Ora et labora Spoken Prayers

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From novice to winner and when we win the veil once thingrows again but thicker Now, now… I am now other Our inner light goes dimand as it is in darkness we stumble & with every misstep we remember We never wonWe were meant to be humblebeginners always, playful and curious setting sail at every day break expecting a middle, never an end but the middle is difficult, there is no shore in sight, no p...

“Why must we always see the dead body in a funeral?” I remember asking my mother She said: “You must say your goodbyes and swear to their virtues.” Similarly The corpse of a dead relationship needs to be seen. Sweared at. and then buried. We all have our graveyards. Some have epitaphs Others have a steady sweet flow of fresh flowers and some sit deep in unmarked soil, unworthy of memory or maybe v...

My stomach brews with a thousand storms,it . is . still . August 3:00 a.m it wakes me upit is not hunger, I don’t want a snack I want the child in me to set aside the back packI want her to know that working hard is one way, but playing hard is an oxymoronwork hard, play hard. swipe left. Why is is so difficult to engender ease and play in our day to day? I wonder, I look back: who took that away?...

Alabaster , Alabaster skin on houses of worship the world over, from the walls of relic rooms in Teotihuacan to the Bahai dome of Santiago. Alabaster like her skin and mine, freckled with the salt and spice of a life well lived, of lives we have loved. Similarly, the walls of our sites of worship, hardened paint on walls and flakes of stucco on the floor, freckles of others, their stories of worsh...

I will love you. I will love you, in the same light, with the same words, and the same tenderness I love myself, I can only emit what I mirror. So BEST BELIEVE I love me like a raging ocean in December sway BEST BELIEVE  I love me like the heat of sun on the year’s longest August Day BEST BELIEVE  Your mirror will shine my light in your reflections it will refract as tenderly as it does mine. Guar...

Imagine how we have passed down recipes from generations long gone, how we infuse cuisine, how the culinary arts are laced with the science behind taste, the physics of textures and temperature, ingredients and their chemistry. Imagine the kitchens that come alive, the hands that knead and mix with pride, the tables of kin and tribe. Imagine now, that we had a culture for passing on recipes of res...

Sitting and soaking, the glee of feeling my family in my skin in my soul the blurred lines of friends and kin the broad strokes, the fine lines, the brush streaks. The shelter in their umbrellas, under their neon lights, tucked into their smiles and splayed over their flushed rosy cheeks! Surrounded in my surrenderMy mountains trail my mounting decades, gracefully lining the belt of this journeyOr...

Little chickens wearing dove tails, trying to fit inwhen they fly they will fallno amount of practice will get a sky seeing chickenyou may cluck close to ground yet your praxis lay eggs and wake souls out of bed work with your strengthwith your landwith your grain wear your feathers in might, with pride P R A C T I C E : pieces to life’s parcelrepetition reliability redemption recognition; of self...

What a fork! For every fork where they see black or white you will see a color wheel. My forks and yours sit in fields, no asphalt, no cementJust burgeoning crops, vin-yards, and fledgling seeds. There are as many forks as there is willingness to feast. The grapes and the guard to kill or to eat? Drink lots of water! Pray that you will be able to drink from your roots and that you know when you ne...