The Size of the Sky: Open Heart Strategy

Dear loved ones,


During the week since the last message we have been driving the oversized Mobilehomecoming lovebug across the deserts and mountains through reservations and large stretches of land that pretend not to be Mexico. Past border patrol and casinos, to the arms and hearts and words of our loved ones and elders. We have been looking at the sky. And it seems to only get bigger.

In the meantime the sky has grown over another desert and the victory of the Egyptian people has inspired people all over the world and especially in the desert. And the violence of the state, every state that wants to keep its imbalance and ignore the sky is in high gear. In Libya 400 protesters were killed by the state in the past two days. That is more than all of the deaths in Egypt during all the weeks of it's recent struggle...and the population of Libya is a fraction of the population of Egypt. What does it mean to stay open to the sky?

I have been looking at the sky and looking at the sky where we saw the white buffalo woman running 5 mornings ago. In the stories the White Buffalo Woman gives the people a new relationship to air, she says that we can breathe and walk as a living prayer. She teaches a relationship between the earth and the sky. She reminds us that we are growing. And that is what every day has been like, driving and listening to our brilliant elders and comrades and driving more and more through a landscape below etched over in borders and an unpredictable sky. 400 protesters, including babies, killed in two days, and our own elders here are telling us they hope we catch the spirit, they hope we follow the lead of the brave youth in Africa who have transformed the world again.

Click here to hear what Ms. Vera Martin, 87 year old civil rights veteran and co-founder of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, has to say about our generations rising up: http://tumblr.com/x3f1knt5or

What does it mean to open our hearts to the time we live in? To let go of the version of the state in our hearts that wants to keep our imbalances and ignore the sky? What are the risks? Maybe it is a larger more collective version of the everyday activity of continuing to witness the country we live in. My own choice on the road to witness the corralled and tortured cows, the elk run over in national parks, the border patrol prowling, the clear disparity in social resources evident even from the highway, the obscene gas prices we are beholden to, in order to stay open to the miracle of the sky, and the hopeful turning of the occasional field of windmills.

What does it mean to embrace revolution, as more than a facebook status or a repost of a video of an Eygptian girl. What does it mean to love each other so much that we can hear our elders who want to keep us safe also telling us to risk our lives? What does it mean to love our elders so much that we risk the rest of this country just see them and touch them and remember?
Most of my life has taught me that it is not so strategic to have an open heart. I have learned that it is a weakness and a liability to even breathe where so much is toxic. But I am breathing a living prayer and with every breath I know at least one thing to be true:

I love you as big as the sky.

always,
QBG Lex

p.s. would love to see your face at our upcoming Mobilehomecoming Events in California so for more info on our presentations at USC and the Bay Area QBG welcome dinner go here: http://www.mobilehomecoming.org/?page_id=16