Quinzee the Artist
“When the Giants Cam0”
Pencil drawing
Response

Free New World for The Formerly Oppressed
By Darice Jones
Inspiration piece

It wasn’t until the ancestors of all the world’s people returned
that human beings living in the year 2024 saw truth again.
Many people had been hypnotized by fake news, fear, and addiction – the holy trinity –
the bread and butter of the “elite” hoarders
who would allow children to starve and be crushed just for another gold coin and the rush of power.
They had set up foundations and paperwork and soulless systems and governments and a world wide web of madness.
These rulers talked of bloodlines and genders and races and borders and
they smeared false distinctions on the tongues of everyone like peanut butter on a cracker at snacktime.
Their worldview was forced on everyone at the end of a gun’s barrel
And many many people chose to go on living rather than fall away
Never knowing if their lives or deaths had any meaning

Here we are in 2044 reflecting on our past
So near and yet so far back
While the earth rebuilds herself
And the deep sea replenishes
While the idea of borders is a thing of the past
And the makers of race are all gone
Where the resources are shared and our children and elders keep us honest
With their wisdom and laughter and making of treats

On Juneteenth of 2024
While the rulers were extracting all the life out of the planet
As was their way back then

The sky appeared to part over every town around the globe
We finally knew there was something else out there, beyond the life we’d been seeing, beyond the death we were afraid of
And these global ancestors spoke in all languages at once where everyone could hear
We all came out of whatever buildings or shelters we had been in
We all, all the people, looked up
I remember wondering if all of humanity had ever looked up at once before

We were all rapt

There was no news, were no social media posts, no word of mouth, no chatter at all
We all felt the call and we all stood, head back, soul open

And listened

They looked like all of us, they smelled, and sounded, and moved like all of us around the world
Except they were large in the sky and their voices boomed
We realized we knew all the languages
We realized we knew each other
We realized we were sent here as stewarts
We realized we were sent here to care for all living things
We realized that all things were living

We saw many souls that we knew being drawn up into the air – like the old book that described a rapture
But this culling was a removal of souls bent on destroying the planet
We realized our books, especially the spiritual ones, were not meant to hold us captive
Those at the tops of the worlds hierarchies were stopped mid-sentence as they prattled on about war, manipulation, and wealth
The ability to know sorrow returned to their souls as they floated up to meet our collective ancestral family
It seemed to rain as the tears fell from them at horrors they had overseen
They realized they were stewarts
They realized they had failed
They realized they had killed
They realized they had enslaved
They realized they had stolen
They realized they had given in to something empty
Headed nowhere

Now, in 2044, the world is loud with life
Bubbling with connection
Giggling in depth
The seas rocking back and forth to comfort those of us that were here for the shift
And we are doing the things we were sent here to do
No one able to forget where we come from
No one is lost in addiction to hoarding the things that belong to no one
The air is clean
The waters are fresh
The babies are safe
The elders are ready to become huge when it is there time
And to watch us from the far reaches of the universe
And to part the skies if they have to
To remind us what life is.

Written by Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Zora Neal Hurston 2024

© 2024

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
“Reflected”
Digital painting
Inspiration piece

Both
By Darice Jones
Response

I am your tether and your balm
Source energy is clever that way
7 billion plus mirror-souls on this blue orb
Looking out from different eyes
Breathing one breath from different lungs
Sometimes forgetting completely that we are one life
Everything we eat, walk on, and touch is part of a cosmic whole

You help me remember

Binaries exist as part of a greater whole that moves so gracefully
Every expanding
And sometimes we cling to them, attempting to slow that movement down
Afraid we will lose all that we savour
Afraid to expand beyond what we’ve known
Afraid to remember where we came from is so much bigger
Than a straight line with two points on either end

You help me remember

The great open field of awareness and beauty that is the birthright of all
The reason tree leaves and gusts of wind dance effortlessly
Without tying themselves down with the need to control things
The need to stay forever where and as they were
Without stopping progress by lamenting the passing of a previous joy
They dance, as we all can, into the next greater joy
They shimmy into the wondrous truth of change
No reversing of course to be great again
Instead leaning in to the unknown greatness of an unencumbered and ever-opening now
That rolls into the future so fluidly that every moment is a revelation

I am so grateful that you are here
Sitting across from me
Unfolding
Becoming
Expanding
Knowing anew

You help me remember
To allow life to be more.

