The Brown Menace: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday #3

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 is "The Brown Menace or Poem to the Survival of Roaches" from Lorde's 1974 collection New York Head Shop and Museum. Cherrie Moraga referenced this as one of her favorite poems by Audre Lorde at the Sister Comrade event in Oakland some years back and I see it as one of her most confrontational and brave poems ever! The assignment for this week (in addition to celebrating the survival of those of us who face extermination) is to think about a person who DISGUSTS you. It could be a person that you know in your community or it could be a political figure (mine was Clarence Thomas for a long time) and look for the lesson, "the indestructible part of yourself" that you see in that person or in your reaction to them.

How do we become as resilient as roaches? We evolve in the face of what we don't want to see about ourselves!

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!

$10-20 one time donation:

A Black Feminist Oracle Poem (aka alphabetical found poem from within this week's poem) sent directly to your inbox!

(Just include the intention you want blessed and a letter of the alphabet so I can distill your poem!)

$30-100 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $5-15):

A 30-minute one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem.

(16 available)

$150-300 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $20-25):

An IN PERSON one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem when I am in your neck of the woods or when YOU are in Durham!

$1000-2000 (or $100+ sustainer rate):

A customized Audre Lorde based workshop for you and your crew including an installation of a Black Feminist Oracle activity for all participants when I am in your neck of the woods.