhood lack. No motherly bed tucks and stories; no hoistings up and swirlings round and round by daddy. No daddy period. No sibling with whom you didn’t compete for single mummy reassurances. And those were ends she didn’t always know how to make meet. The mantle of mummy and daddy she couldn’t always master when she too was prey to the thing that now attacks you. Positivity is a contrivance right now. You just can’t muster the courage to believe in it. Should someone dare to remind you of your brilliance you would not merely disbelieve them you’d be furious – and perfectly aware this is irrational - that they should lie simply to ‘pick you up.’ You don’t want to be ‘picked up’; you don’t need their lies; you don’t need them right now. The predatory thing needs its day. Today is it. Self-doubt and disbelief is that bluesy rhythm you need to experience right now. It was playing the moment you woke up. Though pathetic, which of course you know it is, self pity is some kind of sick necessity. Rare for some, it’s a regular narcissistic indulgence for others. It is the underbelly of all you know to be Truth. Yes – it is a soulless entity. You know this too. It’s transitory like all experiences. And from it you certainly will not die. Yet now you feel that’s what it might do; maybe it’s what you want, to die pitiably. Who would miss you and cry and care? Whose heart – how many will break were you to quit this wicked world and its tangling talons? And the year end with its incumbent, universally sanctioned merriments terrify you. You’re not brave like they who accept that now is the time to feel this popular peace and to believe in faith. Sceptics live and die alone. So you feel that perhaps now is your time to die. Does the year not have its end? Were the trees not lushly green some months back? Was the sun not real and hot in recent memory? Did the light not last for more than eight hours in each day a short time ago? You will rise again and return. So go on and die why don’t you? The clouds are never still nor the same; even now a new patch of blue is curling through them. This mood is a heavy curtain but you will summon the strength to push back and let light in. Your bed is no tomb. Though depression is a tyrant that commands your mood today you will gather the littlest stone -the sum of your energy- and aim straight just like David. You’re a Truth seeker attuned to hear the awakening beat. And there it is - within the darkened chamber of your mood there’s a sudden, varied illumination – an alchemical spectrum – the brilliance and magnetism of red firing your vitality into the richness, the absolute perfection, the sheer delight and splendour of burnishing gold. Now it is no ordinary, blandly coloured bird that penetrates your window. There is no greater vision that now claims your aliveness than a Phoenix whose eyes pierce but do not break your window. Without words it declares some vital need of you. Slowly motioning enflamed wings startle some secret purpose that inclines you to rise. This majestic bird is no mirage but the signal that the stillness has birthed. When you rise your bowed head is no sign of servility but the pride and perfecting meekness a Goddess displays in the absoluteness of immortality. Agelessly the Phoenix perfects the rhythm of its wings. And in its timely retreat from your window it weaves golden promises across the curtain of your now luminous horizon.

Shout Out

‘Living by Maat’:Or Do Good and Good Will Follow

As a child I found the concept of this bearded white tripartite being/man (my “Father”), whose image I reflected and who lived in the sky from where ‘he’ randomly unleashed ‘his’ wrath, despite also being loving and merciful completely mindboggling. I mean, what did Isaac do? I argued a few times with my mum about this story of Abraham and poor Isaac. She tried unsuccessfully to justify God’s action to me; succeeding only to convince me that my head was not mine, but hers to chop off at God’s behest.

Equally perplexing was the concept of the Devil; God’s veritable opponent. Though all powerful and supreme, God still had an opponent? I rarely mused over the Devil’s other name of Satan. ‘Devil’ did enough to instil some kind of relative fear about the evil this equally powerful enemy of God represented. Though the etymological accounts of the words tell us otherwise, our third eyesight identifies their associations with ‘good and ‘evil’ by respectively extracting or adding a letter to each: good becomes God; Devil that which is evil. It was hardly instinctual to know that God would always outdo the Devil. The Devil being bad aggressor would always be defeated by God. Yet, it remained true that the Devil would never give up his assaults. The significance of this dualism couldn’t be grasped when I was a child. But in this spiritual game of life, to know God (good), one must also know of evil (Devil – signs of negativity as expressed in the previous Shout on Mara).

