What Would Zora Do?
1/28/06
a funny thing happened today on the way to the zora neale hurston festival in eatonville, florida: i came to a fork in the road. on the right was a freeway sign that said in effect, "this way to a celebration of the legacy zora!" and on the left was a sign, equally bold (but somehow more sparkly), that beckoned, "today's your day to visit the MAGIC KINGDOM!"... i quickly conferred with my navigator and sister adventurer jennifer lisa, and before either of us could over think it, i swerved accross the freeway to take the magic kingdom exit...
in the spirit of zora neale hurston, we chose an adventure that neither of us had taken before, reasoning that zora would much rather us conduct an anthropoligical survey of the entertainment past times of middle america than sit through any boring tributes in her honor. also: we wanted to get on some rides! to make a long story short, we stayed for seven hours and spent our time stuffing our faces with corndog nuggets and ice cream and french fries and caramel apples and caramel corn and cheesy pretzel things, which we consumed while waiting for hours on end to get on a few measley rides, and counting the number of colored people in the disney cast of characters (we saw a dancing latina who was clearly passing for "other" and The Beast, waving on a float next to beauty. oh- and two colored men dancing in a court scene for cinderella, cuz you know, we sho' can dance!)...afterwards we both pledged that if we had children (and we were both so very happy in that moment that we didn't) we would NEVER EVER EVER bring them to disney world. it's fun for about 15 minutes and then it's like, GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!! the lights, the music, the costumes, the sugar, the weirdly depressed staff, bizarro...
1/29/06
next day jennifer lisa and i went to the cassadaga spiritualist camp in cassadega, florida. a very interesting service. we were late and the medium patricia aubrey-carpenter was speaking when we walked in. it was a wonderful message about trusting your feelings and being aware of putting yourself in denial, which i imagine is a great temptation for mediums/psychics raised in a culture where intuition isn't validated the way reason is. she also said that in a relationship, when one person feels something and doesn't speak, two people are hurt and the relationship becomes the opposite of authentic. she said that it takes courage to speak on what you feel and that it's helpful to "go within" to ask your true self for help. one thing that i liked very much and something that i am continuously working on is owning my own feelings in relationship. when you feel something emotionally, accept that you have a choice in feeling it and that the feelings belong to you. no one can make you feel anything but often we are operaing from conditioned responses that feel natural. consciousness resolves so much. be conscious of what triggers particular feelings and know that ultimately you have a choice to feel angry, depressed, violated etc. or not. sounds harsh when you're use to blaming things outside of yourself, but ultimately i feel this is correct.
after the service, there was another kind of meeting where a group of mediums one by one came up to a podium and singled out members of the congregation to "read". i was the first one. apparently i'm going to be famous and write books and have a huge following! hahaha! also, i have lots of spirit guardians around me and one in paricular, a woman, who is taking extra special care of me. in her living life she did the same thing as i do now, but wasn't allowed to be open about it because she was a woman. i'm thinking it was my paternal grandmother, grandma johnson, who was an evangelist but wasn't allowed to be a minister because in the tradition of christianity i grew up in (pentecostalism) women weren't allowed to preach...she wants to make sure i do...
on the way home, the tire blew out on the freeway, so while we were waiting for AAA to find us, we did a new moon ritual on the side of the road. the new moon is the time for doing seed planting ritual. a time to set your intention for what you want to make manifest in your life.
at cassadaga i had just bought these beautiful goddess cards with paintings on them by one of my favorite artists, the late susan seddon boulet. we both pulled a goddess to guide our intentions. i pulled hera, queen of the heavens, and jennifer lisa pulled eagle woman. then we both wrote out our intentions in the form of prayers to the goddesses and then we wrote affirmations for each others prayers as witnesses and read them. shortly thereafter, AAA came and towed us back to cocoa beach....more later...cbell
a funny thing happened today on the way to the zora neale hurston festival in eatonville, florida: i came to a fork in the road. on the right was a freeway sign that said in effect, "this way to a celebration of the legacy zora!" and on the left was a sign, equally bold (but somehow more sparkly), that beckoned, "today's your day to visit the MAGIC KINGDOM!"... i quickly conferred with my navigator and sister adventurer jennifer lisa, and before either of us could over think it, i swerved accross the freeway to take the magic kingdom exit...
