Love + Music

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet....make you wanna move your dancing feet.
Also wants to make your heart and another join together to find a new beat..just takes a little bit of heat...
To be in love...looking both ways before crossing the street.

Envisioning love, physicality, besitos, abrazos, chitos, tongue, manos, dedos, the erasure of skin as a barrier. :)

Altar of Peace

This past Sunday, Homies hosted a Vigil for the Commemoration of 100 Days of Peace since the Gang Truce in El Salvador....We created an Altar to give our intentions of peace. It was a beautiful ceremony for the people who were present and shared the same feeling of wanting to contribute to this truce.

Sadly, this truce has been widely received with doubt, skepticism and insecurity. It is understandable that the citizens of El Salvador, who have been paying the price of this violence for years, are doubtful and even afraid of what this truce means. I acknowledge that I am in a position of privilege in this matter, and I cannot tell anyone what to feel about their own experience with gangs.

However, it still makes me very uncomfortable (to say the least) that people who say they are allied with God and Jesus Christ are still speaking with hatred toward the gang members who are making this truce in the name of community.

Why is it ok for them to hate gang members, yet they seem to forget all the other murderers in the current equation? Why is it ok to hate gang members and not the politicians who continue to steal resources from the community? Why don't they call out the government, who in alliance with the United States, is responsible for the murder of thousands of people during the war?

Why don't they call out big businesses who continue to exploit Salvadoran labor, and send broken and tired fathers and mothers home to raise their children with crumbs? All these big businesses are allowed to brainwash our minds with advertisements that say we need all these products to survive - that's what "civilization" is. The same products and foods that are giving us physical illnesses like cancer, which puts us at the mercy of doctors who continue to cut and paste our bodies into bank accounts...without educating us on how to take care of ourselves. Why isn't anyone saying anything about that?

Gang members are a part of that fucked up society too, and the difference between them and you and me is that they decided to manifest that pain in a violent form...but it is still just a reflection of the society that is already there. Some people choose to follow what is acceptable in this unjust society, and it is much easier to make gang members evil and different from us, but the truth is they are our brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, cousins, uncles, aunts, mothers and fathers. They also have people who are dying in hospitals. They also have mothers and fathers who died in the war. They also lived in broken homes. They are also casualties of war, victims of an unjust society. So why is it so hard to believe that after all that violence, they can also make peace?

If you are a person who is allied with God, you understand love. If you understand love, you understand that it takes work - it takes mad work to make peace. It starts with you. It starts with me.

With that said, here are some words from brother Luis Rodriguez:

100 Days of Gang Peace In El Salvador by Luis J. Rodriguez

The Methodology of Changing Shape/Transforming

When I was little, I was very cautious when playing because I didn't want to get hurt.  I also had hope in the system: I believed that there were good cops and bad cops, good politicians and bad politicians, that pop music had some sort of a social message, that marriage was sacred, that the bible was THE connection to God. I grew up having a phobia of snakes because of Adam and Eve (i.e. I thought that snakes were an incarnation of Satan). I thought that if you talked hood you couldn't be smart...In my mind, I wanted to make my mom proud: I had to be the perfect immigrant child that behaved, spoke perfect English and Spanish, got good grades, had career and educational goals..I was a star student. I was the epitome of what a "good" kid is. In other words, I had a really tight asshole.

I'm 26 years old now, and I'm proud to say that, somehow, I let life show me that NONE of the above is true. I stopped trying to address and fix individual problems in the system, in society, in my mind, because I finally saw that the whole fucking thing is rotting from the root. The way you reach this point of understanding is just by asking questions. Sometimes we don't even receive answers, but the fact that our brains conjure these questions up is significant in itself...like your primal force is calling you back from the bullshit and convinced your brain to think about it a little more.

This is a list of questions that I've asked in my life:

Who am I? What am I? How did I get here? Why are kids in other countries starving? Why is this country wealthier than that one? How did this country become a country? Why do people work to pay for cable television? Why isn't everyone aware of how their body functions? Why do people trust doctors to make decisions over their bodies? Why do microwaves exist? Why are there so many fucking commercials? Why don't we eat more fruits and veggies? Why do people have to pay for food that is grown on their land? Who decides who is a "criminal" and who isn't? Why do we need police? Why do police shoot so much? Why aren't police trained in nonviolent communication? Who does the police work for? Who does the city work for? Who does the goverment work for? Who benefits from this system? Who creates the criminals? Where do criminals come from? Why did they become criminals? Who created those conditions? Why is it illegal for people to be human on this side of that fucking border?

Nope

Finally decided I'm over my job. It's not helping me anymore. Gotta find a way out now. :D Yes!!! 

Tripping out on health...hence the previous rant. Staying positive, sending love, beaming light to the heart of those who have become physically ill due to the injustices created by people in power. 

It just gives me more fuel to keep going. Gotta do more research. Keep reading, keep critically analyzing the place we occupy, we live in, we die in. 

Radiation

My heart is heavy. Trying to radiate light and love,

but getting stuck in darkness.

Friend, how did this happen? 

Your body became your enemy,

now they're jamming needles in your skin

like 500 years ago when they jammed flags into our soil

spilling more blood for their gold and oil.

They're cutting down our trees, sucking on the land, poisoning our food, 

poisoning our water, polluting our air, worse than leeches (cause at least they know when to stop). 

All so we could sleep on duvet blankets, drive our cars to work, so we can pay for our cellphone, our living space, watch television, go to school to learn some bullshit, so that you can grow up and go to college, get a job in their corporate world, sell you monogamy so you can get married and create more consumers so they can continue their fucking disease of survival strategy. Ownership never meant love...just material security.

I'm sick of people protecting this bullshit way of life we call being "American."

Giving the pueblo the fucking crumbs, raising funds for charities, Make Your Wish come true only when you're about to die type of shit. I'm sick of the hypocrisy. 

It's making us all (literally) sick!

All I want to say is:

Civilization can kiss my Salvadoran-rebel, won't-bow-down-to-no-one, fuck-your-bullshit-food, fuck-your-bullshit-medicine, fuck-your-unsustainable-productivity, fuck-your-exploiting-of-brown-skin, crossed-the-border-3-times ass. 

What the fuck does civilization mean now? The people that Europeans referred to as "savages" knew how to work the land, live off it, create art, study the stars, understand the universal connection, knew how to heal and pray, and they respected the earth. "Civilized" europeans raped our womyn, are still exploiting our land, created these fucked up structures that were only meant to benefit them, and here we are years later still fighting for the same fucking thing: our earth, our food, our water. 

But my heart doesn't feel hate, it still blooms with love for my blood, my body, my earth, my dreams. 

I embody my family's dreams. We must go forward to justice with love, because that's what Europeans couldn't understand.  We need to unwind, refresh our minds, wake the fuck up and see who's really running shit. It's only through the reclamation of our souls, our love, and the liberation of our minds, that we can go forward in creating a great world for EVERYONE. It starts with us, it starts with taking care of your own body to the fullest. Food, Water, Exercise, Love. If your government does not make it possible for you to do that, it is failing and needs to change. 

Circles

Took a trip up to Berkeley this weekend with my bad ass female crew (officially baptized "Las Moonaguas").

The trip, the weekend, the conference, the get-togethers, reconnecting, connecting, dancing, laughing, making music...all of it was nothing that I expected, and so amazing!

I got to meet some of the people who are doing bad ass work for social change using art and theater...that's my element. Then I realized I am part of that change, that shift in thought and action...and recognizing that I can take the lessons and pass them on to my peoples. Slowly finding more direction.

I loved finally talking with Roberto Lovato, who I consider to be a mix between Kurt Vonnegut, Noam Chomsky and my tio Jandy. He's on some Jedi warrior of light trip. I'm looking forward to doing some work with him in the future. Yee! Moving the Salvis...

My voice is slowly becoming louder.

Climbing to the Top!!!

My body feels great today, sore in a really good way. Got to see an amazing view yesterday with a good friend. Gotta keep moving to the top and recognizing where doors are opening for us, right J?

I submitted my proposal for SOMArts, which I really hope to get into. It would be DOPE to create a new work for that space. Like a tortuguita, but moving! :) haha

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Some interesting things I read today:

1) Mantram of Unification:


Let the Soul control the outer form
And life and all events,
And bring to light the love
Which underlies the happenings of the times.


2) “Let instability do its work.”

This phrase articulates & explains all the difficulties, confusions, vicissitudes, unpredictable changes, instability & lack of cohesion in our daily lives and for much of humanity. This instability has purpose – to bring about with us the need for, and seeking of, harmony, order and beauty. These are Soul qualities, that the personality, adrift within the difficulties of life, finally (in desperation) “calls forth.”
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....and I just purchased my ticket to Brasil.

What's up, summer? You lookin pretty fly. :D