Good in this sense I associate with Truth (note the capital ‘T’) as an aspect of Maat. This Truth is something you know, rather than believe; it’s not something easy to learn, nor teach. It’s innate, intuitive or some kind of primal thing that springs from a clean – rather an unstressed heart. Requisite to ‘Living by Maat’ as the symbol of harmony, Truth, justice, social order and perfecting balance between good and evil is a clean heart. Though the idea of a ‘clean’ heart sounds biblically fanciful, I’m trusting most of you will recognise it as an expression, perhaps emanation of light. Seeds germinate in the dark; we’re formed secretly in womb space from a dark dot but realisation, beingness (becoming) is expressed in light. The heart, which is metaphysically considered to be the ‘seat of the soul’, must reflect light if it’s to be weighted on the side of Maat. Our deeds collect in the heart, some of them good, some bad. Our becoming depends on how greatly the good outweighs the bad.

Goodness then is a matter of expression that reaches fulfilment when we have mastered the balance between good and evil. Our heart must be as light as the Maat feather by which our deeds are judged at transition. When we’re stressed or depressed we are mostly in a state of selfishness. I don’t necessarily mean that literally, since we often don’t choose to be either. I mean that these are states of being within which our vision is blurred, we don’t see outside ourselves because we’re in our funk. At this time the world is about us and how we’re feeling. An unstressed state or one of good levity enables us to see and think clearly; our heart is unburdened. Depression, stress, selfishness, lack of forgiveness, self-hate, bitterness, arrogance and so on are states of being that burden the heart, contaminate the soul, reflecting the darkness or bad (read Devil). Contrastingly self-love, selflessness, generosity, compassion, humility and forgiveness etc make light the heart and nurture the soul, reflecting good spiritedness (God’s image/likeness; our expression of divinity).

Perpetuation of our funk is the weight that burdens our heart and follows us into eternity. Our perception of Maat, how we grasp the dualism of good and evil (God/Devil) will determine our mastery of self. To achieve it would make the meeting with Maat mellifluous; our transcendency would manifest in a glorious blaze of light. The alternative would be like that dream of walking along a never ending dark corridor, either end seems equally long, you’re unable to decide whether to go back or to continue forward; either way it is the longest walk. Our only company in that state is the weight of our funk chained to our necks for eternity. The light of our heart is something we cultivate not simply through acts of goodness but as something we express in our being. I suppose one meaning of I am that I am can be deduced from this: I am that which I express. And if I am the image of good that is the divine expression by which I am perfected on my journey of becoming.

Shout Out

On "Defeating Mara" (Negativity)

For Simone

“Mind (as well as metals and element) may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration. True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.” The Kybalion

I’ve not seen it in reality, but in my imagination and perhaps that was influenced from the first images I saw on TV. It’s the way a vicious snake recoils when prodded by a stick. It might recoil like a bouncy spring preparing to uncoil and strike again so that the movement with the stick has to be ninja quick and decisive. The intention is not to pet the snake like the games you might play with a dog or a kitten. This is a vicious snake bent on attacking, possibly killing you. The strike must therefore be intentionally to force the snake into submission; for it must be wilfully removed from your path where its only desire is to bring you harm.

Of course it can be argued that the snake was not in your path; that you in fact crossed the snake’s path - thereby justifying its attack. But would anyone wilfully cross a snake’s path? That, I would say depends on one’s state of Mind. Meander with me through these brief lines and see where the insight takes you...

From my rudimentary readings on Buddhist philosophy, I stumbled on the concept of ‘Mara’. Some definitions refer to the term as a ‘demon’ – a destructive force. It was one of the many obstacles Buddha had to defeat before he attained enlightenment. This he was able to do owing to the perfecting light within him. In other words, he had reached a level of purity (on the verge of enlightenment) that made Mara impossible to penetrate his consciousness.

