Dr. Ni's Notes & Nibbles--9

Welcome to Dr. Ni's Notes & Nibbles--9, a gathering place of news, notes , words and wisdom bulldozing its way into your workday.

Words of wisdom for 2008:

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. -----Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

A bit of news:

Hi Niama :-)  I just popped by to let you know your interview is now posted on my Books and Authors blog at http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog 
Please feel free to pass on the news!!!
Thanks for the wonderful interview--please stay in touch??-----Joyce
Visit:  http://joyceanthony.tripod.com to experience the rainbow!!

From author and blogger Rose Marie Wolf:

Just to let you know...your guest blog post is up at rosemariewolf.blogspot.com

If there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know.
--
Much Love Always,
Rose Marie Wolf
www.rosemariewolf.com
rosemariewolf.blogspot.com
The Moon Series--Hunter's Moon, Book 3
Available January 1st

The return of a radio show:

“Poetry & Prose & Anything Goes with Dr. Ni” returns to the airwaves via BlogTalkRadio (www.blogtalkradio.com) this Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 2 p.m. EST.  Our first guest?  Author Allison Whittenberg who will share with us a short story about an unusual ride on a Greyhound bus.  On February 1st, my guest will be the inimitable spoken word artist Marcus Harris.  Get your ears ready!  :-)

A prizewinner:

date    Jan 16, 2008 5:16 PM
   
Dear Niama -

Congratulations!  Your poem, "Sean Ward Housing" won 2nd place in Artella's *MONTH* 2007 PassionPoetry Competition!

We invite you to also enter the next Poetic Idol Competition, which has been extended to February 28, 2008.  This contest has great prizes, including a $200 top award. Get information for submitting at:
http://www.artellawordsandart.com/poetry-plaza.html#Quarterly

Finally, you also may be interested in submitting work to be published in Artella's various publications, and you can find submissions information at http://www.artellawordsandart.com/submit.html

Thank you for entering, and congratulations!

Tammy Hensley

Artistic Admin Alchemist
Artella - the waltz of words, art, & spirit
http://www.artellaland.com

Book for sale from a wonderful poet friend, a soft-voiced soul from upstate New York who journeyed to California to present her work to those who were my students at the time ….

Happy New Year to all of my friends.  I am back from an astounding trip to India and the holiday season and ready for all of the blessings that 2008 has to offer.  I wish you all wonders in this year before us and hope that you all had a wonderful end to 2007.

One of the gifts that 2008 will bring is the release of my second collection of poetry, The Doom Weaver.  Thanks to those of you who have already ordered The Doom Weaver after my first announcement!  I appreciate your support!  Many of you have asked about a release date and that is dependent upon advanced sales on line.  Main Street Rag is offering a 35% discount for sales through the on line bookstore between now and February 4th, 2008.  This means that the list price is just $9 and the book will go to press once we have 100 copies presold, at which point I will be able to start booking reading and release parties to sign your books and share the words.

Please link to the listing by the following:  http://www.mainstreetrag.com/store/ComingSoon.php to order your copy and if you know anyone who would be interested, I would appreciate you spreading the word.  Thanks to all of you in the support you have all provided in my work and I look forward to bringing the words to breath once I have the book in hand.

If you have any questions, please let me know and I hope that you are all well and ready for the year.

peace, power, and poetry,
g.

Georgia Popoff
Community Poet
http://home.earthlink.net/~angel_light

A request from my surrogate Dad, a wonderful human being who made bearable my years as a high schooler in far too much emotional pain.  Larry and Jeff had been together long before I met them in 1976; now, having lost Larry due to a sudden and shocking choking accident, I pass on Papa Jeff’s request that we all come together for an event that Larry loved ……..

from    Jeff Horton <[email protected]>
   
Dear Friends and Family of Larry, 

The schedule of films for the Pan African Film and Arts Festival is out!  Just go to the website, paff.org, and explore them. (Click on films.) There is a whole long list of films--I haven't even gotten through it all.  It promises to be the usual treasure of creativity, humor, beauty, reality, fanatsy, tragedy, and fun.  Please go to the site and begin thinking about what movies you'd like to see.  That's what Larry would have been doing right now.  I'll try to get some copies of the printed program as well and I'll let you know where you can pick them up.