Written By Darice Marcella Jones
In The Year of Zora Neal Hurston, 2024

© 2024

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
“Wade”
Inspiration piece

Submerged
By Darice Marcella Jones
Response

Submerged

The earth was scorched
And I couldn’t bare to look at our seeds

Even though I was well aware of the tall, majestic trees
and nourishing foods they were destined to become

They reminded me of the fire that had warmed us, then sometimes burned too hot, leaving a mix of love and fear in its wake
In our Fire’s presence – comfort and awe
In our Fire’s absence – cold and curiosities

I was too exhausted from running after the fire went out
to take to the air
Although I knew I could fly as a way to breathe anew
When I reached the shores where Adina sang about freaky secrets and king Luther swam around humming in glitter
A wave reached out and grabbed me into its giggly, warm swirl

The waters rocked me back and forth in 5 stages

Closest to the shore was an unbearable blend of shock and denial
Where water spirits sang to me but I could not hear them
They surrounded me touching me, head-to-toe, but I could not feel it
Even energies from other realms moved along all of my senses one-by-one
But I could not process their presence. How could anything at all be present without our Fire?

Embodying my loss, I moved from feeling nothing to filling myself up with hot rage
I became the flame
Touch me if you want, but you may not survive
And why should you when She didn’t?
And why should anything when She didn’t?
I breathed out like a dragon and watched people, animals, plants, and sand dissolve into ash

Then…

I saw her before me like an apparition, shaking her head and She spoke with her usual humor and sarcasm
“So you just gon’ burn everything that’s keeping you alive?”
We locked eyes at the door between this life and the next and burst out laughing
…as though there was no door
No life, no end of life, no fire, no water, no air, no earth, no distance between us
As we had since we were small children all the way up through the day She walked through that door
And hearing Her giggle again – suddenly my rage shifted a bit

Out further from the shore it occurred to me to call on Yemaya
Surely she and her siblings could do something for me and mine
I offered up all of my humblest savings
I offered my skin
My creativity
My voice
My past
and my future
for one more chance to live alongside my first friend on earth
With eyes like mine and mine like hers
But Yemaya’s only reply was the song of the sea
that pushed me out far and deep, with no land visible in any direction
She stopped me from swimming and I floated way out like a buoy adrift
Feeling only her smooth dark brown hands up under my back
She struck no bargain, so her song left me hollow

And hollow became my new best friend
After all, what is depression but the embrace of sadness?
Giving in and letting the hurt have the password to enter
Rewiring your brain for new depths of despair
Even as you hear those who love you calling out, risking themselves to cross the divide
There’s a relief that comes from finally allowing yourself to believe the worst
If it is true then maybe the losses don’t really matter
If it is true then maybe this pain is insignificant
Maybe we’re all just little gnats buzzing around waiting for something bigger than ourselves to smash us to bits
I don’t know when the hand moved from up under my back
Or when I began sinking
But there was something so cool about seeing nothing but blue

Then the seeds floated from out of my pocket and I remembered a promise I made to our flame
To protect them
To make sure they landed in just the right climate for each
To watch them grow into majestic trees
To watch them grow into lush fruits and lavish veggies that would feed our whole family
To sing to them a fire song when they were cold
An earth song when they felt untethered
An air song when they forgot they could fly
And make sure they never drowned oceans of despair
Without thought I swam around gathering them back together
Something about taking one small but vital action
Made me see the path back to living again

Finally, I could feel our fire in the sky beaming at us
A sun
Never absent
Never too far to feel
With us forever
Laughing at me and with me while I replanted our seeds
Laughing at me and with me while I bungled many other things
Laughing at me and with me while I was chased by 5-0
Laughing at me and with me, now, back at the shore.

By Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Chinua Achebe © 2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
Response

Clay
By Darice Marcella Jones
Inspiration piece

Out front
They called to me from their homes
And asked if I would stand out front
and face the world on behalf of our
Little yellow city in the sky

Me – because since I was small I had been
The eldest of sorts
Not born first, but imbued with the flows
and the codes of the ancient ones

A knowing pounded in my ears and chest
Like a djembe drum
Libation poured into me from the Alkebulan chalice
By my Mother, Charlene of the Nile
And by my Father, Daniel of Kalandula Falls
Water people
Counting on me to absorb, to transform, to decode seed, and nourish and to grow something
new

The townsfolk who called me were wounded inside
In the last round of combined white meteor and blue rain showers, they were bruised
Then again, they were bruised when a faction from Planet 20 came through degrading and stealing from our
beautiful, sensitive people

And though they had asked for me, they no longer trusted life
So they hissed, and insulted my efforts from the safety of their domiciles
And threw marbles onto the path as I walked along
They spit on the ground where I planted seeds, sometimes even running out to dig them up.
Then snickered together when no food grew there
They wrote songs about how clumsy my talks with the neighboring cities were, and how much
better things were before my arrival

And so here I am out front
Trying to remember as my Mother always told me to do
Trying to be be the joy beyond circumstances as my Father always told me to do
Trying to feel the fire placed in my soul by my
Eldest Sister, Donella of Maletsunyane
Listening to the breath
Of the Sisters, the Triad, and all of The Chosen

