Envy

Here is the soft worm

Wrapping her body around the earth

Inhale.

Exhale.

Is this her Joy? Is this the way she shows love

To her Beloved?

And then there is the skydance

Of the Crows

Smooth dips and dives like a hearts swoon

Is this the way they give thanks

To the wind?

This envy!

The worm whispers,

“You too can be soft and slow, see, like this.

Come love the earth with me.”

And the Crow declares, as only a Crow can,

“This is your life. Wide and beautiful.

Take it!”

Infoneo (noun): the safest place to retreat where medicine is found

Once upon a time, or if it was said in Swahili, “Hadithi hadithi”...

Long ago (in the 1800s), in the central part of the country now known as Tanzania, lived the Nyaturu people, my Ancestors. We are known as the first people to make hives and collect honey. We say there is sweetness in our blood - we have a very deep understanding of bees. What is also true is that like bees, you don't want to get us angry.

Before the Germans, the red people with no toes (because they wore shoes), the Nyaturu people were often fighting with the Maasai from the North. The wars were often over cattle and who stole how many from whom. Both sides were fierce with excellent strategy. There were secret locations where the Nyaturu people would hide and take shelter when they lost a fight or needed to regroup. The shelters were caves or rock formations close to water where edible and medicinal plants grew. and These places are called Infoneo. This is what I was told by a Nyaturu bee keeper, who showed me an Infoneo close to a waterfall. It was the stuff of fantasy novels.

Over 200 years later, after great warriors rose and fell, after the Germans, after the British, I find myself across the Atlantic, living on Ohlone and Muwekma land, in apocalyptic times, wondering what my role is in the Revolution. It came to me: I need to build an Infoneo.