As for TEAM LARRY on the evening of Wed, Feb 6, we need more volunteers.  So far we have Larry's festival pal Dorothy, long time friend Margit and her son Owen, and neighbor and median partner Mary S. plus me and the boys.  I hope we will also have Derrick (Larry's nephew) and Vicky and her daughters Monique and  Brigit.  It's never too late to volunteer, so let me know if you can make it.

The work of setting up that Weds night won't begin until the mall closes at 8 or 9 pm, so I thought we could meet at about 7 pm for dinner at the Cafe Creole next to the mall.  (It's next to the Sizzler restaurant at the southwest corner of the mall.) This is a lovely little restaurant with really good New Orleans cooking at reasonable prices.

I would also like to look for a film or two that we might all want to see, so as you look through the program please think of things that Larry's friends and family would enjoy.  I'll be making some suggestions as well.

For those of you with children or who know children, please take a look at the children's events on the two Saturdays, Feb 9 and 16 at 10 am.  We've been to these and they're wonderful free events which include films, story telling, and crafts.  We have seen some lovely African children's cartoons at these events.

Other parts of the festival to look for:

Spoken word fest--poetry readings at the festival headquarters next to the mall.

Youth fest--teenage interest films and speakers on week day mornings.

The festival is such a rich and profound cultural resource for all people.  It's no wonder that Larry was so committed to it every year.  This was one of Larry's priorities that definitely deserves to be carried on.  I hope you can join us.

(FYI:  Unfortunately I have to be out of town from Sun Feb 10 through Wed Feb 13.  Other than that I'll be free to go to movies in the evenings and weekends.)

Jeff

A poem I wrote for Jeff in which I imagined his and Larry’s relationship …….

FOR LARRY
Niama Leslie Williams
Copyright October 2007
 
for jeff
 
pillars of fire
rage anger fury
hope despair
how else say
i love you
you love me
if not willing to breathe fire
and then retreat
pull back
cover wings fangs incisors
canines
with lip, tongue, peace.
 
some of us peep out
from between the pillars of fire
close one eye
the other
fake risk, rage
will you risk it with me
then retreat back to love
softness sanity
 
will you endure the conflagration
holding my hand spirit essence
fury
and give back to me softness
after the stifling, exhaustive,
hissing splash of water
creating wisp of smoke and silence?
 
only you, lover, lifetime lover
know why--
why the fury test necessary
only you willingly, knowingly
return peace each time
understand those eyes
fretful
between the pillars.
 
we
your children
birthed and nonbirthed
know you will wait to die
to join him ..........
 
know deep in your heart
you will wish to be with him
but you will never tell us
not overtly
you know we will jealously
savagely grasp
what of the love you shared
remains.
 
partly jealous, me, always
never sharing the halcyon of your home
always outside looking in
wanting, dreaming, safety----
i want his absence
your grief
to draw us closer
as i
terrified
reach for my own destined beloved.
 
he was yours
at birth.
 
look for flames, father--
sparks, sparklers, dry twigs combusting
firecrackers multiplying in your presence
firemen avoiding your gaze, company.
 
he will be in every burst of orange, father,
reminding you spirit surpasseth
all understanding
love barrierless
time no bridge
 
look for the spark, papa
he will be there
loving you

waiting.

An amazing work from a stunning poet that struck me as I meandered through my daily email ……..

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE
by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-Jack Gilbert

Gilbert has several books.
One is *Refusing Heaven,* available here:  http://tinyurl.com/o8kwn
Another is *The Great Fires,* available here: http://tinyurl.com/38az42

From the only astrologer I pay any attention to because I love the positivity, sagacity, and intense artfulness of his messages (Rob Brezsny in case you are wondering; check out freewillastrology.com ………)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS

Fundamentalist Christians send me hate mail. Religious zealots in ten cities have banned one of my books. Along with meditation, yoga, and sex for fun, the Vatican has declared astrology, one of my occupations, to be dangerous to your spiritual health.

