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.

Meet me with Love

When i meet you with love

You meet me with love

wether you know it or not : )

Life is our Altar

eyes open
kiss myself
thank the life for living in me
around me
with me

thank the sun
the stone people
the standing ones
water mother
earth breath
kinfolk
we move
hug
open in each other
dance
sing
juice
drink
cut pick
pluck
cook
eat

bathe in the love we gardens grow

dance through the streets singing in our families eyes
pollinate hi vibes
gather and harvest the sweet honey
make a honey comb hive of the galaxy

in drum beat
in swirling revelatory stillness
in surprise glimpses of our hearts and souls
in justice returned
true power remembered
in listening to falling leaves and trickling water and crashing waves and devouring fires

we remember our family together
we tell new stories
sing new songs
dance old dances in new bodies
and catch the mirror behind the subject in the mirror

we find each other
we dream each other up
and up and up and up
until there is no up and down
no side to side
not even side by side
only one
won
simply being
as an act of victory

life is our altar
and in each miraculous act of creativity we place our love upon her

The time of the Dragon is hear

The scales are balancing

The heart and the feather see eye to eye



Qetzalcoatl

Let your mind wander...

after thoughts,
in fields of awareness,
what matters?

In matters of the heart
We have Miss-ed and Sir-ed the real

De-sense-atized

Reeling from reel to reel

What do you feel?

For real.


The time of the Dragon is here

We collect ourselves in our surroundings
Gathered by firelight with a choir of molecules
quirks and quarks
Turning our qualms to psalms

Press your palms open
Let everything u never knew u always wanted pour in
Let everything u thought u needed be you
let secret strands of DNA
dissolve these genetically engineered mind states
we picked up in the produce sections of our self consuming consciousness

The time of the dragon is here.

Breathe fire in the lifeless corners of the hardened hearts

Scale up, or down, or back or IN!

Let claws come out, let feet leave cliffs behind
remember the bed of clouds you dreamed yourself up on

heart of moon
wrapped in sun
wrapped in moon
mirrors for scales
as many hearts as scales
each scale the gateway to heaven
hearts see eye to eye

The time of the Dragon is here...