6th July, 2019 Saturday
This 4th felt like a Memorial for me as a concept of an America that is so old in my DNA is being demolitioned by an Idiot who Tweets. I have a deep despair in my soul these days. A cousin who has charge of much of my mother’s family history sent this yesterday and helped me understand why I personally grieve this deconstruction period in my country’s history. I tell people jokingly I am as close to a white native as you can get in this country as my white anglo ancestors landed on the East Coast of America in the early 1600’s. There are those today in America who also have DNA that has been here for that long but because their ancestors were forced to be here as an enslaved people, few have the ability to find the trail of those who were forced to come here then. My channel of ancestors were societally positioned to support the crystallisation and manifestation of the idea of a country which in its ideal functioning would afford a framework for whosoever chose to exist within its borders the ability to create a better home than the one they left or been forced to leave. In my genetic sense of America the term Asylum is embedded among other words. My DNA literally has embedded with in it America’s story, with its dark and light, its eruptions of humanity’s darker natures as well as its attempts to embody the highest form of humanitarian efforts is one of opposites repelling off eachother to climb the rock wall of Our Better Angels. In that repel, we move up one hand grip and fall two back. In these last two years, I have feared we might have lost the grip. Are we in Freefall?
On the 4th this year, this cousin I have only met once whose daughter was sworn in last January as a Democratic Representative from the State of Texas to The House of Representatives, sent an email to my sister. This cousin is one of two in my generation who hold the geneological history trove of my maternal family. He was most likely looking for a grip on that wall of Our Better Angels also. He had found this and I thought some of you might also find in it a grip as I have.
In 1823, to celebrate the 4th of July, Thomas Jefferson felt moved to write a letter to my 4th Great Grandfather, Captain William Pannill. Jefferson wrote, “The continued repetition of these commemorations thro’ ages to come, and the faithful preservation, pure and unchanged, of the spirit of that great day which gave them birth, will be themes of unceasing prayer with me.” I need to keep praying as I cannot help but weep.
Not done yet.
Dream kite last night brought a scene of a museum like space in which stands a glass case. In the case are what seem to be a set of about eight wooden disks. They are time worn, ancient, and on the face of each are carved images. The images are familiar to me. They are symbols I have known before. I belong to them and they to me. My dream self knew these images were carved on these disks because they were the bases of the casings for sacred drums. The images are the images that were painted on the skins long since disintegrated which voiced the drums. I had been with the songs these drums had sung long ago.
Tea is black, creamed and honeyed.
Ta.
Tea With Me 