Greetings loved ones and welcome to a new audio series designed to introduce you to the great people we’re meeting and experience we’re having on the road with the MobileHomecoming Project!!!
Audio snapshot one is a piece about the AMAZING Shades Retreat a renewing and inspiring gathering of Black lesbian/queer/same gender loving women in Pine Mountain, Georgia!!!! When we visited and interviewed folks we were So inspired by the love, the community and the awesome work the women who attended are doing year-round all over the US! Find out how you can be part if it here: http://www.shadesretreat.com/
We are in the final stages of opening something called the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Reference and Lending Library in my community (out of my living room) so that people can have access to great books that can inspire and empower them to think about race and gender and sexuality and politics and everything that they may want to think about more. I’m particularly collecting books that are not in the local libraries and I’ll be having library days starting in March in addition to the events I have here at the Inspiration Station when folks can look at the reference books, scan themselves copies of articles and chapters and borrow the lending collection to take home!
I’m really excited about it. Since this summer when I started the process over 700 books have been donated!
Hooray! Maybe you’d like to donate some books that you already have? Email me at brokenbeautifulpress at gmail dot com. OR maybe you’d like to start your own lending and reference library in your community? OR if you live in Durham…maybe you’d like me to show you how you can catalog the books that you can share!
Loved ones!!!! For those of you who didn’t get to participate in the MotherOurselves Bootcamp in Durham NC this January here is a podcast featuring the insights of the participants and some beautiful music!!! Playlist below.
Also know that for the next week…if you become an Eternal Summerian (monthly sustainer of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind) your first gifts will be a mixtape of the meditations of release we did during the bootcamp and the motherourselves manual so that you can bring this work into your life and your community!!!
We can make something out of anything.
Insight from Mariel Eaves and
The Revenge of Ricky Williams “Sweet Wolf Shirt”
We recognize and nurture the creative parts of each other without always understanding what will be created.
“Dear Mom” by Adele Nieves and
Climbing Poetree “I Wonder”
We establish authority over our own definitions.
Affirmations from Miya Binta
Doria Roberts “Dying Man’s Wish”
We claim power over who we choose to be, knowing that such power is relative within the realities of our lives.
Estas Mujeres: Covenant by Fabiola Sandoval
Amel Larrieux “All I Got”
We provide an attentive concern and expectation of growth, which is the beginning of that acceptance we came to expect only from our mothers.
“When I Crave Mama” by Fabiola Sandoval
Me’shell Ndegeocello “Solomon”
We affirm our own worth by committing ourselves to our own survival in our selves and in the selves of other black women.
“I Am My Mother’s Daughter” by Rashida James-Saadiya
Lauryn Hill “If They Only Knew”
We refuse to settle for anything less than a rigorous pursuit of the possible in ourselves, at the same time making a distinction between what is possible, and what the outside world drives us to do in order to prove that we are human.
“Mother Ourselves” by Julia R. Wallace (JDub)
Santigold “Unstoppable”
We recognize our successes and are tender with ourselves even when we fail.
“My Mother Ourselves Covenant” by Dara Montaque
Res “Bittersweet”
We learn to love what we have given birth to by giving definition to, to be both kind and demanding in the teeth of failure as well as in the face of success without misnaming either.
“Letter of Release to the Next Generation” by Miya Binta
Erykah Badu “My Life”
We lay to rest what is weak, timid and damaged without despisal and we protect and support what is useful for survival. We explore the difference together.
“Mother as Savior” by Miya Binta
Georgia Ann Muldrow “Runway”
We stand toe-to-toe inside rigorous loving and speak what has always seemed like the impossible to each other.
Truth Booth Conversation between Miya Binta and Manju Rajendran
Tata Vega, “Miss Celie’s Blues”
As we speak the truth to each other it become unavoidable to ourselves.
BrokenBeautiful Press is based on the basic assumption that love, knowledge and inspiration are renewable resources for revolution that we produce together everyday. Use this site to make love as community, creativity, interaction, knowledge and growth. We are dedicated to the visibility of love as something that we are always making (and therefore which is neither scarce nor for sale). We invite you to acknowledge the ways that you are making love happen all of the time. Please check back often for tools to use in your community and email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to submit resources that you have developed and would like to share with the world.
BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to embark on a monumental journey in celebration of the bravery and genuis of the trailblazers of the black queer/lesbian/gender-non-conforming community. To find out more and to offer resources, advice or financial support go to: www.mobilehomecoming.org