All of these haters would be shocked if they learned that Jesus Christ is one of the Main High Dudes in my pantheon of gods. They seem to believe that people like me -- goddess-worshiping tantric sufi Qabalist Buddhist pagans who hang around with zen trickster witches and espouse a socialist libertarian political philosophy -- couldn't possibly have an intimate relationship with the cosmic hero they claim to own. They must think they have commandeered the trademark of one of the sweetest avatars in history!

But I do have an intimate relationship with Jesus. How could I not? He was a champion of women's rights, a threat to the established political order, and a radical spiritual activist who worked outside religious institutions.  The dude owned nothing and was a passionate advocate for the poor and underprivileged. He was uncompromisingly opposed to violence and war.  Besides that, he was a master of love and he devoted his life to serving the Divine Intelligence. I want to be like him when I grow up!

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," he said, "than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That's a pretty clear statement of his position towards rightwing accumulators of property and wealth.

"Love your enemies," he said, "do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." How any militarist promoting global arms sales and pre-emptive war could claim an affinity with Jesus is incomprehensible.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

An announcement from Fractured Atlas, a wonderful organization in New York that allows writers and other artists to share their 501c3 designation so that we gifted people can solicit tax-deductible donations for our projects ……

Introducing Fractured U. - Continuing Education for D.I.Y. Artists
by Adam Forest Huttler

My undergraduate degree is in theatre. For the most part, my time in college was spent rolling around on the floor and exhaling on a hum. This did a lovely job of teaching me how to "project" to the rafters, but it taught me virtually nothing about how to actually make a living in the theatre industry. The closest we came was a mini-semester on auditioning. Nothing on how to start a theatre company, nothing about fundraising or marketing or budgeting or any of the myriad other skills that real working artists need to have these days.

The truth is that this experience is far more common than not. Unless you specifically pursue a degree in arts administration (or do what I eventually did and get an MBA) it is assumed that craft and aesthetics are enough. The arts industry today is sadly full of artists who are running businesses - either by choice or by default - but have essentially zero training in how to do that.

With this mammoth need in mind, I am pleased to announce the launch of Fractured U. For the last year we've been quietly putting together an online curriculum in arts management aimed squarely at artists who are working outside the mainstream establishment and trying to make things happen on their own terms. The initial roster of classes provides introductions to fundraising, marketing, and professional identity. The course list is short for the moment, but we'll be expanding it steadily over time.

Fractured U. is free and open to the public, although you'll need to be a Fractured Atlas member to participate in discussion forums or take quizzes.

Since this is a brand new service - and one that I hope will someday be a big part of what we do - I'm eager for any and all feedback. So give it a whirl and tell us what you think!

An event that no one, of any nationality, ethnicity, or political, social or cultural persuasion should miss:

Greetings!
 
Thank you for supporting the Sankofa Literary Society in hosting the 2008 Black History Month Online Book Fair. This event will take place totally on the Internet and over the phones. Save the date for the virtual release party too.  To date, we have 45 confirmed bestselling authors for the event!
 
From February 1-29, 2008, authors, literary leaders, spoken word artists, poets, and bookstore owners will discuss the State of African-American literacy and the importance of Black History being celebrated 365 days per year. The nightly events will be broadcast to 10,000 listeners! This event will be promoted nation wide by an AP wire service and by local radio stations in DC/MD/VA.
 
Participation in the BHM Book Fair is FREE FOR EVERYONE; however promotional packages are available for interested authors.  Choose from the 4 packages available; release party info included
 
http://sankofaliterarysociety.homestead.com/payments244343mojorj3443jporuj343n3.html.  Password Protected for your shopping safety:  peace1unity2bhm3
 
Speak with Ella via email or telephone:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: [phone]
 
Ella D. Curry, President and CEO of EDC Creations
Need more info:  [email protected]
Visit Us Online:  www.edc-creations.com
SLS Homepage:  www.sankofaliterarysociety.org

Finally, as always, a ruminatory essay providing a window in on my spiritual life and progression down the path God seems to be laying out before me …..

 

THE WORKS OF HE WHO SENT ME
Niama Leslie Williams, Ph.D.
Copyright January 2008

Jesus said, I must work the works of He who sent me ….

