My First "First Fridays"

By Jeannine Etter

Downtown Oakland has seen deep transformations occur in the past year, from the political to the artistic. As Oakland has responded to the call for social justice, it also has responded to the call for respect of local and independent venues and artists. 

One of the city's now premiere events, First Fridays, provides a space for artist and music connoisseurs to schmooze, view art, enjoy performances, eat delicious food and to see and be seen. On the First Friday of every month, Downtown Oakland transforms into an indoor and outdoor gala with various art galleries, cafes, DJ’s, live performances and food trucks to peruse.

Beginning the night at the Joyce Gordon Gallery’s Transfiguration opening, I strolled through the small gallery enjoying wine, art and art interpretation conversations with other wide-eyed art enthusiasts. Among the sculptures and paintings by artists’ Gerald Griffin, Chukes and Monjett, I was most awestruck by a painting named “Bag Lady,” by artist Gerald Griffin. This piece is of a classy black woman walking down a city street with a fur around her shoulders and shopping bags around her wrist … then in the distance, there appears to be a bag lady of another sort. As 7 p.m. rolled around, the artists gave short talks about their inspirations, passions and greater insights into their pieces. In all cultures, it was stressed, art is what gives us life. It is food for the soul.

Walking up Broadway, the sidewalk was brimming with all walks of life. Looking into shop windows, most conveyed the same scene: dozens of on-lookers and patrons filling venues to standing room only capacities. As I walked near the Awaken Café I heard a live hard rock band blaring music through the open windows and doorways and peeked inside briefly to get a First Fridays artist walk guide. They seemed out, so I picked up a Saturday Stroll guide instead. 

In the night air, there was a general feeling of safety that I might not have felt at the same hour on any other night. A few blocks down the street on Telegraph Avenue, members of the Berkeley Free Clinic set up a table in front of their mobile medical clinic, conveniently parked in front of the new adult sex shop, FeelMore510, giving away free condoms and offering free HIV tests.

The first of the outdoor music festivities was Top Ten Social’s Block Party: A Gritty First Friday. Soulful house music played from the brilliant mind of DJ Aybee and soon Bay Area veteran Martin Luther performed on street level with a mic and no stage to a crowd of dozens, singing new versions of his best classics and getting massive crowd participation to his rendition of “Sitting on the dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. A few blocks down at the Love Vibes Block Party, I caught the set of new Bay Area band Ama Evolution. With four extremely talented members, including a vocalist, they pumped out their own unique and masterful version of rock and funk with flare. “If you weighed your heart against a feather ...” vocalist Nadiyah Lewis sang, what would it weigh? Don’t let them take your heart from you, she pleaded with the audience. Compared to groups The Roots and In Living Color, Ama Evolution is definitely new talent to keep your eye on.

From Mexican to Middle Eastern, food trucks were lined down the middle of Telegraph Avenue with lines as long as 20 people deep. At a Mexican food truck, someone who had just stood in line told me that it would probably take an hour and fifteen minutes to order and receive food.

Before the night was through, I managed to peek my head into a few other galleries before leaving to find a more accessible food choice. All told, my First First Fridays was a soulful and enriching experience and I plan return and to watch it, as well as Oakland, transform.

Black and Female: What does it all mean? A Question of Identity

How one defines oneself is an important piece to this puzzle, as it says everything about your perspective and where you are coming from. It shows a degree of consciousness that you have about yourself. I would sooner define myself an African, goddess, priestess, artist or poet first, rather than a “Black woman” because those definitions would be a more encompassing form of human expression... The description of "Black woman" serves as more of a label; a narrowly defined box (or coffin or PRISON) that is too small for any human spirit to fit in. And spirits is what we are first and spirits cannot be defined. As one of my favorite rock groups of all time, The Police, says, "we are spirits in the material world."