Here I am striking while the iron is hot
Humming the songs of everlast
Shaping the multi-colored clays of tomorrow
So that our little yellow city can re-emerge as a safe space
And my neighbors who curse me, from the untenable landscape of broken hearts
Can once again learn to trust life
To see their own power, to come outside boldly
And leap into another kind of embrace

By Darice Marcella Jones
In the year of Chinua Achebe © 2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
“The Download”
Inspiration piece

In the Time of You As Me
By Darice Jones
Response

The day I accepted that you were me, and I you
The path broadened
Power accelerated, and the river found the ocean again
Oshun sang soprano, alto, and tenor
Causing Olokun to open his eyes in a tender baratone
That shook the sea floor and motivated new sealife pairings
Leading to new species – more of this ancient fluidity

The day you accepted that I was you, and you I
Trauma transmuted into a true calling
Destiny entered the crossroads and humbly listened for an answer from Elegba
Causing the wind to reach down and cover our faces with Earth
That tasted sweet, like the red clay eaten by children in the South 5 decades back
And in tasting that sweetness we finally understood the intersection upon which we stood
The fact that the four directions went back, forth, side-to-side, up and down

The years that followed our discoveries were the stuff of legend
Our creativity and collaboration was more of a vibration than a linear story, easily told
Instead we manifested things folks could feel – whenever their hearts were open
We generated dark, cool beauty that caused even the most stoic to release their need for control and give in to their greater need for Marimba
And because of our willingness to learn, and to act on what we learned, the whole world danced anew
From shoulder shakes, to head bobs, to twirling-swirling heavy hips, to rock-rock snap, rock-rock snap
Earth people remembered the power of spiritual rhythm, the necessity of everywhere unity
And because of you, me, you – that indivisible love that is grounded in the dance between doing and being – reigned once again supreme.

By Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Octavia Butler ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee The Artist
Untitled Pencil Drawing
Response

15 Horizons in Ultra Space
By Darice Jones
Inspiration piece

These two beautiful beings prefer to be called my daughters
In all their manifold non-binary glory
I named them Kenya and Cameroon in honor of two countries on the origin lands
My other three daughters are Benin, Niger, and Ghana
My 2 sons are Medu Netur and Haiti

All of my children carry with them the languages associated with their names
They all dress in bright colors, like me, and love singing and dancing in the roads
They all look just like each other and you have to engage them to know who they are, how they are, what they want, and what they can do
We left assumptions and short-hand on the dying planet Earth
One of the gifts of this current move to the far reaches of space is that humanity gave up gender and race as ways of identifying each other
So my children are free from the burden of prescribed lives in ways I’ve only just begun to get used to for myself

I am Alkebulan, named for the original land of humankind, the largest land mass on Earth from which Kem or Black people spread out to populate the earth

We traveled to all the lands of the earth and developed different physical features, shades, and cultural practices depending on where we landed
We understood ourselves as a part of nature, so we lived in harmony with life in most places on earth even after the lands broke apart

Then, some of the more immature souls on Earth spiraled into a consciousness of scarcity and became obsessed with controlling others and amassing more resources than they needed
They rejected the core principles of sharing and taking care of everyone
They rejected the knowledge that we all came from the same source
They killed, pillaged, and hoarded for generations using the technology they learned from Kem to exact violence upon their siblings around the world
They retold histories and erased their teachers, making themselves the only curators of knowledge
They rejected spiritual knowledge and replaced it with absolutes, rules, and rewritten texts to subdue people everywhere under the lore of an invisible god who judged, punished, and hated
Their plans worked for them for a long time
But ultimately created an uninhabitable planet
And an illness swept the places where the hoarders and power-obsessed lived
Suddenly, within a week of its onset, they were all gone

And only we, those with average resources who still felt connected to nature and each other, remained
We immediately banned together with the ethical scientists, healers, and light workers
Incredibly it only took one year to develop the migration plans from Earth to Zumi
When we moved to the 23rd planet from the Sun, where hilariously, it was little green beings who welcomed us there
Just like in the old American fairytales about what people on other planets were like “little green men”
These beings were not men, more like a combination between humans and glowing green fish
They moved easily between the lush green lands and the sparkling green waters on Zumi
Since they only practiced naming very few things, they allowed us, the earthlings to name the planet
We voted to call it Zumi, because that’s what the majority of the children wanted
And one of our new core tenets by which to live is “Listen well to the children.”
Our new way of being brings forward the best of what Kem had created with their Black skin and brilliant minds all along the Nile river which once stretched from the top to the bottom of the continent, connecting all of the peoples to the source of life
As we prepare our new home on Zumi with the help of the Fro (that’s what we call our green hosts)