Dear God,
   

It is fitting that I sit here, in Melanie’s home, first in a doorway, then in a passageway between two rooms about to write of the beginning of my life of service.
   

I often tell those I am close to or those I am about to become close to of the beginning of my knowledge that God had made me exceptional.  My father had left our home the night before amidst tears, punishing silence, anguish and grief.  I had been inconsolable on his lap that night before, a flood, a river of tears, but when he asked me to hush up now I did as he asked, ever the obedient Daddy’s girl.  The next morning I rose, a happy five-year-old, resigned to the fact that my daddy was gone.  I bounced, a little bit less lifeless, to my bedroom door to see what my day held.
   

I heard the sobbing.  I looked west, down the hall, and there my brothers stood, the oldest’s head on one of Mama’s shoulders, the second oldest’s head on the other shoulder, both crying their guts out.  I watched that tsunami of tears and rightly calculated that my mother would never be able to carry the weight of so much sadness, so much ripped open pain.
   

I said nothing to anyone, but that moment I observed and made a decision:  I would take whatever, I would absorb whatever because these people would never make it without me.
   

Forty years have passed since that morning, and I have no grand plans to celebrate my 46th.  I dream now of a mate, a life partner, and if there was anything I were to ask of this God I love, worship, happily joyfully thankfully prayerfully give my life over to in service, it is that He hasten this man’s steps toward me.
   

The road so long, so long away from the lies and secrets and half-truths my family’s anger and rage implanted.  “On Fire” one of my favorite Criminal Intents because Glenn’s cry, “I’m nothin’,” rings so deeply in my consciousness.  My family’s need had me convinced I was nothing, a person who had no right to a life of her own or to her own wishes, wants, desires, choices.  I had to be kept near and I had to be kept down or I might find out the whole truth and turn the entire apple cart.  I was Papa Ben’s last precious gift, and my Mama meant—selfishly—to have me near at all times and forever.  She couldn’t have, possibly, the love of her life, the one man with whom she had been completely sexually free and satisfied, the one thing stand-in father simply could not abide, and I was not to go away from her, especially not after he died.  That I was still psychically connected to him during his passing probably ripped her up; it made the stand-in insane.  He threatened my life and I had to flee.
   

But I do not fault my parents for this.  If Jim Richards told my mother to go ahead, try it, you deserve to experiment, find out; and if my mother finally gave in to her young Black Southern girl’s curiosity and slept with an older white man who loved shirtless and shoeless and the sea; if she let her guard and all those Black Southern prohibitions down, letting him take her to new heights of pleasure she’d never imagined, how go back to high school sweetheart once she’d tasted nirvana?  The secret nobody tells is that she broke the stand-in’s heart and he ruined her life in return.
   

The fiction I tell myself is that Papa Ben and my Mama talked about the reality of being together and knew it couldn’t be, or maybe he wasn’t brave enough or committed enough to settling down with Lessie B.  Maybe they thought it would be too hard for me, a cute little Black girl in Hollywood (Papa Ben was a screenwriter).  God, I must muster the courage to find the truth, to search Mama’s boxes and piece together what really happened; they could go together to the other side if I would go ahead and bust it loose.  They don’t just want me in Jim’s arms, they want me to know and announce who I am and what frightens me, Father, is the massive amount of disbelief and incredulity waiting for me on the other side of that announcement.  I want nothing more than to go in there and lay down and snore and sleep and rest my soul in “God’s room” as Melanie’s stepson calls it, but Papa Massey be in there and I can’t lay down in the same room with him.  Now that I’ve healed him (shorthand God; you guided me in that work), we both feel the over-abundance of sexual energy we both toss out as a matter of our everyday living breathing existence.
   

And I’m tired, God, I’m tired of dreaming of Jim, I want his real arms around me but I can only force myself to wait, you’ve told me to wait, that he keeps running and sexual attractiveness so obvious now after the basil tea bath and the olive oil cream in my hair and the cocoa butter lotion on my skin sealing in the basil tea cleansing.  I smelled of it all, basil and olive oil and cocoa butter, and the young girl of the writing program lost her mind and said “can we just go make out somewhere?”  I had to tell her no, I belong to someone else and to myself I said, someone whose arms I haven’t even felt yet.
   

