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children’s behavior or through people who seemingly ignore me. During these moments, I become agitated and agitating, unable to meditate. During these times, by connecting with spiritual practitioners and prayer partners, my strength is reclaimed. They help to anchor my intention to grow through that which darkens the night of my soul. The recovery is quick, as it’s only a passing phase. And then, I’m made whole again, and am reminded of my need to always dwell in the protective shelter of unconditional love of myself and debunk all those strange, dark, senseless things.
    I love the spaciousness of being whole and holy. Thank you, Spirit, for my deliverance.

Completely Out of the Box: A Love Poem
    B Y M ARIA , A S POKEN W ORD A RTIST ?
    C reate your own love poem, over and over and over again. Experiment with limitless blends of sights, touches, sounds, scents, breaths…And propel your body poetry into cosmic motion, and know that it’s safe to go to a wild, crazy, galactic place that takes you around the world and back again.
    Let go and wrap everything you’ve got and take what you didn’t know you had and allow your sacred self to stretch outside of the four sides of that pliable box with removable walls. Mold your parts in and out and around the body, mind and spirit. Trust me. It will fit, like a loose goose that transports you to heaven and back…and mighty tighty, if that’s your earthly pleasure.
    Explore the prose in your toes, in the sand at the shore, and you’ll discover that it only takes reading between the lines to reveal what’s most sensational…to you. And don’t forget to study the seagulls that see high above and dive deep below to grab hold of what feeds them. Take time to learn what yearns, and yearn to learn about the cuckoo clock that makes your creative juices tick.
    Ask and you just might receive…an original song, one that’s solid gold and uniquely yours for show-and-tell. No secrets here. Talk it up and feel it out…on an open mic or in a haiku, that is. Because making love to your free-forming creativity is both artsy and aerodynamic. And it feels oh, so good doing it in the park or doing it after dark. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
    Know it, show it, bestow it…for your gifts glow like a sun and groove like a moon…full and blue and all like a dat-dat-dat. Who knows, sometime tonight, this morning or tomorrow afternoon you just might write a new verse for our ancient’s love poem. And so, it is…and always will, or at least, always should be…

What I Weigh Is Not Who I Am
    B Y V ICTORIA J OHNSON
    I was born in the segregated parts of the Deep South, one of eleven children. My brothers, sisters and I worked in the fields of rural Louisiana, picking whatever crops were in season, while my father traveled north, for months at a time, earning a living as a farmworker. Once the harvest was complete, some of the men would pool their earnings and buy a used car that was barely able to take them back home; the men who could not afford the trip home would stay on indefinitely. It was always a relief to see my father walking down the road home, safe again.
    Despite our poverty, our parents loved us deeply, and whenever we had money, family meals were a time of comfort and joy. When the crops were good, we’d feast on ham, biscuits with butter, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet-potato pie and fried okra. We’d sit around the table for hours, talking and laughing. These special times were abundant and comforting.
    When I was five, my parents relocated the family “up north” to Washington state so that my father could find more work and we children would have a chance at a good education in nonsegregated schools. I’ll never forget the first day. As I peered into the classroom window, I was so nervous I felt sick. Here I was, one of four black children in the entire school, staring into a sea of white faces. The