Daughters of Eve
Sometimes faith and reality clash. It is the battle between those things we want to see happen, and the pattern of reality we have become use to experiencing. I am often challenged when holding onto my faith in change when I have to stare in the face of such harsh realities.
Tonight I will not write about my feelings about the Trayvon Martin trial, they are too raw and they hurt too much. Instead I want to focus on channeling that fear in my belly into something useful. As I recently wrote about in my article “Primal Rage for Justice” in Modern Witch magazine, I believe that rage is a magical tool that can be used to fight the good fight of equality. Tonight I have enough rage to fuel a revolution.
This moment happened right after I watched the verdict come in, and my children came home from the park. I looked at the variation of brown-colored faces that walked through the doors and I thought to myself, “I don’t know how to convince my children that they matter…” and the realization that I cannot keep them safe was staggering. My older son said to me tonight, after hearing the verdict, “it seems like it is getting worse. It is so scary….”
I looked him in his eyes and told him that it was not getting worse, we just cannot protect him from the reality of it all anymore. The helplessness of raising black children in a society that you cannot protect them from is humbling, disempowering, terrifying, and maddening.
And with all of that emotion in my home, I still get to look at the faces of my children tonight while they are breathing, laughing and smiling. Many parents cannot, Trayvon’s parents cannot.
And so I sit here, reconciling my fear of the reality that they are living today…. And acknowledging the guilt that I feel for this. I struggle to hold faith and hope for change in a world that invests in technology before human lives, and I wonder the plan of the Gods in a world that is so broken.
So I take this primal rage inside of me, and I send that energy to the universe for the Martin family and for our collective grieving communities; for a mother without her child, a father grieving the loss of his legacy, and an entire community without justice.
What I have come to truly understand is that there is no separation between my spiritual self, my ancestral culture and the path the Gods have put me on. My spirituality is deeply embedded within a framework that includes the divine sacredness of all beings, equally as important as the others. And so this type of injustice is sacrilegious to my belief system, and irreversibly detrimental to the Black community.
Tonight I offer prayers and hold energy for a deeply wounded family, and a hurting community.
As the water flows to the sea, let the tears of grief release the sorrow in your heart.
As the earth is soft beneath your feet, let the healing powers of the earth care for your pain.
As the air brushes across your check, let whispers of love comfort the child now beyond our mortal reach.
As the fire breeds heat that brings about transformation, let the spark of justice rise like the phoenix to change this broken system.
As the spirits of the Gods live within our flesh, the vision of hope lives within our path. Let it be known that we are all the messengers of love, empowered with the mission of righteous equality. As grief transforms into fuel, fuel is a means to justice, justice becomes the road to enlightenment.
Tonight we pray for healing love. Tomorrow we fight for justice…. for all.
Blessings onto the parents of the lost.
Blessings onto a community in grief.
Blessings onto a society that is rooted in confusion and bound by fear.
Blessings onto the change agents that fight for a future that is not guaranteed.
May this collective rage encourage right action that will lead to peace within our souls.
May it be so.
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