Friday Night at 8: Backalley Blogging

“Shake a Hand,” made famous by Faye Adams (not allowed to embed),  here sung by LaVerne Baker and Jackie Wilson, courtesy of YouTuber sandfordway)

Sometimes while prowling back alleys you find things that don’t bear the light of day, brass ritual cymbal turns out to be a trashcan cover, exotic seafood dinner is really rotten fish guts.

Yet perhaps there’s some truth to these lies.

Here in NYC the sun has gone down.  That’s the time to prowl.

There is a revolution of the seasons, winter turns to spring, spring to summer.  There are revolutions in the course of humankind, kings and queens are replaced by other kings and queens.

And then there is a revolution in consciousness.  No, not evolution, revolution.  First you gotta get the bad stuff out, clean the muddied well, then you can go to the evolution part!

Buhdydharma writes about this in Pulling OUR Heads Out Of George Bush’s Ass.

We have all been conditioned to a greater or lesser extent by our involvement these past eight years opposing Bush and his gang of criminals.

You see strange things in the backalleys of New York City, tonight is bitter cold and the freezing wind tears through the narrow corridors, the alleycats huddle around a trashcan fire and tell stories in a language known only to them, sounds like yowls to any passer by.

But there it was, blue light beam hitting the trashcan cover as we go up and up into starry frozen skies, higher and higher as last dregs of mortal pain stream out of us like beams of murky light growing ever brighter and cleaner under the benediction of the half moon, we rise, screaming out defiant roars of revolution, as the light beams grow and stream freely from us, wide ribbons of energy braiding themselves together to forms of beauty and soul elixir we drink and dance wildly, always rising, we laugh and roar and make ourselves into pinwheels of light!

Aah, slowly descending, empty of woe and wonder, light as snowflakes we descend and the warmth of the trashcan fire draws us back, the glow so bright, and heat so fine.

Every step we take in our own psyches to the center of our being, away from lies and circuses is, I believe, a revolution of consciousness, shedding the conditioning not only of the last eight years, but of generations, back to the beginning, the American Revolution, all the flaws there right from the beginning even as it was something new in the world, and generations later we see the suffering, the struggle continues for a more perfect union.

The Revolution never ends.

I am not going to name names, because I’m too afraid of leaving someone out.  But what I’ve read in essays, diaries and comments on the Petition for a Special Prosecutor project is a profound thing and fills me with strength, even more than watching the number of signers grow.  So many writers contributing their intelligence, love, passion and wisdom, including those writers with the courage to remind us that there is more work to do, more expansion of freedom and human rights for everyone.

(LaVerne Baker, “Saved,” courtesy of YouTuber rocfanatic13 – not a great recording, but I was in the mood for that big bass drum.

Hope everyone has a groovalicious weekend!