Though it is not my intention to sound nit-picky, I wanted to bring up a few things about the dehumanizing effects of defining or "labeling" people in negative ways. The word “black” contains the word “lack” and may not be the healthiest mantra to repeat as words have power, so it is important to speak words about yourself and others (as much as possible) that you desire to be true. I still use this word on occasion as a description, however, I am aware of its blatant limitations. The word “woman” only describes the physical characteristics of a human being; it does not describe that being’s spiritual attributes which are timeless and genderless, or rather androgynous. So “black woman” describes a being that was taken from Africa, enslaved, raped, etc., etc. and puts her in a box- or a coffin. The essence of a being is eternal and indefinable. We transcend definitions which only describe your location so that people can describe your PHYSICAL body. Not your essence. Not your identity. You are not the clothes you wear, so how can you be the body you temporarily live in in this lifetime? Definitions of a human being/spirit –especially if spoken aloud, trap spirits in space and time and create a prison for our minds.

Every person has a masculine and feminine side. In this society men are taught to disown their feminine sides and women are taught to disown their masculine sides. Also, what is taught to be masculine and feminine is all screwed up too. Masculine is seen as aggressive and feminine is seen as passive. Those are masculine and feminine energies out of balance. Masculine energy represents the head, logic/intelligence (air/fire). Feminine energy represents the heart, love/feelings (water/earth) and our childhood essence is creativity, also you can stick emotions in there too. Creativity is what happens when our masculine and feminine energies unite in perfect harmony.

So African people are emasculated because masculine energy represents the protector, the warrior and how can a system that is designed to exploit (through slavery/capitalism) have a nation full of warriors? We have a nation of sacrificial lambs who are willing to go to war .. but that’s more on a pimp/ho thing than a warrior one. African people are de-feminized because feminine energy is love and the vessel for creativity. Love/feelings, we are taught is weak. We ignore our feminine intuition. It is beaten out of us, especially males, in a form of spiritual re-programming domestic violence. How can you support true feminine energy when the idea is to have everyone act like machines? And our poor “inner child” which represents our creativity is REALLY exploited with no masculine energy (logic/intelligence) to protect it! We are encouraged not to be true artists, not to have fun and play. So ALL of our masculine and feminine energies were attacked as African descendants on this continent to de-humanize and separate us from one another. Men emasculated and women de-feminized through a deep re-programming, colonization process.

It is good for us to know that we are divine gods and goddesses in our essence (this is not blasphemy, it says so in the Bible from the mouth of Christ) as our true identities. The trick is to find our way “home” again. It is an inward journey towards our true identities which transcend physical characteristics. “The Wizard of Oz” is a story about that metaphorically speaking. So is “Adam and Eve.” Also to know that being the creative beings that we are, made in the image and likeness of god, if we want to see the situation of “black” people change, simply change the conversation. Raise the vibration. Stop feeding the energy that needs you all talking about it to live. Ignore it and it will die. Don’t let it use your body as a vessel. Know that you have the power of creation and transformation. Change it. Speak what you WANT to see into being and it will be so. Create.

Love& Life. Queen Jahneen.

References:

“You can heal your life” Louise Hay

“Creative Visualization” Shakti Gawain

“Heal Thyself” Queen Afua

“The Verbally Abusive Relationship” Patricia Evans

The Bible, New Testament

The Wiz, Movie

The Wizard of Oz, Movie

The Matrix, Movie

“Holistic healing for the Hip Hop generation” Documentary

“The Slave foreman vs. the Freedom Fighter.” Dr. Naim Akbar, speech

… Studying various religions and philosophies and from life experiences! 

Editor's Note by Queen Jahneen from "Rebirth of Seeds" by Renard "Zo" Williams

Editor’s Note by Jeannine Etter, from the book The Rebirth of Seeds

The Rebirth of Seeds is like the Rebirth of Cool by Miles Davis. It is lyrical jazz from an Urban Guru; sonnets and expressions that dance and sing to the tune of our souls…by way of intelligence.

Rebirth is transformation, and in this case, spiritual transformation from the unknown to the “overstood.” It is an “ah-ha!” process; a slow and sometimes painstaking journey.

And yet, it is a quest, and like all quests, it is not likely taken by the faint of heart. This is a voyage only for the brave, truth seekers: that small group who want to know more and more and MORE, never stopping until arriving at truth’s door.

In this day, as seeds are rapidly deteriorating due to the darkness of ignorance, the lights will come. The Rebirth of Seeds is one such beacon of light in the darkness of modern day society with its mechanical, lock-step and predictable right brain thinking.