The philosophy tells that Mara, who had a massive, powerful army compared with the lone Buddha meditating under the Tree of Knowledge, mounted attack after attack on him. Mara engaged the furies of the elements to frighten the Buddha; extreme winds blew around him, uprooting trees, crumbling mountains, devastating villages; rains engulfed the earth; firey rock boulders were tossed at him but Buddha was undisturbed; his concentration unshakable. Mara’s soldiers retreated when they realised their clamorous might was no match for Buddha’s quiet power. They could not understand that although Mara commanded the elements to attack Buddha how he remained unharmed. What kind of force had he used as counter attack when he had remained calm, quietly meditating and alone under that tree? They feared that Buddha’s invisible but mightier force would bring about their own destruction.

Mara too began to wonder at the might of Buddha and wanted to know who would bear witness to his kindness and generosity (which would secure the latter’s enlightenment). You see Mara thought he himself was kind and generous and could not therefore understand how Buddha was defeating him. Mara’s soldiers, in earshot of his despairing cry said, ‘indeed, we bear witness of your kindness and generosity.’ But a beautiful woman emerged from the belly of the earth and proclaimed that Buddha’s generosity extended to many existences (in his other incarnations) and for that reason his generosity surpassed that of Mara. Thus it is that Mara (the demon who contested Buddha’s path to enlightenment) was defeated because the earth itself could testify to Buddha’s kindness, whilst only Mara’s (a symbol of negativity) soldiers could give such testimony about him.

At a certain angle of seeing Buddha’s defeat of Mara is linked to the hermetic teachings of transmutation. How do we change the order, not only of things but of being? That capacity to change our being from state to state has everything to do with how we use our minds. What was in play in the story were spiritual composure and mental dexterity over physical oppression (negativity).

How we think, how we channel our energies determines a positive or negative outcome of our actions. When Mara engaged the furies of the elements what were Buddha’s options? One option might have been to stop his meditation since he was in a position of vulnerability. So why didn’t he? How could he stop his meditation when this was perhaps the very source of his power? In his state of meditation what was Buddha seeing? Did he see himself battling with Mara, being defeated by him and therefore spiritually castrated? Or was he having another vision? Buddha could not have been visualising his own defeat. He might not have been visualising that of Mara’s either. I don’t think he was focusing on negativity or giving energy to the fact of his oppression. I think he must have been visualising victory; seeing himself as an enlightened being; focussing on his light and how much brighter he could make it; thereby seeing his divinity.

Negativity manifests in our lives in all sorts of ways. For example, one of my nieces scoffs at me if I happen to tell her she’s beautiful or looks at me as if I’ve saying something absurd. She also scoffs when anyone compliments her about her figure as if she genuinely doesn’t believe what they’re saying. Although she has recently graduated I don’t think she appreciates her degree because it was not the classification she expected. Now, the more she reacts in this way, rejecting the positive vibrations directed at her, the more she creates an image of negativity that serves as a block to her personal and spiritual development. In order to transmute a mental state of negativity (the dark corners of our imagination) we have to see the good within us. In other words, it’s not enough for others to keep telling us how talented or loved or beautiful we are we have to know, truly, deeply know this for ourselves. I don’t mean in a kind of arrogant self-aggrandising way. But in a way that is humble and true; something that others can feel emanating from us without us having to declare it. It’s the power, the force from which Mara’s soldiers ended up fleeing because it was so real, quietly potent and measurable by countless incarnations. To his core Buddha was a being of light and goodness and this was his focus in the face of countless attack by Mara.

Often we are less inclined to see ourselves as ‘good’ or rather as god (expression of divine mind). Instead we readily recognise the demons within us but do not know how to fight them. It is the good (god, Buddha) who fights the demon (Mara, bad, negative entities). Interestingly, when we speak of these demons they are always plural, but if we recognised our divinity, our god-self it would be a singular mighty force by which those demons can be defeated. These demons (Mara and his soldiers) are our fears, our greed, hatred and unforgiveness, envy, jealousy, lack of humility (and countless other lacks – generosity, compassion, willingness, understanding, gratefulness), downright maliciousness, wickedness, selfishness, and so forth. We have to recognise these demons, it’s true, but only because we know they must be defeated by that which is our good, our god self. For our demons deny us the cultivation of our god self. But they are there because we must experience all there is to know that self and to find ourselves as Buddha did on the path to enlightenment where testimony of our “goodness” (our right to divinity) is hailed by the earth itself. My Shout to you is to identify your Mara and defeat it. Buddha used the mental art of meditation, vibrating on a powerful frequency. You will have to find your own means to transmute the negative vibrations of Mara to a positive one of personal and spiritual fulfilment and only you know what those vibrations truly are. Buddha was alone, as you are alone. Your defeat of Mara is possible when instead of acknowledging its power (being fearful, unforgiving, ungenerous, ungrateful etc) you visualise your glorious victory over it.

