letting go

Feeling really sad about the prospect of letting go of what is dear to my heart. Knowing and not knowing.... knowing that I am in a moment of change, seeing doors open and new horizons - literally and figuratively.   Not knowing for sure if this is a door i need to close or is it a moment to stay with till the lesson comes? Knowing that if I don't learn the lesson, it will come around again. What to let go of is the real question.  I must let go, I just need to understand of what? Of everything or part or outcomes?

opportunities to learn

 life will always bring us trials it is the opportunities for us to learn the lessons we are here to learn on earth, in this lifetime.

When the going is good it is the time we need to be learning/ training/rehearsing / strengthening ourselves so that we can deal better with the next challenge.  The most important lessons all earthlings need to learn at this time, according to various sources, is empathy and compassion, love, spirituality (not religion that's something different) & non-violence.

still i rise - Maya Angelou

Maya has been an amazing inspiration in my life. On her passing I pay tribute to her by posting one of her many poems that inspired me to action and to become the women and light warrior I am today!

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

laugh love live

laugh love live

activities we all need to do.
laughing yoga says enough laughing a day will get you laughing naturally and keep you living for much longer.

the power of love, love is an energy that comes back as you give it to others and creates its own flow through your world. love and you will be love and be loved. love and you will have a more joyful moment and life of joyful moments. love and you will find love in abundance and life in abundance.

doors opening

I am keeping my eye out for doors that are opening for me. I am in a moment of change in my life, my family has changed, is changing... my children have left home and are now making their own nests. I left my job and am now looking for a new one with temporary work keeping me eating - so thankful.

so anything can happen... 
#fearless

New horizons

Stepping out into new places and spaces
Exhilarating
Unsettling
Adventurous
Liberating

Then,
The world is my oyster
What to do next
So many wishes and dreams
Passions unfulfilled
All await

In time.... clarity of focus will come

Today... just letting the past be the past and the present the present

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918 - 2013

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918 - 2013

Somehow gone too soon, normally a statement one would make when a young person dies. Today the world's response to his death suggests it is true for this 95 year old! I do not feel too sad at his passing, recently when he was very ill I felt the need to let go of him, to allow an ailing body some peace. Many were praying for his recovery at that time. Though yesterday driving into the Cape Town city centre and seeing the flags on the street poles flying at half mast brought tears to my eyes.  These flags greeted me daily for months - flying high and honouring the nation's father. Now it honours him in death.

I remember being introduced to Mandela as our symbol of hope and struggle in South Africa, he was in prison not yet 20 years then. We had stickers of Mandela with a black strip across his eyes - because it is illegal to have a proper picture of a banned person's face. We had them stuck on our bedroom wardrobes, my sisters and I. We were young girls, pubescent yet fully enrolled in the cause of Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe! We learnt of the great leaders in our country, the ones they did not talk about at school. We learnt from our local leaders some who since became well known comrades and later members of parliament and cabinet in the free SA. We learnt of Sol Plaatjie, Clemens Kadalie, Billy Nair, Liz Abrahams, Cissy Gool and many others, of revolutionary groups in other countries Samora Machel in Mozambique and Fidel Castro & Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution. We sat in reading circles with Ashley Forbes, as teenagers reading and unpacking Marx's dialectic materialism and other theories that helped us to see the world with new eyes. Then we applied our reading by organising mass meetings and rallying people together to support trade union strikes, school boycotts, consumer boycotts, and any possible protest action - marches, candle light vigils. Mandela was always an embodiment of all of these people and of all of this work. He was never revered just for himself, because we knew as he said he would die for this freedom,  all or most of us who enrolled in this cause too would die for this freedom. Many did die, Neil Agett, Ashley Kriel, Solomon Mahlangu,  Matthew Goniwe, Ruth First.

We were part of the struggle,  we called it the struggle back then. All the revolutionary work to realise a new SA where we will have security and comfort,  the people would govern, the land belonged to all who lived on it and worked it and the doors of learning and culture would be open. These were not Mandela's ideals, these and more were the ideals of the south african people who contributed to and drafted the Freedom Charter under the leadership of the African National Congress and adopted in 25, 26 June 1955 at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. Mandela and the other Rivonia trialists showed us a steadfastness and commitment to the struggle that kept the comrades on the ground inspired to keep going. And likewise for the comrades underground. We knew that we could not leave them to languish in jail. Their courage fueled our courage and ours fueled theirs. Already by this time many comrades were in jail and many had been executed others were on deathrow. Mandela was our poster boy and was willing as always to serve. So we called for his release everywhere including at the UN where Stevie Wonder supported that call and sang (cannot recall the song, I just called to say I love you maybe) for Mandela at the UN. We spray painted his face with the black strip across the walls of the cape flats, in the streets. While graf artists were spraying dance moves, I was a graf artist spraying liberation slogans an Mandela's face with the black strip together with other comrades in our area, LOGRA. Then I had no idea I was a graf artist! We were just doing our revolutionary duty. 

We sang many freedom songs, one of my favourite english ones was a song we often sang:
Mandela, Mandela,  Mandela prescribes for freedom
Mandela say freedom now
Show us the way to freedom
In our land South Africa

Rolihlahla Mandela freedom is in your hands
Show us the way to freedom
in our land South Africa

He was a beacon of hope, we kept our eye on his / their release as a key milestone on our way to freedom. A release we all celebrated with fervour what a glorious day it was on the parade  in the city of cape town when he addressed the world for the first time after his release. Although the apartheid government was still in place we knew that change was  here. Mandela assured us by his presence and his word, indeed change was here. We were assured as we saw the unbanning of many banned organisations and release of political prisoners. Our collective victory!

As I write this I realise that his life has meant more to me as that symbol and representation that every cause needs, that champion that gives the cause a face and helps it to harness support. He went on to do this for most of his remaining years. Thank you Madiba.

Nelson Mandela, was human and can be criticised for sunset clauses and flying too close to the sun as he courted big money and literally sold himself,  the Mandela brand. Certainly I have much to say about that. He can also be frowned at for his 3 marriages and how sadly the first Mrs Mandela has been relegated to nonexistent overshadowed by a flamboyant and charismatic Winnie and the elegant, First Lady, Graca wife to two of Africa's greatest sons and revolutionary  in her own right! He was not perfect. He was, our Mandela and our inspiration and we thank him for that. Africa has had many great leaders, none have been as influential as this man.

Although this powerful beacon of hope has passed away, I cannot despair, knowing that his struggle has been my struggle and here I stand, my spear in my hand and my fist held high. Let's continue to water the tree of freedom! A luta continua!