day 6: lost and found

ny is a forest of trees, magical and moving. we are a biosphere of plants from mongolia, namibia and paraguay. some of us are first generation city, first generation away from a thousand generations of people waking to the sun and bathing in a river. i am.

for a while i flirted with the idea of leaving here, of floating to someotherwhere, where food rises from the ground and water flows from the mountains. i imagined living the way my parents did briefly, that my grandparents and greatgrand parents did in bengal bangladesh/india. i imagined coming home from a day of harvest, chilling with the chaiwallah, sipping chai and politicking about a movement of people returning to the earth. i imagined that this would happen in the states, a recreation of the grahm - the village.

i am learning that living with the earth, in Harmony with her, is more than a once upon a time, more than an imagination that i daydream of,  that many of the people i have been blessed by in this city, that breastfed and raised me, also have earth in their dna.

i learned from my boy amadou, that village and medicine men are how people live in ghana; from suzan, that villages in what was palestine, were tribes of bedouin shepherding land and olive tress; from yari, that even in the barrio's of puerto rico, community ties were impenetrable; from miguel that there were no locks on the doors of the countryside he grew up in the dominican republic; from eric, alisa, robert, that the trees were as part of the family as the sugar canes in trindidad; from keith, darron, henry that the bush was the pharmacy in jamaica; from kaz, shawn, givon, jermaine, charmane, sala,  that the south was were pies were exchanged as often as morning greetings and barbecues; from chris and jason, from the dineh and mohawk nations that even after it all, the earth remains the most sacred player in the native community.

southernisms from bengal to p.r. to the sudan and peru, from the seminole nations to america's blackbelt south, exist here, in the city of subway gods and earths. i am reminded of it everytime i am on fulton street and flatbush in brooklyn, on jamaica ave and roosevelt ave in jackson heights, queens, on 125th and LES in Manhattan. every hood here is trying to make sense of what happened, philosophzing like ancients on the meaning in the meaning.

ny poses a problem and in turn an opportunity. the rat race of competition in every way, from sneakers and bags to film and nonprofits - scathes the soul, leads us to grow amnesiac about our pasts and embrace every new gadget and trend to maintain face. it's survival. but it's not.

beyond the constructed tick tocking of the clocks from iphones, bills due and stock markets, there is the real.

 getting down with the Real is the opportunity. gold. it's gold, a real Blessing to meditate beyond centers and schedules, to be in communion beyond workforce, schools and appointments. if we pause, the Ways of our ancient selves are just a memory a way, below the asphalt, where a dandelion springs forth and blows a whisper.