in the spirit of zora neale hurston, we chose an adventure that neither of us had taken before, reasoning that zora would much rather us conduct an anthropoligical survey of the entertainment past times of middle america than sit through any boring tributes in her honor. also: we wanted to get on some rides! to make a long story short, we stayed for seven hours and spent our time stuffing our faces with corndog nuggets and ice cream and french fries and caramel apples and caramel corn and cheesy pretzel things, which we consumed while waiting for hours on end to get on a few measley rides, and counting the number of colored people in the disney cast of characters (we saw a dancing latina who was clearly passing for "other" and The Beast, waving on a float next to beauty. oh- and two colored men dancing in a court scene for cinderella, cuz you know, we sho' can dance!)...afterwards we both pledged that if we had children (and we were both so very happy in that moment that we didn't) we would NEVER EVER EVER bring them to disney world. it's fun for about 15 minutes and then it's like, GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!! the lights, the music, the costumes, the sugar, the weirdly depressed staff, bizarro...
1/29/06
next day jennifer lisa and i went to the cassadaga spiritualist camp in cassadega, florida. a very interesting service. we were late and the medium patricia aubrey-carpenter was speaking when we walked in. it was a wonderful message about trusting your feelings and being aware of putting yourself in denial, which i imagine is a great temptation for mediums/psychics raised in a culture where intuition isn't validated the way reason is. she also said that in a relationship, when one person feels something and doesn't speak, two people are hurt and the relationship becomes the opposite of authentic. she said that it takes courage to speak on what you feel and that it's helpful to "go within" to ask your true self for help. one thing that i liked very much and something that i am continuously working on is owning my own feelings in relationship. when you feel something emotionally, accept that you have a choice in feeling it and that the feelings belong to you. no one can make you feel anything but often we are operaing from conditioned responses that feel natural. consciousness resolves so much. be conscious of what triggers particular feelings and know that ultimately you have a choice to feel angry, depressed, violated etc. or not. sounds harsh when you're use to blaming things outside of yourself, but ultimately i feel this is correct.
after the service, there was another kind of meeting where a group of mediums one by one came up to a podium and singled out members of the congregation to "read". i was the first one. apparently i'm going to be famous and write books and have a huge following! hahaha! also, i have lots of spirit guardians around me and one in paricular, a woman, who is taking extra special care of me. in her living life she did the same thing as i do now, but wasn't allowed to be open about it because she was a woman. i'm thinking it was my paternal grandmother, grandma johnson, who was an evangelist but wasn't allowed to be a minister because in the tradition of christianity i grew up in (pentecostalism) women weren't allowed to preach...she wants to make sure i do...
on the way home, the tire blew out on the freeway, so while we were waiting for AAA to find us, we did a new moon ritual on the side of the road. the new moon is the time for doing seed planting ritual. a time to set your intention for what you want to make manifest in your life.
at cassadaga i had just bought these beautiful goddess cards with paintings on them by one of my favorite artists, the late susan seddon boulet. we both pulled a goddess to guide our intentions. i pulled hera, queen of the heavens, and jennifer lisa pulled eagle woman. then we both wrote out our intentions in the form of prayers to the goddesses and then we wrote affirmations for each others prayers as witnesses and read them. shortly thereafter, AAA came and towed us back to cocoa beach....more later...cbell
posted by Christa Bell @ 7:41 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:31 AM,
bRandy said…
i have heard so much about you--i am not a poet, just a poetry fan who writes sometimes...but I too, can't wait to have the opportunity to witness your gift firsthand when you come to Austin for NeoSoul. And the fact that you were at least headed to a ZNH tribute tells me that i know i'm going to dig you... :o)
-Brandy
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