Predictability is safe, but is does not necessarily denote truth. The truth will set the minds of the enslaved-cased matrix free…and freedom is a hot and precious commodity.

It is balance in our minds that we seek; something to offset the machine within us that doesn’t stop to think; the machine that doesn’t stop to analyze itself and its action for the benefits of its own survival, or the survival of its offspring. Are we animal, machine or human being? Are we more than what we believe we are? What are we capable of producing…of manifesting?

Imagine: leaves and trees sprouting up with the Rebirth of Seeds like fruit on the vine ripe for the picking and ingesting of something whole, of something solid and complete. Vitamin Z. Quite possibly a cure to world inner-hunger.

This manual is for you to develop and follow your own inner soul and see how deep the rabbit holes goes and ultimately to graduate from the land of Oz. Destination: Home.

Poem, "Balance: The resurrection of the divine feminine"

BALANCE: The resurrection of the divine feminine

Queen Jahneen

There is a mass of plastic and garbage floating in the ocean the size of Texas!

I repeat:

There is a mass of plastic and garbage floating in the ocean the size of Texas!

…and it started before the invention of plastic…

It started with a superiority complex

That gave rise to the transatlantic slave trade,

The slaughter of the indigenous and the subjugation of women

The healers, medicine men and priestesses

All forced to give up their natural ways through violence

Mandated to put down their souls and pick up foreign practices

Robotic, manufactured, disconnected…

Children of nature were required to disown themselves…

Tricked into hell with a minimally furnished jail cell

With bread, water and a King James version of the Bible.

Unable to defend the land, watching its value drop and drop

As unworthy criminals hog and squat, scheme and plot

For the pleasure of their sins to be made readily available to them

Without the nuisance of consequence

For lusts endless thrusts to be appeased again and again… add infinitum

For gluttony envy and greed to lead, for the bottomless pits to feed

Mortals, whose time lasts but a minute, demanding the treatment of the Infinite:

“I can make the servants of God and Earth serve me.”

Redirecting energy to inflate the illusion of superiority.

Creating a society living under prescribed delusion and fantasy

White picket fences and daises, white teeth and lilies

Grinning at the fallacy of white and male supremacy

That would force all to smile, nod and agree

Under the threat of being punished severely.

“We are the greatest…” As oil wastes in the sea.

“We are superior…” As the air is now polluted and dusty.

“We are the natural leaders…” As species after species leave…

Wondering… what happened to the natural caretakers?

The rain makers? The dancers and the drummers?

Forced to reject Mother Earth

Called Sinners and Heathens for honoring the divine feminine.

For acknowledging the essence of intuition.

Isolation! Execution! Crucifixion!

But hold on, for the coming resurrection!

Remember, there is mass of plastic and garbage floating in the ocean the size of Texas

That didn’t start with the invention of plastic.

It started with the invention of hatred

And chasing the non-existent, ever-illusive lust for power and conquest

Fueled by anything that suggests one type of human being above another type is fallacy

Therefore, dehumanizing and therefore, lying!

Supported by forcing creative beings to disown their true identities

The internal broken family of humanity.

Mother Nature has been neglected for competition and one-upsmanship

More important than a flower, a sunset or a rainforest

Or the true security that comes from the reality of similarities

Worthy of two-way respecting rather than one-way worshiping

It took hundreds of years of unnecessary destruction

Industrial commercialization of a “civilized” nation

For the consequences to come knocking

Asking for payment of the hatred/heat bill that kept rising

Unchecked by the cooling of feminine energy

But hold on, a change IS coming

The resurrection of the divine feminine to save all of humanity

And heal the internal broken family of inner male, female and offspring…

To balance our inner masculine we need to plan, act, give and speak

To balance our inner feminine we need to identify feelings, meditate listen and receive

To balance our children we need to play, visualize and express our creativity

Balance our inner frequencies

So that

Self-knowledge outshines the clouds of self-doubt

Self-love drowns out self-hatred

And self-creation transforms self-destruction

Because the truth for humanity is that difference is still equality.

I am that I am infinite expressions of diversity.

Loyalty to truth maintains flow, balance and equilibrium

For our different individual mathematical equations are all equal to ONE.