Con o Sin Melanin!

Not immigrants, not fruit pickers, not slaves, not illegal, nor lesser, 

but travelers, harvesters, contributors, survivors and human! 

When the melanin deficient humans migrate, they are pioneers. 

When they are functioning they call themselves a workforce. 

When they are prospering they call themselves liberated. 

When they walk out their door they look dignified.

When the melanin enriched humans migrate they are forbidden and criminal.

When they work together productively they are seen as equipment, subversive, deviant, and delinquent.

When they are free, they tend to be hunted, monitored, and regulated.

When they walk out their door, they look suspicious.

The melanin deficient human share in different vocations.

You say Lawyer, I say Reconciler.

You say Doctor, I say Restorer.

You say CEO, I say Servant Leader.

You say President, I say Intercessor.

You say God Bless America, I ask God What is not Blessed that I may know where to serve?

But the beauty of it all is that this is not truth, maybe common, but how often is complicated.

- Ron Estrada

Sadness

I will continue to realize that when I stop having faith in the mystical, angels have a way of telling me to quit doubting, at least long enough to be confused.  If I could hope for happiness I would have to also hope that a sad part of me dies.  There is a lot of life lived with a sad person inside me.  I loved it, and now it might be sailing on after clinging to the jagged edges of my soul.  Now that those are smoothing out I feel that sad gypsy sadness digging and scratching to hang on.  So to all the parts of me that must go I say hello fidelity, there is no more cheating.  Buenos dias trust, jealousy is sinking away.  Welcome home genuineness, breaking through the thick scars left by superficiality's carelessness was a tedious chore thank you for enduring the grunge.   Help me sing this song to the parts of me that are dying...now.  If death were ever a friend, please be gentle to the sadness coming your way.  With it are tons of memories stored away.  Death be kind since it can't be any other way.   Hello happiness nice to greet you, I hope you can help me be misunderstood in kinder ways.  If I am understood I know it isn't because of my clarity but because of the other persons happiness.

through Him, with Him, and in Him

Through the anger

Looking back at some angry times. I found that the music I relied on helped me to harden the attitude I learned and worked to keep.  It is so poetic and even more meaningful now.  The derived happiness I now cry about is a polar flip from the hatred that once inspired my greatness.  There is so much deep meaning in the sadness that inspires rage, ferocity, destruction, and violence.   If I have learned anything as a counselor in training it is to respect and attend to the screams and banging of indignation and be patient through the madness. If there was ever a theme or set of sounds I can surely recognize it in, it is this. There is a season for everything, it is winter, but I don't find myself lonely or angered. To the warming of my definition of true friend.  To those who might still be, it doesn't have to be the absolute!

"EEEEE the man!"

You can tell everybody!

Alison Quirk: Making a Difference

You gotta watch this to get an understanding for the person who has blessed my home.  Click the image above to watch!

Every Christmas I ask in an egotistical prayer on this blog for God to convert my heart into manger so that Christ might be born again.  My prayer was answered in the tallest way.  Literally on Christmas eve Emmanuel, meaning "God with us" in Hebrew, sent a text, can I stay with you?  Wow!  I couldn't have written a better Chicano Christmas Story.

I had recently spent most of the fall hoping for a shift in my life for the better.  I had reached a stale phase and was wanting a spark.  I got it.  I asked Emmanuel (Eman) if he ever gets sad.  He said in a deep loud strong tone, "Why!".  I asked, because your so far from family, his ex girl friend, or his father's death.  He said, yeah but he can't stay sad, he remembers how many people wish they could have the chance he has.  This was my shift. This was my prayer answered.

I have wasted so much time finding sadness, forgetting that there so much to be joyful about.  He wakes me up!  He fills my home.  He is the breathe of fresh air that gives a lift to my kite that when souring in the sky reads Joy!  He is teaching me how to set aside my sadness and trust that it can dissolve with joy without addressing it.  Absence is a new idea for me.  I am learning about ignoring.  As a counselor I feel obligated not to ignore sadness, but there is a balance between dealing with it and natural decomposition.  There has been a Joy in my home that I had forgotten how to see.  Emmanuel smiles and he takes my heart to happier place.

More recently I asked Eman how often his dad told him he loved him.  He laughed.  He told me that his dad never told him he loved him, he knew it.  He said American parents have to say it because they are so busy that it is hard for them to feel like their kids know they are loved.  He knew his dad loved him.  I asked him how do you say I love you in Nigerian.

When I went to Guate many admired me for what I was doing, but only those who have been understand that I was going to Guate selfishly to learn more about how to be human.  People tell me I am a good person for opening my home to those who need a place to get on their feet, but I know selfishly that these angels get me on my feet.  I recognize that I am finally loving myself, I am opening my heart to help.  Inna Sonku has become a gift I finally give myself.

I know a lot of people love me.  I can slowly start to stop saying I love you.  I can trust that ignoring the fact I never hear the words helps me look for how I feel them.  What landed in my manger on Christmas Eve was an eye site for how I am loved.  I have wanted people to know I love them because I worry that I haven't done enough to show them.

Inna Sonki (I love you!)

The Warrior's Doctor

Can you see there is a warrior struggling to remain healed.  It is obvious to any mystic that the battles fought through ancestors have payed dividends yielded by your constitution.  The battles you have in your future are nicely filed in a floppy worn folder labeled "none of your business".  

You have worn paths of grief and regret that your feet packed firm.  The paths are wearing wider and branching closer to your heart.  The cave that it runs through is losing its advantages.  The shortcut it created leaves the mystery of the forests calling you.

There is a healer in you.  It has philosophical discussions about savagery while the wreckless warrior is shackled by traumatic victims of wars past.  The healer says there will come a time when you'll need to work together.  The treatment given to you in doses of strength, just enough, and with just enough vitality to unchain your wildness one link at a time...Healed!

- Ron Estrada

Official Video (It doesn't "fit", but fit is judgment and fuck judging, that's a divine operation)

Eggusi Soup and Pounded Yamm

I have the fortunate opportunity to share some time with Emmanuel. He has become a close friend of our family. We know him through his friendship with my brother in law Phillip. He traveled here to play basketball. After a tremendous career with Tennessee, he transferred to New Mexico.

 Due to some medical concerns, he can no longer pursue his dream of playing in the NBA. That makes this time with him extra special. He has a wisdom I like to think is because of growing up humble and having to leave his family at the age of 15. He traveled across the globe to pursue a dream and a fulfill the hope his family had for prosperity in America. So I get to hear stories that are encouraging. We talk happiness, culture, and hope. He has an old soul, but the energy of a humgry and youthful 25 year old. He doesn't fit on my couch, the shower, the kitchen, or his bed but we are happy to have him living with us. So I was able to experience a good home cooked Nigerian meal.

I Rigoberta, Otra Vez

You took your tragedy and laid it on paper.  You first adapted to the suffering that felt deserved, maybe not deserved, maybe tradition.  You took your tradition that had evolved into tragedy, maybe not tragedy, maybe genocide.   You took your genocide and spoke about it as if it was confusing to your heart.  Your heart relayed the message to your soul.  From there your soul, which is tapped into the vast cosmos of greatness, sent a message for a translator.  The translator found you and now we have your glory to remind us that justice is a perspective but human dignity is truth.  I live with a heart that is opening, softening, and beating because of your trust in the truth that you and your communities deserve to be treated humanely.  I think about the courage you have, I wonder about the love you learned, and I wait for hope to take flight in more parts of this unfair life.  You are drop of uniqueness in an ocean of creativity.