Resurrection Sunday 1: A Litany for Survival

Recorded on the 21st anniversary of Audre Lorde's transition from an embodied warrior healer to an ancestral force this video is an invitation to push past fear in order to bring our truth into the world. This is the first in a weekly series of videos documenting and sharing my process of clarifying survival through a re-immersion in the words of Audre Lorde.

This video engages Audre Lorde's classic "A Litany for Survival" and the connection between birth and fear. Today as I think about the challenge of this poem I am also a BRAND NEW trained doula (blackmidwives.org). This poem...dedicated to those of us who face intergenerational oppression "learning to be afraid with our mother's milk" offers us the opportunity to be courages...because we exist! Everything that we have created has been achieved despite the lingering presence of fear and in despite systemic forms of oppression that have sought to eradicate us. Guess what? This instant and this triumph...we can do anything!

After watching the video, share what you are birthing into the world in the comments section so that we can affirm and witness it. If you would like a custom poem blessing based on A Litany for Survival visit: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/resurrection-sundays/

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Captions courtesy of the Radical Access Mapping Project, Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/
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Hello, loved ones!

It's me, Sister Doctor Alexis Pauline Gumbs,

and today is 21 years from the day

that the great poet warrior mother black lesbian icon
Audre Lorde transitioned to become an ancestor.

So to honour Audre Lorde

and the fact that she is eternally with us

this is the 1st edition of a 21 week series

called Resurrection Sunday.

Bringing us from Audre Lorde's death date,
back around through her re-birth.

And we are going to bring Audre Lorde's work

robustly into our lives

through an examination of her poetry on survival.

I feel especially excited about survival today,

because I just completed a full circle doula training

with the International Centre
for Traditional Childbirth...

yaaaaaaay!

And I'm so excited to support us all in birthing the next warrior poet geniuses onto the planet,

and welcoming them with love.

So, today we're gonna hear Audre Lorde's most famous poem on survival, A Litany For Survival.

"A Litany For Survival

For those of us who live at the shoreline,

standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone,

for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice,

who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns,

looking inward and outward

at once before and after,

seeking a now that can breed futures

like bread in our children's mouths,

so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads,

learning to be afraid with our mother's milk,

for by this weapon,

this illusion of some safety to be found,

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us.

For all of us,

this instant and this triumph

we were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises
we are afraid it might not remain,

when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning,

when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion,

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again,

when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish,

when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return,

and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard

nor welcomed.

But when we are silent
we are still afraid,

so it is better to speak,

remembering

we were never meant to survive."

So Audre Lorde famously wrote
in the Cancer Journals

that if she did not speak her truth
every time she was afraid,

she would be trying to speak her realness
from a ouija board from the beyond.

She really encouraged us to speak our truth
despite our fear.

And when I think about A Litany For Survival today,

after being immersed in a beautiful,
African centred context

of what it means to support the practice of birth,

what it means to support the breakthrough,
of allowing life to happen,

I think about what we want to give birth to,

that we are now ready to claim, and push past our fear to achieve and bring into the world.

So, I want to invite you to journal about that,

to write about that, to name that and claim that:

What is it that you are birthing into the world?

You -never meant to survive- that is already a triumph because you can imagine it.

And I would love it, love it, love it even more

if you cuold share in the comments
that which you are birthing into the world,

so everyone can see.

And, if you want, I'll be making an oracle this week from A Litany For Survival,

and you can check out the School of Our Lorde website at the link below

to find out how you can get a custom email,
poem, blessing, one on one conversation,

blessing, oracle, poem from Audre Lorde
for that project, that adventure, that reality

that you are ready to birth.

So excited to doula you into your dreams!

Hope to hear from you soon,

happy Resurrection Sunday.