Good Morning September

                                          GUEST BLOG POST BY AUTHOR BRANDI L. BATES

Good Morning September,

I've missed you. And as the Autumn Equinox slowly eclipses the shadow of Summer Solstice, I'm noticing that shit I used to be wholeheartedly interested in no longer inspires me. With age and wisdom comes a calmness that is inexplicable. This year brought so many changes that at times I have to question fate and the gods.

This year I've been working on my higher self and with that work came revelations. I beefed up on my social outreach. I poured myself into my foundation and went out into the streets to feed the hungry and teach literacy to at-risk youth. I lent both hands to women and children in shelters. (Boy, is that an experience everyone should encounter!)

You will have no idea how good you have it until you meet a person who has no running water, nor a roof, nor a toothbrush, nor a bed to sleep in. When you stand face to face, and are met eyeball-to-eyeball with a woman who has lost it all, now that's reality for that ass!

I started practicing the ancient Zen arts of meditation and Egyptian yoga, stopped eating meat, stopped consuming alcohol, got spiritually clean, and shattered about 300 years of generational curses. I had an epiphany after going on a 6-week pure natural juice feast. I came face to face with the GOD in me. I unplugged from the Matrix, stopped combing my mind so my thoughts would loc; locked my hair, and hung up my player card. As they would say, "I got 'on' my grown woman."

I made a vow to "Do No Harm," and became an initiate to some of the most ancient wisdom to ever incarnate on this planet, during this age. And not to go too deep, metaphysical, and otherworldly on you, but the shit I've been learning is completely pulling the veil off of 32 years of bullshit that I've been sold and told. Not only have we been bamboozled, but most of us are living an illusion.

Woke up early this morning, strapped courage around my wrist, tied a little confidence around my waist, and picked limitations and stress from my coiled crown. Did a little jig to the tunes of Corinne Bailey Rae, and munched on a Granny Smith apple, pondering what the day would bring. Stepped outside my door and saw a blue sandpaper sky with pinwheel clouds that loomed above, all puffy like Dizzy Gilespie's cheeks. And it was pindrop silent.

Those are my favorite kinds of mornings--when I can inhale and think. When it's quiet and I'm able to just be alone with my thoughts. Magical mornings such as these remind me that even in eternity, there is no yesterday and no time. And I'm reminded of all of man's social constructs, such as space and time, gender and race...the belief that we are bodies toting around a spirit.

How easy it is for us to forget that we are spiritual beings having a human experience...and worse, we have this insane belief that we are limited. Shaped and indoctrinated by the beliefs and traditions handed down to us, we blindly follow whatever we're given without question. For magical mornings such as these, I'm inclined to wonder. I wonder what else is out there that we have no knowledge or understanding about? I wonder what other figments of our imagination are backward and twisted-- ideas and ways of being that we've deluded ourselves into grasping.

I can say that as I grow, I notice that the world around me tailors itself to my thoughts. As if God tailors the universe to fit my situation--sending me men and women to help guide me through the waist-deep waters of life, pitfalls, and obstacles. I know that I've never been alone.

I know that the spirits of my ancestors are just as present as the legions of people surrounding me. And I know that they silently whisper the meaning of the wind to me. And trees, even trees, I have grown to respect trees as being prolific preachers, teaching me life lessons. Such as the power of silence and just standing and knowing that seasons come and go.

You have NO IDEA how powerful you become once you start meditating and doing yoga, focusing on what you want as opposed to the myriad things you cannot control. You have no clue how utterly magnificent you will become when you turn off the tube, put down the bottle, and channel your sexual energy into creative energy.

Fuck balancing equations, learn to balance the fuel of passion, love, and sex into something bigger than yourself. And when you can speak dynamite to granite, pray for something and watch it manifest out of nothing...or spit truth to power--it's orgasmic!

--
Brandi L. Bates
http://www.brandibates.com

“When you do common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”

—	George Washington Carver