I have invited all my children into a process of visualization
We will consider what ways we will engage in our family, our communities, and as stewards of the bountiful resources of Zumi in order to expand life and leave beautiful things for future generations to enjoy
They are very excited to do this as a family, and then to do it again with their friend groups, then again with the Fro
“Visualize and embody beauty” is another core tenet the remaining people of Earth decided on before our migration
We were all stunned to realize that without the power brokers, global thieves, hoarders, and killers, the rest of humanity fell quite easily into reason
We moved quickly from reason to curiosity
Then, from curiosity to visualization
Collective visualization led to collective action

And now here we are on new, lush planet, joined in permanent family with our green hosts and with each other
Enjoying 15 daily horizons in ultra space as the suns move around, each with its own color scheme and its own impact on human emotions
There is one that puts you in mind of the Arora Borealis
Another that looks like the red rose petals blowing in the wind
There is a horizon that resembles the water rushing in on a west coast beach from the Pacific ocean
And yet another that looks like rainfall in the lush green hills of Thailand

We have grown as a species and shed so many of the petty things from before
There is beauty created and exchanged without commerce
There is connection without competition
There is building without individual ownership
There is collaboration without the exercise of power
So, we live a lot longer and get to see no less than 18 generations do their thing
We are so much stronger and healthier because we now study sciences, land-based healing, and spirituality all under the same umbrella
We’ve released the density of the way we thought and moved on Earth and, because of that we have healed ourselves and each other
I can hear my children coming now and I can’t help but giggle
They could never sneak up on anyone because they are so often in collective song
The call and response traditions from Kem
I hear Kenya, Cameroon, Benin, Niger, Ghana, Medu Netur, and Haiti
Singing in perfect harmony
I can feel the many colors they wear and the warmth of their hearts
Their liberated living is a dream my ancestor Nalo had many millennia ago – and I laugh out loud, here and now, on her behalf

Written By Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Octavia Butler 2023
©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
Untitled
Pencil
Response

Black Space
By Darice M. Jones
Inspiration piece

My people are the cool dark vast
The clap and clank
of tom drum
and tambourine
across time and interstellar truth

We rhythm not as entertainment, but as life
We sonic not as a precursor to your clapping, but as soul reverberating
We display not for your amusement, but to remind each other exactly where we’re from

Look way up and to the left as far as your neck will crane
in the deepest part of late night
Telescope this vibe

Osekꞿ be the 12th galaxy if you tilt to the left at the 3rd sun
Come get you some greens in portal pots and find out the family secrets your great, great, grandmother
flung into the sky for safe keeping

She knew one day you would come
All the way out to the way out
Sick and tired of being played on the blue orb
And made to sing songs of lesser energies, written for you by immature despots

She pinned an invisible note to the cloth diaper that was wrapped around your tiny brown frame on day
one by the ultimate midwife
“Don’t get played baby
You ain’t nobody’s instrument
You ain’t nobody’s game

You are sound itself
You are the creative spark
And
You are many more futures than their algorithms can build rules for or their satellites can reach
You are expression
That thing that makes matter, and light, and sonance get busy mingling together and making new
worlds”

We are all so grateful that you got curious
You broke through the conditioning that made you feel like anything less
Than the rhythmic power of life manifest with a purpose
To emerge as the most fully realized version of You
You, child, are my people

And

My people are the cool dark vast
The clap and clank
of tom drum
and tambourine
across time and cool cosmic truths.

Written by Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
“Aunti”
Graphic art
Inspiration piece

Emergence
By Darice M. Jones
Response

I came forth from the deep, dark, cool blue(s), purples, and teals of an asylum orb up in the stars. The orb provided a safe space for beings when they transcended identity on any planet. I emerged today just for a little while, to tell you how I got to my current digs out in the galaxy with others who are transitioning from bodies to interstellar beings. I had lived a life from birth to transition amongst the colorful and insolent people of Earth for a little over 120 years.

I was one of the privileged who lived in relative peace by the time I was 12 decades in, which gave me some space to contemplate my existence and just existence overall. Global societies were seriously messed up on the one hand, controlled and manipulated by people, hoarders, who believed they had not only a right, but an obligation to rule over the masses. They maintained their tenuous position at the top of a very shaky hierarchy through violence alongside the constant threat of violence, through spreading miseducation about both current events and historical ones, and by training people to have loyalty to various religions, countries, pop culture icons/brands, ideas of wealth (or resource hoarding) as an indicator of intellectual strength and overall rightness. Anything but loyalty to each other. Anything but loyalty to life itself. Because of all that, being a person was exhausting, even if you didn’t live in one of the poverty traps or in one of the war-torn places.

On the other hand, there was a global awakening taking place. With all its problems, some technological advances had acted to connect people on the planet like never before. The trifecta of travel, the internet, and the realization in many parts of the world simultaneously that spirituality was more than any one religious practice was having a strong effect. People were realizing that there were many paths to truth and that controlling others was not one of them – nor was being controlled. People were realizing that working together to achieve a higher aim, a greater good, was more important that projecting some supposed superiority or sense of power over another. Beautiful humanity was returning to its knowledge that all things were connected and all life was meant to fully blossom.

On Earth I had many labels. Because of the wildly uncouth social structures, those labels determined many of the opportunities or lack thereof in life. I was a member of many socially disrespected but spiritually powerful groups. I was descended from the first peoples on the big continent who had retained our melanin, my skin was a deep brown, I was Black. I was one of the life givers – a woman. I was one of those sent to bridge philosophical gaps – queer. And the social structures made all those identities mean something in the daily work of staying alive, clothed, housed, fed, and connected to other beings. Simultaneously, everyone on the planet knew there was something more.

What they didn’t know was that often, when people discovered their own ability to totally transcend the forced density of being bound to the details of an incarnation – we would simply leave the earth. That’s what happened to me as I was approaching my 123nd birthday. I was healthier than ever, joyful despite feeling awkward in a job that didn’t hold much meaning, and I was very entrenched in a community of fellow plant parents who traded secrets of growing lush plant babies and delicious, organic, nourishing foods.

My life felt full of learning, family, friendship, connection to the earth, and through a year of consistent meditation – a connection to the ethereal. I had long been comfortable with, even proud of my identities. Then, one day I ran across and listened to a podcast on visualization. It had only a few hundred followers, but as soon as I heard the host’s voice, I felt at home. She sounded very much like my high-school choir leader, Mrs. Jeffries. So much so that I looked up her picture to confirm it wasn’t her. It was a silly thought, considering my age. Even if she were still around, it was unlikely she was podcasting. Anyway, the actual podcaster’s cool tenor voice vibrated with knowing.

She led what I would guess is the most powerful visualization exercises ever enacted anywhere. I should have known it was something different when she started with so many warnings, disclaimers, and rules. For the visualization exercise to be effective she said, we’d need a quiet space, comfortable loose clothing, something from the natural world touching us (like a pebble or even sunrays), and we’d need to be willing to release our attachments. That last one, about attachments, felt way too broad. I chalked it up to her being an amateur podcaster. But, since her voice was both inviting and comforting, I followed all of her directions. Even the one about release to undefined attachments. She asked us to sit with her for 15 seconds in silence, despite the fact that dead air was a big no-no for podcasters, clubhouse chatters, and radio personalities worldwide.

During that 15 seconds, all we heard was her breathing. It was slow and steady and just as comforting as her voice. For me, that 15 seconds felt as though I had just received the best massage. My whole body relaxed. I felt no tension within myself. I felt no pain. No need to be anywhere or doing anything else. It was really something. Then her beautiful tenor voice returned.

“Close your eyes.
Breath in connection.
Breath out discontent.
Know that you are loved.
Know that you have always been loved.
Remember yourself as a baby.
Allow yourself to be small and naked and new.
See yourself emerging from an inner sanctum.
It does not matter if your mother was able to be healthy while incubating you.
You came from the loving cosmos and your mother held you as best a being could for those months.
Remember yourself as new.
Now, See yourself as a toddler.
Breath in connection.
Breath out discontent.
Know that you are loved.
Know that you have always been loved…”

And she went on like that through the different stages of life all the way up through elderhood. Was I an elder, at 122? I had to laugh at myself. Child! If not now, when. I giggled heartily. Other than that fleeting inside joke moment, I stuck closely with her through the long exercise. Once she’d gone through all the stages of life, she got to the part about release.

“While you can inhabit your body and practice many identities and experiences based on the body you have and how you choose to cultivate it – you are not your body. You are pure consciousness. You are a whole vibe. You are the energy that determines how a thing feels, but you are not the thing.

You are not your hair. You are not your skin,” she said. (I thought briefly of India Arie)

“You are not your size. You are not your physical ability. You are not your mental ability. You are not your attractions. You are not your birth order. You are not your astrological or numerology . You are not your education or income. You are not your job or jobs. You are not your neighborhood. You are not your talents. You are not your diagnoses, physical or emotional. You are not your personality. You are not your addictions. You are not your accomplishments.

I want you to take another few breaths with me. Breathe everybody. Breathe.”

She spoke as if the whole world were listening. I felt as if the whole world were breathing with me at just the pace she’d set. Then, her magical voice returned to us.

“Now, I want you to see yourself.
Visualize your physical body sitting on a deep blue sofa.
Now visualize your spirit sitting next to your physical body.
You may be asking yourself what your spirit looks like. Well,
Remember, you’re a whole vibe, and energy, a feeling.
So your spirit may be multicolored and bodyless and floating vibrations
Or maybe it is a thousand sparks of light dancing around each other in the same little space
Energy moves, so your spirit body is likely swirling with motion, dancing within itself.”

The crazy thing about it was, I could see everything she was saying. And as I looked at my physical body sitting next to my soul body on a deep blue couch in my mind’s eye, I felt more connected to my soul than to my body. I realized that the consciousness that was me was so much more. I found myself suddenly thanking my physical body. Thank you for being tall, dark, brown, curvy, with amazingly stylish naps on our head, and for walking me through the lessons being a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student, a parent, a neighbor, a teacher, a healer, a person sometimes without money, a person sometimes without a place to stay, a queer person, a person who was sometimes sadder than sad, a person who was sometimes more euphoric than happy…

I went on and on like that, thanking my body for all these different elements of my journey, for reasons I couldn’t place. I could barely hear the podcaster that sounded like Mrs. Jeffries anymore. I saw my body blow me the fondest, most thrilling kiss, and then I couldn’t see her anymore either. I couldn’t see my soul body either. I couldn’t see the blue couch. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. I had what could only be called an emergence.

All I could hear was a whole vibe, an energy, an atmosphere that sparked things into being. I realized that I was somewhere else entirely. And that I couldn’t see the soul body because I was my soul body. And, having been way out here some time now with others like me, I know that I am here for my own safety to continue to release all that doesn’t proliferate the expansion of life in the universe. And I am here to get ready for my greatest adventure yet. I’ll tell you all about that one when I get there.

By Darice M. Jones
In the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Shaun Jones
Acrylic on canvas and collage
Inspiration piece

Slay
By Darice M. Jones
Response

Sometimes I have to adjust
My spiritual eyes
To know what I am looking at
Whether the suffering in the room is yours or mine
Whether it is what you called it
Or something else entirely

I have to remember that we hide the worst hurts
Bury them under lesser ones and coping mechanisms and outright lies
Anything not to go back there
Where we’re really terrified that there’s nothing big and bad enough to conquer THAT thing
The monster is real
It’s ability to take you out is evidenced by the hundred things you had to throw on top of its wound
Just to get dressed every day
Just to stop standing on bridges, threatening to jump
Just to accomplish one or two things in this life you could be proud of
Just to appear normal, and learn to avoid letting anyone close enough to really see in

That’s where I tend to enter
When you change your mind about that part, and decide you want to live
Decide you want to tell it all to someone who will love you
Not love you despite what’s wrong
But because you have survived it, and loved yourself enough to stay here, and made a few things happen

You call for me, because I am not afraid of any monster
As long as it has a name

I will carry my soul sword, given to me in the deep night around a Yoruba campfire in the year 22

I will work with you, bringing all that I am
My hand on your heart
to uncover the beast and call out its name
I will shore you up and expose my own scars to let you know we can win

And then with both hand on the handle, blade glistening a ‘yes’ into the wind
we will slay
Grinding it to dust
Reclaiming the parts of you it ate
Transforming those pieces into a tomorrow where your smile is genuine
Constant
From skin to bone.

Written By Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

By Shaun Jones
“First Rite”
Response

Mohair
By Darice M. Jones
Inspiration piece

My name is Bimi and I am co-leader of global Rights of Passage ceremony on the Earth’s parent planet Alkebulan. Here, in the year 3085, there is much preparation to be done, so that every being on our world can go through The Rights over the next 6 months. The Rights of Passage ceremony ensures that all these passionate and talented beings don’t devolve into cogs and consumers in anybody’s weird wheel of greed like what happened on poor Earth. We go through the ceremony every few years, so no one ever has time to forget.

I am 86 years old and stronger than ever. Thank the ancestors for the changes in aging that came after the downfall of Earth’s climate and its life-supporting ecosystems in the year 2150, then the rebuild from 2151-2250, and the migration of some of us to Alkebulan from 2200-2250. We named it after the largest and most populated continent on Earth, the ancestral source of all earth people. This was its name before violent colonization, extraction, and resource-hoarding became global practices that caused the downfall.

This planet sustains life in similar ways to that of Earth but the high concentrations of helium and hydrogen in certain areas, along with the fact that we have many mountain ranges made entirely of ice crystals, yellow adamite, rose quartz, amber and carnelian – our world appears gold and rust colored orb from far away. Because we also have many oceans and unique tree formations, from inside the planet we see good amounts of blues and greens too. Our sky is a soft pale green on a clear day like the green calcite stone. The color of our skin appears in different hues of brown, depending on the weather.

I was chosen to co-lead because I’ve been around a while. I carry magic in my thick wooly scarf and mystic truths fall in the sink every time I run my fingers through my magnificent nappy grey hair. It’s no accident that it sticks up like dozens of shock white antennae – I get messages from the great beyond all the time. I learned the many magics of the world in my 2nd decade. I was young and totally enamored with the spiritual sciences. The older people around me noticed that I could see and feel things that others didn’t. And I was unafraid of my own inner power. So, they set me on a path of learning how to really tap into the natural world, as well as the invisible realms. And I’m damn good.

My co-lead is only 8-years-old, so she bring a freshness and fun to the process that comes naturally with her age. Little BeyLizzo is quite the wunderkind. Not only does she bring the lightness of youth to her role alongside me, she brings a wisdom that makes it easy to see she has not forgotten the lessons of previous lives. Her name is a nod to the earth as it was over a kiloannum ago, when there were still people called celebrities whose talents or lack thereof were displayed for the masses so that the heads of certain industries could amass and hold resources. Holding resources in that way is no longer a thing. Nor is celebrity. But this little brown girl with the large pecan colored eyes was named for two of the brightest and most talented artists of earth – women who tried to use their massive fame to highlight important concepts like unfettered love and inner freedom and knowing oneself. But it is hard to breakthrough while pouring chalices of truth into oceans of corruption. Still, a very strong name indeed.

While I am tall and wide with a broad pair of eyes, nose, and lips to match, BeyLizzo is short and round with eyes that close completely when she laughs and rounded facial features that put me in mind of the women of the Kenya. She looked a bit like the old-world environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, who’d planted a million trees under threat of violence. BeyLizzo too, was courageous and quite probably ahead of her time. I admire her thoughtfulness and quick wit.

Together we would design the Iranti Ayeye, or Right of Passage for everybody in our world. Strictly translated from Yoruba Iranti Ayeye means Memory Ceremony. As the people of Alkebulan sing every morning in every neighborhood, in every town on the globe, “People who remember are limitless. People who are grateful can grow. People who see the fire and rain in themselves, the laughter and power in each other. It is we who remember. It is we who are grateful. It is we who can see. Give thanks. Give thanks.”

BeyLizzo and I sang this song for the 2nd time yesterday when we met up to plan. It grounded us both in the serious but joyous responsibility we have for choosing what activities will help everyone remember the 6 core tenets of life over the year-long ceremony. On month on Alkebulan is the equivalent of two months on earth. So, the people would have to practice some activity for 60 days at a time over the next 6 months to complete their Rites.

We started with a hearty meal of plant gumbo and thick moist red bread to dip in the savory stew. With such a great responsibility ahead, we were also tasked with taking excellent care of each other. I made the gumbo, and BeyLizzo made the red bread. Oh, how we praised each other’s skill between healthy bites. It was such a great gift to serve and be served with good nourishing vittles. During our meal she told me to call her BeyL for short. I liked that. She offered to call me B, as a nickname, but I shared that prefer Bimi because I am named after my grandmother – a strong one of many mystical talents. As soon as we finished and cleaned up the green clay dome building that had been set aside by the community for our planning, we reviewed the 6 tenets people needed to remember during the Rites.

The first rite and some say the most important one is All Being is Sacred. This means that existence itself is the precursor for value and as such people are encouraged to treat everything with reverence. In our tradition, we circulate that reverence outward in rings, beginning with our own bodies then moving from there to all that we encounter. The air that flows through our lungs, the ground upon which we stand, the light that shows us what there is to see, and every being on our world – from bugs to plants to waters to trees. If it be, then it has value. If it lives, then it has language. If it has language, then our job is to learn to communicate with it so that we can live in mutual respect. We have learned to communicate with trees, birds, soil, and water. Because of this we’ve been able to learn just how much or how little we can manipulate the environment, and what ways each element of the environment can use our humanity to benefit its growth. For example, we do not cut down trees on Alkebulan, because the trees do not wish to be cut down. When they have exhausted their time, they simply fall. Only then are we allowed to manipulate their remains for our use. On the other hand, the soil has given us consent to work with it in a myriad of ways. It has also taught us new ways to use it and make some of the strongest clay in the galaxy, so that our domiciles are able to withstand any storm. It’s a beautiful symbiosis.

BeyL and I gather white crystals to write our ideas on the jade board. I used my magic to conjure images that went along with our ideas. We each threw out questions about the first rite.

What would make people remember the essence of this tenet? What, back on Earth, had made people forget? What ways did others in the galaxy show their knowledge of the first rite? How could we pull on wisdom from our worlds waters and trees to help people solidify this truth?

In response to these questions we felt moved to take a swim in the fizzy teal river, about a mile out. I used my abilities to call some of our friends from town to help us gather messages while swimming in the warm waters. A couple of 6-year-old twins came forward to swim with BeyL. A 40-year old and a 90-year-old came to swim alongside me. We picked a good time to go out, as the river was feeling generous. The water and the creatures that swam there gave us tons of ideas about how immersion in water could accomplish our goals. They communicated to us through vibrations that amounted to a sort of song. The swim was invigorating and connected us deeply with our close comrades who came along.

Years ago when previous Alkebulan generations made treks back to earth to exhume the remains of ancestors who told us in our dreams about how they were forced to end their lives during violence kidnapping scenes across the Atlantic ocean, we had learned to breath under water. As it turns out, this ability is sparked in humans anytime we completed soul story with water as a major element. As descendants of those who finally recovered the remains of those would-be enslaved from their horrific water burials, we too could breathe under water. I think it made us more comfortable in water as well.

When we returned to the dome, BeyL and I were inspired. We knew exactly how to bring everyone through the first right All Being is Sacred. We would have each being engage the life cycle for 60 days.

Week one, everyone on earth would be responsible for participating in a birth. It could be the birth of a being, of a community project, or of a creative idea. The goal was to participate in creation as a reminder to value the creative force in all things.

Week two, everyone on earth would commune with and cater to the smallest creature native to their area. This would mean getting as close to the creature as possible, learning its patterns, needs, languages, and desires. Then, each person would do their part to fulfill the needs of the small creature. Where BeyL and I live, the smallest creatures are called Morlia. They’re tiny bugs whose backs absorb sunlight during the day and light up at night. People in our area would need to stay up at night to take extra care of these itty bitty beings, because they did most of their socializing, eating, and enjoying life after midnight. We knew, they loved to eat the goldberry dust that falls from the tree. During the 60 days, we would gather the dust that often lands on and around our homes and leave it on the ground near the pathways the Morlia travel. By serving the smallest creatures among us, we would remember their huge value to the larger design.

Week three, all beings would ask the land nearby them what seeds it desired. Every being would then gather the valued seed, fling it across the land, then pour a water offering into the soil for its nourishment.

Week four was an idea that came to us from the twins as we swam the fizzy teal river. As with everything the twins operated in a certain kind of elevated harmony. They recommended that everyone on earth pair up for daily underwater massages from the other person in their duo. By the end of the week each person should know they other one’s points of physical tension and emotional unrest. Learning each other’s weaknesses and responding to them in the moment was a strong way of remembering that all being has value.

Week five, everyone on our world would taste the sap of a local tree. Trees all over the globe, after we made the agreement with them to not cut them down, had begun storing secrets for people to discover in their sap. That was how we’d learned that any tree on the planet could communicate with any other through an underground network of roots and electricity. They were much more reliable than the ancient phone companies people used to use on Earth. BeyL and I had gotten the trees’ happy consent to give humanity one of their endless bank of secrets about life in the galaxy. Learning from other beings was a powerful tool in remembering that all have value.

We wanted week six to be something a little dramatic, something with flair that people would talk about for years to come. Because of our intense shared focus on the question of what would be spectacular enough, Beyl and I shared a dream of the sixth expression of the first rite. In it, everyone traveled to the closest set of crystal hills to their towns. They didn’t have to travel far, as there are crystal hills everywhere on Alkebulan. The fire conjurers among them were tasked with touching the amber stone at the base of each hill, which we very rarely ever do because of the immediate and wild response from the stones. Once touched by fire, the amber stone sent its light into every crystal on the mountain and to the crystal dust within. Immediately the hills would light up a pyramid of multicolored mysticism, then an eruption from the top center of multicolored flaming crystal dust lighting up the evening sky. This bit of fabulosity would remind us that the light inside one is the light inside all. Indeed, all being has value.

When we both awoke at our separate homes from the dream we rushed over to our brainstorming dome, both aglow and clear. As we locked eyes we spoke in unison.

“I had a dream.”

The laughter lasted so long. After the laughter released us from its hold, we stared fondly at each other. She at me as one would an appreciated elder whose wisdom was palpable. Me at her as one would when looking into the eyes of a brilliant future. BeyL spoke before I could, with her hand out for a shake.

“So, fire crystal eruption?”

I ignored her hand and embraced her, happily repeating.

“Fire crystal eruption.”

Rather than belabor the point, we walked hand in hand out of the planning dome, secure in the knowledge that we had a solid plan for the first rite. One down, five to go. The Iranti Ayeye is well on its’ way.

By Darice M. Jones
Written in the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.