Happiness is a Rainbow

Happiness is a rainbow.

Often found after heavy clouds unload,

often missed in the condensed light spectrum

of eyes who have been trained to see danger

and protect us from it.

Fuck happiness.

Hatred is a weather front.

Storms stay when we build bio-domes

to try to control the weather.

Storms want to pass through.

They have come from hot and cold’s warm love

only to clear the air and quench the earth

and remind us of the patterns in chaos.

How do I walk around naked

with out being cardiac arrested by fear?

I don’t want to be under your umbrella statements,

I want to be wet.

Dripping.

I want to make a splash

like souls impact on pooled down poor,

head cocked back into the sky cackling

gorging in the riches of simple

Love.

Don’t tell me nothing but the lion truth,

the lyin’ truth is the only thing you could tell me in words

so shut the fuck up and tell me the truth

in the silent reso-nation.

We can never be illegal here.

We don’t immigrate, we make pilgrimages

to our home land,

the reso-nation,

where there are no reservations.

Although this seat is reserved

for eyes that can see rainbows everywhere,

anywhere.

Why do you think they call us people of color?

Put your arrows in your rain bow Avatar,

and point it to the sun.

Pierce it and drink what comes gushing out.

Plant yourself.

You and your dirty mind.

Sterilization is the only filth worth sterilizing.

Settle your debts in settling mud,

and watch the sky come out in a large community of raindrops

gathered by the gravity of this life,

here on the ground.

Hope Springs Eternal

I had such a good heart
There was so much space
I coulda been an astronaut
Looking at this place
Floating quiet with the stars peaceful and embraced
Instead they told me both feet on the ground
And laid to waist
The planet that my great greats
Loved with so much grace
And the hearts of all my mates brake
They carry so much weight

I remember when i swore
Not to love anymore
'Cause it hurt beyond belief when pops gave up and out the door...

I couldn't trust my mom then
They told me that i must be strong
Never felt belonging
'Cause we had that strong thing wrong
Around the world we bombing
1 by 1 my homies gone
We often feel belonging wronging someone else who's done us wrong

I felt right when i wrote
I made it right when i spoke
My truth to my God
And to that space in which i used to float

Lock 'em up
Kill 'em all
Seems like we need some new
Stories to change history
I can see the brand new view

When you peak out with your heart
Spacious as the all outdoors
When you take me down to
The center of this burning core
When we both remember that anything can be so
Because we are the gardener, the garden, and what gardens grow
Heed the seeds we planted there
Seeds are the trees we climb
Grown up on their fruitfulness
Closer to the heaven's shine
One day we will tippy toe
At the top of canopy
And lift off in our glow
And shine back at our family tree...

Paul Simon's 'Graceland' was one of the few albums me and my mama agreed on. On road trips it was Bob Marley, Tracy Chapman, and Graceland. That combo; Paul's smooth, clever, abstract poetry and guitar and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's vibrancy, the power of their harmony, the joy and the depth, the playfulness and heart! I felt so free as we flew down the highway all singing 'boy in the bubble' or 'call me Al'. 

I few years ago i started to fulfill a hunger i had always had, a longing to know my ancestry, to feel another language in my mouth, to celebrate the way my people did when they knew the land was a relative, when they spoke the language the land showed them, when they intuited the way their souls wanted to live...

I found the most satisfaction in music.
Dene Peyote songs, Sanskrit mantras, Lakota flute prayers, Dogon star ritual drum circles, gaelic hymns, anything that came from a direct connection to this earth, these stars, this heart, this life...

I started weaving these prayers into my beats, and i would dance around my room for hours each time :) grinning, praying, laughing, sometimes crying, sometimes making up words or singing the languages my mind did not speak. In July of 2011 i spent a month in Peru with some curanderos and i returned with the jungle in my veins, the mountains in my stance, and the people in my ears... i spent the next few months noticing how indigenous we all are, how we gather in circles to smoke, or freestyle, or just t alk, how we pour out libations for our loved ones who have past, how much we use story to teach and understand each other, how we claim the 4 directions (or at least one :) Most of us unknowingly carry so many of the traditions of our ancient families everyday...


For a few years now, i have been blessed to sit in circle with young men in juvinille hall a few times a week within this awakening my brother Gerardo Marin and I began to learn rites of passage rituals, sage ceremonies, flute and drum meditations, and explorations celebrating, honoring, mourning and expanding our whole lineage remembering what had been stolen from us to make us real slaves.


And as we awaken to our ancient wisdom we notice how interwoven it is in our lives, slightly twisted, slighty confused under imperialism and capitalism but alive and well, and patiently waiting for us to recognize it again
So here is an album born of this awakening, born in the hearts of the medicine carriers in Peru, in East Oakland, in Berkeley, in South Africa, and in the constellations around us, born of our entire lineage dancing with our descendants into a beautiful future...

The planet of love,
the 1st and last star in the sky
kissed the sun today.

And we spoke of being ourselves,
we spoke of faith
and fear,

learning to fit in,
to shave down our octagonal edges


to fit in square boxes
to grow edges on our circular beings
to fit in rectangular peg holes.

We found scars
filled with the hardened tissue of judgment and discrimination,
we softened scar tissue
with our own tears and the un-owned tears of our lineages.

We looked our beliefs in the eyes;
the guards to our sacred temples,
and we held them dearly
and thanked them for their hard hard work

we knew it was time to let the world in
to let them in,
to bend and bow and pray.

We are all puzzle pieces
but the world will not fit together
as long as we are hiding our true shapes,
distorting our true visions
emanating through our surfaces
from our depths
and in the amalgamations of our interconnected being.

The planet of love,
the 1st and last star in the sky
kissed the sun today.

I wanted to kiss you
Instead we kissed our love
from heart to flesh
from flesh to seed,

and we planted our love in our presence and grew faith,
a loving knowing flowering field
choreographed in wind
basking in the sweet force pouring from the earth,
the heavens, and within.

We harvested the audacity to drop concern for opinion like fall leaves
and to surrender to the rhythm abounding from our seed
as life itself made sweet love of us, to us, with us, from us…

the planet of love,
the 1st and last star in the sky
kissed me today
and reminded me we’re in love.

ALMOST INVISIBLE WEBS
it' s a delicate dance
to let flow what we need flowing,
and to ride the current out of it's same old course...

we talk in story,
we wanna chance at a different author-ity

so we double dutch,
waiting for the perfect moments
to dance with tight ropes,

weaving almost invisible webs
we dream of being fly & flying free...

we joke on the side,
cracking up, we notice mud flakes making way for an (un)familiar gleam...

Make your Decision
To have Precision
with your Incision
and Go De-Pr-In :)

Yesterday, walking home, marveling at a gorgeous woman
I said "excuse me, in the most respectful way, you are soooo beautiful!"

She smiled and said,

"Tell me i'm beautiful by being beautiful with me,
Show me my beauty by being my reflection,
Surrender your hunger for my beauty,
To the nourishment of (y)our own.
Thank you"

I grinned big, held my tongue and shone in a deep bow...


Thank you for the reminder Sister.