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Protest against the killing of schoolboy Kelvin Fraser by policeman

A protest outside the Guyana High Commission was held today (July 1st) to seek justice for 16year-old schoolboy Kelvin Fraser, brutally gunned down by Guyanese police on Monday June 7th. It was led by Norman Browne and Dr Michelle Asantewa and attended by a small but vocal group of supporters.

Disgusted by the heavy-handed measures of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) our slogans called for real justice for Kelvin and for Human Rights violations in Guyana to end now. We also stressed that accountability for the widespread killings of innocent people lies with the PPP regime. It is our view that the Head of State is ultimately responsible for such blatant crimes against humanity and should therefore be brought to trial in The Hague under International Human Rights Laws.

The shooting of Kelvin Fraser took place when police were called to the Patentia Secondary School to settle reports about a ‘scuffle’. The disturbance was allegedly one of many instances of sexual harassment of young girls by teenage boys. Of course these boys’ actions are despicable. But no one involved in this school ground ‘scuffle’ and acts of sexual harassment were brandishing guns, knives or any kind of weapon. Therefore, this shooting was unprovoked, unnecessary and can only be described as murder by which an innocent child lost his life.

It has taken over three weeks for a charge to be made against the policeman believed to be responsible. This charge came as the result of continued pressure from Guyanese at home and overseas. It is well known that the GPF do not investigate such wanton shootings by its trigger happy members.

Guyana is now effectively a police state in which the police are empowered by a shoot to kill policy. It seems clear that a shoot to kill policy exists because the police who shot him did not intend to ‘disarm’ Kelvin Fraser – the boy was unarmed. They meant to shoot him. Several pellets discharged at close range against an unarmed schoolboy is unjustifiable and therefore mindless murder.

Given this outcome the Police did not arrive at the Patentia Secondary School to protect and serve the harassed girls, but to enforce its power to shoot and kill. When such enforcements and unwarranted shoot to kill policies are enacted against innocent, unarmed citizens they are callous acts of Human Rights violation.

The issue of Human Rights is more urgent than ever in Guyana, if there is to be any hope of ending the mindless slaughters. Who is accountable for the countless acts of extrajudicial killings by the GPF that go uninvestigated? We believe it is the Head of our now lawless State. Charges made against police never seem to lead to convictions because corruption in Guyana seeps from the government through the legal system. This is our main concern about the charge against Quancy John, the policeman allegedly responsible for Kelvin’s killing. Such is the level of corruption - and given the government’s power over the judiciary - we are not confident about due process.

We want genuine justice for Kelvin. His death must not be in vain. Guyanese live in fear of being shot or otherwise silenced for dissent against the government. But in a democratic society every citizen has the right to challenge the actions of its democratically elected government. However, the operations of the Guyana government, GPF and the GDF (Guyana Defence Force) bear the marks of Apartheid South Africa and must be condemned.

Our protest was the basis to form an organisation or join others for a more collective call to the international community to investigate Human Rights violations in Guyana. We will press said community to acknowledge the Head of State’s involvement in these atrocities by wilfully empowering its security forces – such as the sinisterly named ‘Phantom Squad’ - to shoot to kill. We will seek support from Guyanese across the Diaspora to participate in ongoing, peaceful campaigns that highlight Guyana’s situation to respective international bodies concerned with such instances of Human Rights violations. We would like to thank those who have so far provided their support.

Protest Organisers

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