Art

“Blooming Rage” a Poem on Día De Los Muertos by Daisy Salinas

Art by Karla Camacho.

Blooming Rage,
My ancestors pillaged and raped.
Blooming Rage,
The trauma buried deep within.
The screams, punches, blood, the ripping hairs.
The kicking, broken glass and wails.
500 years of rage.
These seeds will grow, this rage will bloom until women inherit this world.
This pain will not be for nothing.
This pain will not be for nothing.
Because my ancestors lived my worst nightmares
So that I could live their dreams.
With the opportunity to choose a life for me.
Blooming Rage,
So colorful – yellow, blue, and pink leaves blooming from my heart and fingertips.
Blowing in these chilled cold winds for thousands of years.
Until the breeze awakens them.
The descendants.
So that their hearts are a little less heavy, a little less heavy.
Blooming rage,
This is not the way the world is supposed to be.
A tear in time, they came in ships,
The sky ripped open and greed consumed this beautiful mother.
It’s up to us, the
people, to not fail her or fail each other.
Blooming Rage,
These ocean tides make my leaves blow even harder.
Blooming Rage,
I used to hate you.
I used to think your anger was slowly drowning me.
But now I realize it is the only thing keeping me alive and breathing.
Praying for that same clean air that my ancestors breathed and clean water that they used to heal their wounds.
The healing is my medicine.
The anger is my armor.
They cannot take our rage, our seeds are growing and only blooming stronger.
Blooming Rage,
No, it will never stop until women inherit this earth as it was always meant to.


Daisy Salinas is a Xicana feminist punk zinester (Muchacha Fanzine), musician (Frijolera Riot), activist, curator, and poet (Wake-Up!). She started the quarterly decolonial feminist punk fest “Xingonas in the Pit” with the purpose of promoting punk as an act of resistance and self-sufficiency for people of color. Her goal for the third Xingonas in the Pit: “Black and Brown Punk Fest TX” is to build a safe space for punks of color to reclaim their identities, their art, and their collective liberation. She recently made history/herstory with the first Black and Brown Punk Fest in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Karla Camacho creates original prints, paintings and handmade pottery made with love. Originaria de Jalisco, Mexico based in Long Beach, CA.. She is creating work that meets at the intersections of my genderqueer, migrant, Latinx identities. Find her on Etsy.com/shop/artdekarla and Instagram.com/art_dekarla.


ImpowerYou supports independent women/womyn, poc, and queer artists. Thank you for reading. 

Poetry

Poetry: Rewritten Life

Most days I wake up ready for the world. Some days I wake up exhausted from trying to create a life that I own. Either way, I’m only here today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. So, I feel all the things, try my best to release what doesn’t support me, allow my friends to have their own space,  and give myself hugs each day. I love myself because I am finally making my dreams a reality and I have learned so much.

  • Be a writer.  Check.
  • Be an artist. Check.
  • Learn how to heal truama. Check.
  • Lean how to grieve healthily. Check.
  • Learn how to be my own best friend. Check.
  • Learn how to play guitar. Check.
  • Travel to a foreign country by myself. Check.

I still have a lot to learn, but I can feel pride in knowing what I have learned so far. As the song lyrics go, I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I’ve been. For you, I hope today you wake up feeling ready for the world. I’ll hold space for you, but you need to hold space for yourself.

I dedicate this poem to all my friends and family who are trying. I love you….

 

Thank you for subscribing to my blog. I hope you find the content worthy of your time.


 

I’m an artist and writer on a mission to bring healing arts into the mainstream. If you would like to support my heart work, please consider becoming a monthly patron on Patreon.com/Loviedo. For $1 a month, you can fund programs like my D.I.Y. Therapy: Healing Depression E-course, my monthly “Radical” e-zine and other creative healing projects, like “Cultivating Radical Self-Love: A Collaboration of Healers, Artists & Writers“.

Book Reviews

Book review: “Crossroads: Women Coming of Age in Today’s Uganda”

What a great book. I was gifted a copy of this a few weeks ago and truly enjoyed reading the stories.

“Crossroads: Women Coming of Age in Today’s Uganda” is a collection of essays by women of various ages and areas across Uganda. These stories are somewhat foreign yet several of their experiences are familiar despite the different circumstances.

I greatly enjoyed the stories where I could relate to how the women reacted to the changes as they grew from child to adult. It’s quite amazing how quickly change happens throughout a lifetime. It’s also somewhat surprising to realize how much hasn’t changed.

The essays about the challenges of relationships, both hetero- and homosexual, changing education methods, religion and spirituality, dealing with sexual assault and the evolution of gender roles will seem familiar to many western readers.

On the other hand, essays about hiding from militants during a civil war, the downside to NGO’s or charity from the “west”, extreme poverty and the pull of ancient African spirituality may seem farther away than just across the ocean.

All in all these stories shed a bright and optimistic light on the continually changing roles of women in Uganda. In the theme of individual empowerment, no matter how slowly we move forward humanity will continue to evolve and progress is unstoppable.

–If you enjoy reading about life, progress and change I recommend this book.

–If you want to learn more about the world and see how women’s rights and roles are changing you should definitely read this book.

–This book would be a great gift for any feminist, young or old, male or female.

Learn more about the book and authors at www.uganda-crossroads.net

Buy a copy at www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014QBPALM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

***

Ready to HEAL? Read my D.I.Y. Therapy posts.

Find my BOOKS on Amazon.com and Bookemon.com.

Purchase my ART on Zazzle.com/OviedoStyle.

*** *** **

personal-protection2

Ads directly below this post are not endorsed by this blog.