“After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
From Colorlines, featuring attorney and Braxton Institute Board Member at-large, Richael Faithful: "Meet Richael Faithful, a Queer Black 'Street Shaman.'"
“I was seeking a spiritual cleansing, but I didn’t know that that was what I needed,” says Heidi Williamson, a black social justice activist who recently saw Faithful for a session. “The talk therapy alone was not working. The exercise, diet, meditation alone was not getting it either. I needed something else.” Faithful says this is a common thread among the people who seek out her services: “Sometimes I’m the person that folks seek out last because they’ve tried everything else.”
Writing the Sacred Self
There must be spaces where authentic selves engaged in interdisciplinary discourse can come together to address inequality and work for social justice. Dr. Nigel Hatton made this point when he spoke of the critical importance of the Braxton Institute at our October 27, 2014 “Recovering Human Sustainability in a Time of War” symposium. Nigel’s observations remind me of Parker Palmer’s essay “Now I Become Myself” and the importance of naming all of the fragmenting things that get in the way of that wholeness and that becoming:


