All posts by Urban Eve

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About Urban Eve

I'm a Black woman in a white washed world which is shifting gradually and beautifully into consciousness. I have an overdeveloped sense of play, a love of nature, art, photography fashion, literature, irreverence, irony. I am a late bloomer, a girly woman, a sado-sensualist, a pleasure cooker, a shedonist, a huge film fanatic, lover of DIY craft and the endless gifts of nature. I love that I was born a Black Woman because there is no limit to the potential I will unfold and manifest through my re-connection to my rich, broad, magical, spiritual history and ancestry, through research, community, nature, prayer, imagination and creativity. I like being still, moving swiftly and creating instinctively.

If I gotta slap a pussy ass nigga, I wanna make it looks sexy too!

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So much of what I learned about Kendrick in this interview with Jay Rubin were things I suspected from having listened to this work thus far and from listening to DAMN like so many times since it dropped. I don’t even know how many times I’ve listened to it.

As a fellow Gemini, I recognize several core elements of Lamar’s personality off the bat. I can tell a bit about who his musical influences are. I can tell he loves film and visual mediums. By now I’ve heard him use his voice to morph into numerous different characters and personalities which is a very Geminian trait; exploration of self through multitudinous expressions, experimentation, ease with adaptation and emphasis on the craft of storytelling.

I’m fascinated by his ability to use his many voices so purposefully, to not get lost or overwhelmed or scattered which is often one of my greatest challenges with expression. I mean, I’m sure he’s challenged by it but at the end of the day he puts something out that is cohesive, wildly original, unapologetic, alive, authentic and uncompromising. As Rubin says, you don’t have to agree with it to be able to respect it because you know it’s something he truly connects to. That alone is deeply inspiring to me.

The first song of Kendricks that caught my ear was “Hood Politics.” It was playing in a small Black owned Wine store in Harlem that I had wandered into with my friend Cece  one evening. I remember trying to make out the words in the hook so I could file it away mentally so that I could look it up again later. I feel like he did three or four distinctly different things on that track that morphed into one another in unexpected and not altogether cognitive ways. Similarly to the structure of some Bjork’s tracks, I was excitingly jarred by the disjointedness of it. I wanted to hear it again. I wanted to listen closer, take it apart, decode it, ponder his choices. It’s really rare that I feel like I hear something new, which is not to say that that I don’t hear anything I like and even love. But new?

Of course nothing is ever really new upon closer inspection. But fresh new interpretations of the old are definitely worth examining deeply because they often signal the beginning of new movements, a shifting of collective consciousness towards what it means to truly not give a fuck about oppressive establishments, governments, systems and regimes. It makes those of us seeking out definitions of freedom, perk up and take notice. Someone understands. Someone else feels similar. Someone else has made the leap of faith that comes with baring your soul at the risk of perceived failure. Though it seems impossible to me that being authentic and vulnerable could ever truly be met with failure. How can you fail when you’re being real?

Check out out Rubin’s interview with Kendrick here.

 

Pink Moon/Sacred Intimacy

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“I saw it written and I saw it say,
a pink moon is on it’s way.
And none of you stand so tall.
A pink moon gonna get ye all…”
-Nick Drake
Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz from Chakra Zulu Crystals
I’ve never actually seen a Pink Moon in my life but I did receive a rose quartz palm stone yesterday evening on the first day of the Full Pink Moon in Libra which is said to represent focus on the blossoming of new and exciting things to come in the season. It represents a call to action in the spirit to make manifest, those wishes and dreams that have been germinating during the Winter. I felt the energy of the rose quartz very deeply as I held it in my hands and on my heart. It’s a smooth, good sized stone, with a good weight and it’s arrival in my life right now is very timely.
Things have been very intense for my husband and I in the last few weeks. We’re planning a short getaway this weekend for a change of scenery, some peace, quiet, to be closer to nature, to do some spiritual healing work.
The-Spirit-of-Intimacy
Speaking of Spirit, I strongly, deeply, adamantly recommend that everyone, Black people in particular, read “Intimacy of the Spirit” by Sobonfu Some. My partner in the Divine Feminine Movement shared it with me a while ago and it has really been a revelation for me on many levels. It has helped me to reflect on and indicate the ways in which intimacy has worked in my relationships, how much or how little respect I have for it and in which relationships. It has shed so much light on the huge role secrecy, shame and pain have in most all models of relationship here in America and in all Western societies. It’s not easy or fun to dig into the ways in which, perhaps I have taken advantage of, overlooked, dismissed, manipulated or mistreated intimacy in my life but this book is also really confirming for me, so much of the strong underlying feelings I’ve had about the nature of and the power of intimacy to effect, not only those in the a committed relationship with one another but also their family, friends, loved ones, community, society and the world at large.
The spirit of intimacy is the essence  of life. Ritualized reverence and honor of that spirit is sadly devoid in most of our lives, which is evident in high rates of divorce, violence, depression, unhappiness, fragmentation, isolation and a general sense of loss. And yet ritualistic behavior is inherent to us as human beings. We just participate in too many of the wrong rituals. Rituals that erode and diminish our health, spirit, self esteem and emotional well being are the ones we know too well. Speaking ill of ourselves, playing it small, not listening to our intuitions, self medication, overeating, mindless media consumption and more. We prioritize all of these things by way of distraction from core issues that would be easier to resolve if we were surrounded by a community, a trusted circle of peers, family, friends with specific roles to play in the maintenance and support of our chosen relationships with them.
My issues with trust, shame, pain and emotional stress are not isolated or unique. I learn that more and more as I become more honest with myself and others over time. There is a collective longing for connection in all of humanity that writhes constantly under the pressure of oppressive dictates and authorities which seeks to pervert and suppress vulnerability and authenticity and truth in exchange for mere power.
The longing for connection always wins out, even if the way in which it is manifested is often disturbing and destructive. In learning about the sacredness of intimacy, the ways in which it requires constant nurturing, I am learning the ways in which this kind of long term suffering may be nipped in the bud, weeded out, eliminated from the process of living out our purpose. Sometimes it’s overwhelming to think about the far reaching generational trauma of it all, but I know at the very least I need to start with me.
That’s not a small thing.

Leetah, My Childhood Nubiamancy Idol

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Leetah is a powerful healer with the ability to mend wounds of mind and body with a touch. She is gentle and nurturing, yet fierce and tenacious when using her powers to protect those she loves. Though she now lives in the forest and follows the ways of the nocturnal Wolfriders, Leetah remains a creature of light and there is a feline elegance to her golden beauty. With the  combination of her healing power and maternal wisdom, she holds a position of honor with both the desert and the woodland tribes.

-Leetah

LeetahI don’t remember who brought Elfquest into the house. I have to imagine it was my brother because he was crazy about comics from a very young age. Sure, I read Betty and Veronica and all nature of Archie and friends comics, including Katy Keene but my brother indulged in more serious, dramatic comics with darker, racier themes. Elfquest was one of them. And somehow, my mom started reading them as well because I recall that she was the last person to take over that collection Presently, I am still in possession of the X-men collection.

Yeah, the three of us were nerds.

But back to Elfquest. What drew me to this comic was the story of the Sun people and the powerful healer among them, Leetah. As a young girl, when I saw Leetah I saw a super feminine, Black being, a loving, healing, psychic, intoxicatingly beautiful, maternal woman, who above all things, was proud and unashamed of her femininity. She kept a beautiful golden dagger strapped to her thigh and was raised among people, who, like many native and indigenous tribes, understood and revered the power of women in their community. The Sun Folk gave daily praise and deference to the power of nature in all things. They lived in an advanced, civilized, agrarian society while their pale counterparts, the Wolfriders, lived in caves, fleeing from humans and all manner of treachery, danger and inherited fears. Of course the Wolfriders end up invading the Sun Folk because they’re starving, need shelter and stuff and don’t trust nobody, have no home training and are savages.

The usual.

It didn’t offend me at the time, when Leetah, despite herself, recognized Cutter, the leader of the Wolf Riders, as her soul mate. The story, not surprisingly, is written and illustrated by a white couple. White people are always both dependent on us for their survival to the point of depletion, yet somehow completely incapable of anything resembling proportional gratitude or compensation in any but the most useless words and empty symbolic gestures.

leetah_glitter_download3_by_foxfirered

Always, in the foreground of my consciousness, as a I read this comic book I loved, was the sense of regret and resentment of the trouble, the strife and violence that was forced upon the Sun Folk when the Wolfriders entered their lives. Before they arrived, the Sun people lived for a long time in peace and harmony, with their traditions and rituals, obeying the forces of nature and the ways of their ancestors. But without the Wolfriders, there would be no quest. Or to put it another way, heroic narratives told by oppressors only begin with their invasion of a people. The lives the of those people before colonization is rarely made accessible to the mainstream.

From the beginning, the history of race relations, after the construction of race was created, in order to tip the balance of privilege to Caucasians, has been inextricably predicated upon the necessity of violence, genocide, rape, murder, torture and gentrification of Black and Brown peoples. No fictional story which includes the entrance of Europeans or pale races, into the land of a peaceful, nature abiding, indigenous, diasporic peoples ever ends well for those people.

The merging of Wolfriders and the Sun people or rather Leetah with Cutter, was not without its challenges. Rayek, a powerful warrior in Leetah’s tribe who loved and wanted her as his mate, was naturally painted as a petty and unworthy opponent who retreats into self-exile after losing the trial for her heart. But of course the Sun Folk never intended to fight the Wolfriders because they were not a fighting people….

Blank stare…

They were peaceful and welcoming. And ultimately, the Wolfriders had no intent to wage war on the Sun Fok. They were just seeking sanctuary and shelter from their persecutors and a pit stop from a fearful, desperate and nomadic way of living. But the fear, violence and destruction they sought refuge from, followed them eventually. And this time, when the Wolfriders fled the Village of the Sun Folk, Leetah went with them; her fate tied to people she was not akin to but would be bound to forever.

Oshun
Oshun

Still, in a world of whitewashed, female heroes, whose stories were set in the cold and concrete realities of patriarchal metropolitan societies or futuristic wastelands, I found refuge in Leetah’s journey as a Brown woman living in harmony with nature.  With the full knowledge of her purpose as a healer, mother and potential life partner, and as someone who was raised among elders whom she worshipped, Leetah was accustomed to going to them for wisdom and guidance as a way of life. In a very Oshun like way, she was surrounded with beauty, love, fertility, abundance, intuition and fierce capability I rarely ever saw in Black female comic characters.  So for me, Leetah was a very early example of Goddessness personified.

 

 

 

Dance is life

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One of the many initial ways I discovered my love for my husband was through dancing with him. We first danced together at a spot he used to frequent with his HS friends on the upper west side. I was completely swept away. It is a moment I recall as if no time has passed and whenever we dance together, I feel it again as if nothing has changed. I close my eyes and feel as if I’m soaring. I feel all his love and happiness surging through me, and nothing else matters. Dancing with a partner is a unifying kind of intimacy that incorporates innate rhythm in a way I’ve always loved. We move together, follow one another, improvise, change with the timing, guide one another, free one another, hold on to one another and create energy that can only be produced as a result of this one of a kind collaboration.

I felt exactly the same dancing with my love last night in the Bronx, at Mamajuanas, a place my brother and his wife took us to for some dancing and much needed turn up time. I usually have to drag him to go out to social events but he can’t resist an invitation from my brother so I knew we were going. It was a night that began with all kinds of sketchy, and dramatic events  and we didn’t even end up to spot we had initially planned on, but we pushed through it and found our way to a space with great vibes and great music, run by and dominated with sexy, soul filled people of the Diaspora who just wanted to have a good time.

I haven’t been out dancing in some time and I didn’t get out of bed until around 3pm on Sunday. LOL! But As I write this, my body feels no pain whatsoever. I’m quite happy, feeling quite blessed and ready for the work week ahead.

My First Waist Beads

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In African tradition, waist beads are meant to be worn under clothing. They’re for you. It’s personal.

–Tica Bowden

Yesterday, after work, I picked up my very first set of waist beads from a friend in Brooklyn, who creates them by hand. It’s been quite a long time coming and finally, everything I needed to be able to commission them, lined up so I could make my order. I met Janice through my BF soulsistah4real who conducted an interview with her in 2015. I ran into her at a party for a mutual friend last month and took the opportunity to speak to her about making a set of waist beads for me with some specific energy and intention poured into them.

When Janice sent me the photo of my waist beads, I loved them right away. She used the color I love and the stones that were necessary for the intentions I am setting. Putting them on was like putting on something that belonged on me. They’re not irritable or foreign feeling at all, at least not so far. They lay comfortably just along my waistline, under my belly. They’re so light, I sometimes forget they’re even on.

Waistbeads

As I lay in bed last night, feeling them on my skin, it felt as if they were at home on me, like a part of me I didn’t know I needed. I don’t have any tattoos but I imagine this is something like what people who love tattoos feel like. It’s also wonderful to be connected to other women through an ancient tradition. It’s something beautiful  and meaningful, which is tucked away and unnoticed, yet always there and sometimes peeking through.

When we were last at Spa Castle, lounging in the hot pools on the lower level, I remember we saw several sistahs wearing waist beads. You would think that just being naked was sensual enough but waist beads have a way of enhancing feminine energy in a distinct and way that varies in nature from delicate and demure to bold and extroverted but always sexy

Like another BF of mine said, waist beads tell a story. And I know that in ancient times women who were proficient in the language of stones and colors, knew what those stories were, what tribe a woman was from, how old she was, what she was wishing for, going through, celebrating, expressing or meditating on, based on her waist beads.

The look on my husband’s face when I showed him was priceless. He was like a kid in candy store! LOL! I know it was a new feeling for him. Even I could not have anticipated the feeling I had when I put them on, and saw them on myself the first time. It’s a uniquely pleasurable experience that is a welcome departure from Western ideas about sexuality and what makes a woman beautiful.

I’m very glad that these particular waist beads are my very first set. I know they will not be the last.

Play Grown Black Girl! Play!

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I’ve been into adult play for as long I’ve officially been an adult.

No wait! Not “50 Shades of Grey” play! Actual play! Like with toys.

Not those kinds of toys!

Likes dolls and vinyl figures and things…

Have I lost all credibility here?

Ok. My point is, I am a fully grown Black woman with a healthy sense of play who loves colorful, glittery, cutesy, useless shit. And I’ve recently found one other in a small handful of Black women I know who probably understands me, though I haven’t met her yet. LOL!!

The beginning of this insane year found me spending way more time watching youtube than actual TV for several key reasons.

  1. Mental health/The White People’s President inches us closer to Armageddon everyday
  2. Health and Beauty tutorials
  3. I can customize my youtube feed so that it’s nothing but a world of Black people

Through my wig obsession, which is currently winding down, I discovered videos from so many wonderfully talented, stylish and creative Black woman, many of whom I follow, but one in particular who I know gets a pretty quirky side of me. Inn her latest video she totally validates my right to self care through playing with and enjoying stupid toys.

She’s Black.

She’s grown.

She has kids. (Adorable ones!)

She likes toys.

In addition to her awesome wig reviews, skinnygirlfathair aka Aisha does reviews on all manner of Grown Black Girl nerdiness. And I just appreciate her for being brave and experimental and sharing things that not many of us might choose to share, all the while framing it within Black Girl Magicalness and self care. Because lord knows part of my self care routine has very often included, strolling to the Japanese bookstore during lunch, buying a Unicorno blindbox and unwrapping it at my desk just to be like, what could this be? WEEE!!! Hey, look at that! Let me introduce you to some friends! LOL!

We got all kinds of Grown Black Girl joy and whimsy going down on the internets! If you’re a Grown Black Girl who loves to play with dollies and sparklies and tiny plastic creatures in your spare time, I applaud you! Go forth and play!

 

 

A Return to Oils

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There have been a lot more oils in my skin, hair and general daily routine lately. I’ve been researching essential oils and their different benefits because I have specific hair and skin goals. But they also help to improve my life in other therapeutic ways.

Sesame seed oil for my skin after I shower

Pumpkin seed oil for my scalp

Peppermint oil, which I add to a spritz to moisturize my hair

Coconut oil, which I use to remove my make-up every night as well as in my hair spritz

Rosehips oil, which I massage into my face lightly after applying Vitamin C serum

Castor oil, which I also use in my hair spritz and sometimes apply directly to my edges at night.

Vanilla bean perfume oil by Kuumba made because I just love smelling yummy and warm and sweet. I’m very sensitive to aromatherapy and oils work on my mentally in a different way than alcohol based perfumes.

Continue reading A Return to Oils →

Not My President

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assata

 

Every time I hear a news reporter say President, I still think Barack Obama. I can’t help it. Drumpf is not a President. He is a tyrant. I would say he was like a cartoon tyrant except that the damage he has caused the country in just a few short days of taking of office has been anything but cartoonish. He has climbed right out of the fears and fantasies of racist White men and women across the nation and made manifest all the stupidity, ignorance, thuggishness, brutality and immaturity of the worst grade school bully.

He is the worst of America embodied, and he is also the truth about the roots on which America was built. He makes me sick. And anyone who supports him is not anyone I wish to engage or reason with, particularly those who though it was remotely possible that he would do anything less than wage a war of hatred, violence and divisiveness.A vote for Trump was a vote inspired by fear, hatred, and ignorance. Fact.

After his latest firing of the Attorney General for not supporting his immigrant ban, I’m more convinced than ever Drumpf doesn’t give a shit about the Constitution. And since I doubt he knows how to write anything but reactionary tweets, I would say, that he’s taking notes on recreating his own version of America from “Birth of a Nation” DW Griffith style.

Now is the time for unity, creative resourcefulness and a vigilance to inform and stay informed. Last night I watched a clip of Spicer reasoning pathetically in front of the press that the immigrants who were detained, were held to protect millions of Americans and then went on to mention the Holocaust in what context I still am not certain because no network I’ve seen has played the full clip again. It’s like he gets out there in front of the press with no plan whatsoever, red faced and trembling and with no ethics or morals to speak of.

Well…

Tomorrow is the first day of Black History Month and personally I can think of no better time to celebrate and acknowledge a people (though I do this all year) whose history in America has been in many ways defined by resistance to the tyranny and injustice of an America that we have never really been able to claim as ours, no matter how much, how steadily and how proudly we have tried and despite the fact that our ancestors built it. Oh what a troubled thing is America. People of the Diaspora who were born to it, those who have immigrated here to make a better life for themselves and their families, those  who risk their lives to come here, fleeing persecution and so much more can never really escape it. We can only face the truth. And that one thing, for better or worse, is what dictator Drumpf is winning at.

The Women’s March AKA the White Feminist March with a few others sprinkled in

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I went because my husband told me, his mother,  was going with a group of friends and I love my mother in law. Last month as we made our way across Times Square with to see Jitney with my mother in law and a group of friends, she stopped to dance to a live performance of Whip Nene. I’m fascinated by the youthful and serendipitous nature of both my my mothers, though I don’t always agree with all their opinions.

I also went in the capacity of someone who feels responsible to record historic moments and as you well know by now, this was one.

So here’s how it went for us. It was my husband’s birthday and his sister made brunch for all of us that morning. I convinced him that we should join his mom at the March for no more than an hour and then depart to continue celebratory birthday activities elsewhere. Around 48th and Madison, we met up with my mother in laws friends, people I hang out with at least once a year. They were the only group of Black people I saw that day. But like I said, we were only there for about an hour so for all I know, the Black Panthers might have joined it somewhere near 5th ave.

…but I doubt it.

The first people I saw as we emerged from the subway were angry white women holding signs with uteri that had fists and fuck you fingers, Gloria Steinham quotes, Princess Leia with a big gun which I heard a woman behind exclaim favorably about. Hmm…big phallic guns are okay in the hands of fictitious white female film icons. Check.

I saw a few men, lots of kids. And I saw a lot of signs with Black fists….which confused me because when I see Black fists, I think Black power, but no one that I saw holding these signs with Black fists were Black.

Around the time I saw my 50th ugly pink crochet hat of an undefinable nature I can only describe as pointy pink boobs I started to feel the nausea setting in. These women had come out in thick organized masses to protest Trump and all that made me think of was the thousands who did not turn out for Hilary. All I could think of were the thousands who would not show there faces at the Blackest of Marches supporting the protection of Black men against this administration.

My husband and I were both ready to go. I had taken enough pictures, seen enough and heard enough. We headed to Met Breur so he could see the James Kerry Marshall exhibit before it ends in about a week. We marveled at the large scale paintings of the Blackest Black people in every single depiction of Black life in Marshall’s upbringing pre and post Civil Rights. We lingered in front of the portrait of Nat Turner in front of his masters bed, machete in hand, his master’s decapitated head, pale and bloody. I still wonder at the curator of the show who I’m certain is white and I wonder if Marshall had to fight to get that piece in the collection or not. I never look at that painting thinking of Turner as a monster. I only think of the monstrous deeds of his oppressors.

That seemed to balance out our day a bit before took a car home where we could see on the news and social media platforms,  how huge the turn out was for Women’s Marches in other parts of America.

Large groups of people galvanized towards change have always energized and inspired me. There’s no way around that feeling of being surrounded  by people who are single-minded in a fight against someone like Drumpf (I have a Drumpfinator app and I’m sticking with it.) That being said, I could not all good conscience stand in alignment for more than an hour with many of the ideas expressed at the Women’s March which are not inclusive of my interests and the interests of Black men whom I love. After awhile, nausea turns to resentment and resentment turns to anger and I didn’t feel like being angry. It was my boos birthday and it was also the day right after the inauguration. I need to let the realities seep in at a pace I’m comfortable with, as much as I am privileged to allow.

But I am starting to feel like the Drunpf Presidency may be one of the best things that has ever happened to America. Clearly, Obama was too diplomatic to make America behave in the way it has always imagined itself to be. Drumpf has already shown us what it really is. And it’s only just begun.

My President is Still Black

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Because I’m in denial.

In 2008 when Obama won the presidential election, my husband and I were living in Harlem and there was dancing in the streets. Dancing, singing, people blowing horns and beating drums. It was a magical moment, a beautiful feeling, surreal almost. It was a wonderful place to be at such a historically significant occasion. He won. We won.

victory-obama

In an album in my flickr account which I titled, “A New Day” are photos from the day my BFF, family friends and I and drove to DC for Obama’s inauguration. It was bitterly cold and we stood for hours but it was all worth it to witness this moment in time. When Aretha Franklin sang, my shoulders shook. The ushering in of more than I could comprehend, the hopes and dreams of slaves and ancestors swept up in the oath of America’s first Black President.

Listening to Obama’s farewell speech last night, there were things he said that made me proud, things I disagreed with, things I’m frankly tired of hearing but more than anything else, I didn’t want it to be the last time I heard him speak as our president. Like the shouting masses in the Chicago crowd, words like last made my heart sink and they echoed my sentiments when they screamed out to him pleading and jeering at the idea that this was goodbye.

When I think of what we have in store with that…person, it’s like a nightmare on the horizon that I cannot comprehend. I have been tuning into all my feel good go-tos in the past week or so. Just listening to music that makes me feel ecstatic and joyous and filled with hope and watching things that make me feel light and childlike. Because in the next four years, feel goods will be a requisite to survival for all people of color. But then again, it always has been for us. That’s how this country was made.