But I wait.
   

The compliment a nice one though and I treated her with special kindness after that.  Always be delicate with those who love you whom you can’t love back.  And I, wet between the legs ever since Papa Massey’s healing, ever since sitting and listening and hearing what he thought unspeakable unbearable; what he thought made him pariah outcast a horror, and I greet him with love, understanding, insights that showed him why he behaved the way he did and not in a way that would have put him first.  Oh how the abused recognize each other!  How grateful I am for the years of therapy and medication and truth telling and audiences and the 12-step rooms that gave me wisdom to share with him that will help him save himself!
   

I sat and listened and gave wise counsel, and all with Your lips tongue and breath, Father.  It was You speaking and acting through me.  He was rid of those three powerful dark and poisonous secrets, Father; I pulled them toward me, accepted them from his breath, cut the cords so he could be free and the secrets tumbled down my intestinal elevator shaft and at 6:30 a.m. I was awake and coughing and nauseous waving my last $10 and saying “24 hour pharmacy, Ipecac!”  Knew I had to call Nana-Essi before doing anything.  Called and she was going to be out, so laid down to rest and sleep as body was telling me to do.  Don’t often listen to body, but with healing work it’s about taking it slow and the client.
   

Big Sis, when she got in, said absolutely not to the Ipecac; basil tea bath cleansing and then herb mint tea to drink.  My silent inner voice rebelled:  Mama wants to have a say, an input, and she recommends Ipecac.  I all for Mama’s solution til I slowly pour that hot basil tea over my head, down my arms, down my chest, my back, and all over again.  A gallon of tea so three times.  I’d plugged the tub so ran new hot water over the collected basil tea at the bottom of the tub and sat down in it and oh my God healing yes cleansing yes soothing.  I let the basil encircle, surround, de-pollute me with its secret medicinal curative powers.  I listened to my inner self and knew it was time to get out when the water started to itch.  Heard Nana-Essi’s voice just as clear telling me how long to boil the tea.  Intuition can save your life if you let it!
   

And last, Father, I must tell of the Miracle of Norristown High School, the Miracle of Hallway 300.  I had put in my application to substitute teach and realized months later as I continued to wait for clearances that this application was the one I was most excited about and why Niama when you’ve sworn up and down your whole life that you would never do K-12?  That Parmeleee nearly killed your mother, certainly advanced her Alzheimer’s, and you’d seen your LAUSD friends buried in impossible loads of paperwork; how on earth could you be excited by K-12?  Yet you were.  You thought those clearances would NEVER materialize.  And when the second one did and you could finally set your foot in a classroom, oh my there you were, Thursday, 7 something a.m., walking down a hallway in a high school looking for your room.  And suddenly it swept over you, this was high school and this, this was where you wanted and needed to be.  The sweat the fear the tension the false bravado petty hatreds minor cliques and various fiefdoms, teacher and student.  You belong here, every day, building hope self-esteem courage brilliance.  You have to convince them that they have it all, have it all within, so they will risk trying and not quit before they begin, full of disdain, disregard and disrespect.
   

By day two you are hurting so bad for them you are at Mr. Krause’s door asking what do I do?  How do I reach them?  I don’t want to be known as the sub who can’t manage a classroom; what’s my shtick?  What will keep them quiet and working and caring?  It is not that I want, simply, to become She Who Must Be Obeyed; I want to ask for quiet and get it immediately.  I want cooperation and compliance without argument.
   

Answer?  They have to know I care.  They have to know I am there for them.  How do I do that in one day?  Bring Louie Jones to play on CD player!
   

And lastly I must make room for this Scorpio of Papa Ben’s birthday.  I must make room for her clutter and lateness and disregard for her guests’ needs.  I must miss subbing Tuesday for the Monday night staff meeting.  Given the birth date, I choose to make space for Ms. Melanie Warm Earth Mother Clutter Mistress for Rev. Massey clutters too and I know this all preparation for Dr. Jim Clutter, the 6’1” love of my life.
   

Sleep, girl; sleep, Rev. Massey gone now.  Okay to go to bed.  Okay to spread your wings of spirit and prepare the runway so all can fly …….

 

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