Resurrection Sunday #4 Buttered Bread

Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday #4: To A Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On.

Launched on Nov. 17th 2013 on the 21st anniversary of Audre Lorde’s transition from an embodied warrior healer to an ancestral force, this is a weekly series of videos documenting and sharing my process of clarifying survival through a re-immersion in the words of Audre Lorde. To see all the videos so far check out:

http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/resurrection-sundays/

This week's poem "To A Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On" is a fairy tale and a spurn to the romantic poets and their debate about maidens and gallant youths. The major message of this poem is to tend to our ancestors even in the face of arrogant distractions.

This video is special because it is a collaboration by the participants in the Brilliance Remastered Guardian Dead Retreat on Ancestor Accountable Intellectual Practice.

You are so blessed because along with hearing the poem you will get to see all of the participants embodying how they nourish their relationships with their ancestors.

Your assignment is to think about (and share in the comments if you want) how you butter scones for your ancestors and what distractions seem to come your way. I am thankful for you and the ancestors who protect you!

Every week as part of my practice of resurrecting Audre Lorde in my life and in our communities I will be making an alphabetical oracle from the weekly survival poem which will consist of up to 26 new poems based on the sacred source text. If you would like to receive a custom poem as a blessing for your journey you can with a donation of your choice to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind’s School of Our Lorde! summerofourlorde.wordpress.com — with Alexandra Balinda and 22 others at School of Our Lorde.

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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,

and welcome to week 4 of the School of Our Lorde's,
Audre Lorde Resurrection Sundays.

This is a really special week

because this weekend was the
Brilliance Remastered Guardian Dead

Retreat for Ancestor - led,
community - accountable intellectuals.

Two of our sacred texts at the Guardian Dead retreat

were Melvin Dickson's speech
"I'll Be Somewhere Listening For My Name",

and Audre Lorde's poem "To A Girl Who Knew
What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On".

Audre Lorde thought this poem about
the importance of honouring our ancestors

was so important she published it twice.

This poem is fairy tale answer
to generations of romantic poets,

and is an emphasis on why we need
to honour our ancestors

on a regular, consistent, sustainable basis.

So our gift to you this week

is a reading of "To A Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On"

along with the Guardian Dead participants enacting their postures of reverence to their own ancestors.

What it looks like for them to butter scones
to nurture their ancestral relationships.

"To A Girl Who Knew
What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On.

He, through the eyes of the first marauder

saw her, catch of bright thunder,

heaping tea and bread for her guardian dead

crunching the nut-dry words they said

and, thinking the bones were sleeping,

he broke through the muffled afternoon

calling an end to their ritual's tune

with lightning-like disorder:

'Leave the bones, Love!

Come away from these summer breads

with the flavour of hay—

your guards can watch the shards of our catch

warming our bones on some winter's day!'

Like an ocean of straws

the old bones rose

Feeling the lightning's second death;

there was little time to wonder

at the silence of bright thunder

as, with a smile of pity and stealth,

she buttered fresh scones for her guardian bones

and they trampled him into the earth."

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!

So! Your assignment for this week

is to remember what side your bread is buttered on,

what are your regular practices
to honour your ancestors?

What are the tempting distractions that come along
trying to drag you away from them?

If you want to write about that in the comments,
you can;

if not, no worries.

And I will share with you the poem that I got

in our To A Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Is Buttered On oracle,

which is A Poem For The Letter G
___[cannot hear this part]___

The Poem For The Letter G is

girl, guardian, guards, guardians.

And I dedicate this week's video with so much love

to my fellow participants
in the Guardian Dead retreat,

and my brilliant co-facilitator
brother doctor Eric Darnell Pritchard.

If you are interested in finding out more
about Brilliance Remastered

check us out at
alexispauline.com/brillianceremastered/

And if you would like to have some one on one time,

explore more of the videos from other weeks,
or get your own oracle poem, go to:

the School of Our Lorde website which is:

summerofourlorde.wordpress.com

And until next time, please remember that...

[ GROUP SPEAKS ] We are who we are,
doing what we came to do.