Thru the Longest Night: Embracing Solstice

Courage is written
Into my body like rain is written in earth
I could move
As the earth moves
In mountains and valleys
-Audre Lorde (unpublished journal)

They say solstice is the longest night of the year because the earth is so far away from the sun. But the day after solstice is not much better. We just have to trust that the planet is indeed moving. Change is happening, slow in our hearts. Unlike the movies where after the darkest night is the brightest dawn and everyone lives happily ever after...the night after the longest night of the year is still a very long night. This is a time of slow change, hell for the impatient, but a blessing for those of us who are tentatively learning new skills, embracing saturn's returned insights and training ourselves for the universe we are creating in 2010.

I for one feel comforted by the slow change and by learning that I can survive long nights and wake up ready to remember what I learned, loving myself and others even if we still don't have it quite right yet.

What is your longest night? What are you learning? Add your insight to the conversation here: http://quirkyblackgirls.ning.com/forum/topics/thru-the-longest-night

And speaking of the universes we are creating...I HAVE to let you know about some things popping off at the center of the UNIVERSE (home of the recent Black Girls Rock and Black Feminist Prophecy events) also known as DURHAM NORTH CAROLINA.

In the first half of 2010 Durham will be home to some inspiring and innovative Black feminist community education models including

a weekly 3-month School of Our Lorde (on the Poetics, Pedagogy and Politics of Audre Lorde)
a June Jordan Saturday Survival School Series
a Sunday School Series honoring Queer Black Ancestors
AND a series of family field trips enabled by audio versions of Audre Lorde's poems about survival!
Find out about all of it and how you can support and apply here: www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com


AND if you are going to move to Durham (really..how could you not at least stop through?) you may want to do it by Combahee Survival Revival Week in May, an in-person celebration of the Combahee Survival project...which was nurtured by the brilliance of so many QBG's!!!

Okay and back to the cyberverse...thank you so much for the beautiful submissions to the QBG Zine LOVE EDITION...we are falling in love all over again while reading them...and feel free to sneak a last on in at quirkyblackgirls@gmail.com.

Even (and especially) in the darkest night there is the luscious knowledge that the souls of my people are dark and beautiful and do survive.

love and warmth,
QBG Lex

Visit Quirky Black Girls at: http://quirkyblackgirls.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network