Dear Creativity,

I have done so much harm to you. I haven't created the right environment so that you may live on and be fruitful. I have stripped you of your rawness by forcing you to be what others want you to be. I haven't let you take over me and instead I've tried to make overly rational decisions to the point that it has dried you up. I AM SORRY. I want to feed you because you are beautiful and I feel in my gut your potential and it is overwhelming to the point that you leave me astonished. I have always tried to put you down with my humbleness and not let you be praised like you should. It is not right and doesn't show that I LOVE YOU. I do, I want you to know that and more importantly I want to understand you. Let me know what I can do so that I be the best body for you to inhabit. Let me understand what you need. What sort of environment do you need? I love you for your beauty and I vow to care for you and seek to understand you because YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

Ariel

Hey everyone

I have returned back to myself. Last year I vowed to be a different person. That I would be better to myself and promised to nurture myself holistically. Unfortunately the devil gains hold of you when he sees that you are progressing. That is what happened to me. I had bought raw food and began to follow Queen Afua's book " Sacred Woman". I felt good at the end of the first month and that's when I fell off. I began to stress about college and finances ( I was a senior in high school at the time) and also stressed about my boyfriend who was in his first year of college. There were other issues along with these stresses of getting into school and trying to nurture a long distance relationship. That summer I returned back to eating meat ( chicken and seafood) because I figured that I wouldn't be able to afford the vegetarian diet in school ( moved from New Orleans to New York). I began to feel the side effect.

I am born from the pit of the lily white flower. balls of water wake me up and i stretch towards the sun allowing the melanin to swirl and as i collect the energy inside of me i start to vibrate and then like a smooth blast i fly from the swamp of which i was born and join the clouds as they float between the sun and water collecting and transferring both powers. I fly as my locs flow around me being my connections to the earth that speaks to me in a complex language that i understand in my soul but yearn to grasp in my mind. Through deep valleys i drop and the wind blows me up to the peak of the highest mountain. Vines grab me as a mother does and holds me tightly and comfortably, feeding me with the pits of exotic flowers and fresh water from the top of the mountains.
You are fragile, the wind tells me. You are fragile yet strong. This body is a boat that can easily be broken but what it carries will flow forever along the current and become consumed and reborn again and again. I collect the energy that i need for what my boat carries to endure what changes may come....this is what the wind speaks to me.

I've been getting into writing poetry more and more. It helps a whole lot when it gets hard for me to make sense of what i am thinking. This and painting are my concious and subconcious speaking, enjoy:

I am not what you see
A block of mass
Cutting into your air supply
I am
In what you breath
In what you are
We Cross Paths because we have the same one
But through mirrors
they look different
You feel that don't you?
You don't have to answer me
Because i know
Because i feel it too
So that my mirror does
I feel the vibrations

Through conversation and meditation
I see revolutions revolve around you
through vibrations
as you speak and move
waves escape your environment
They hit me
Merge with my own
Clashes
Slides
Into your inner metronome
Through crossed eyes you see us becoming one
Not sure of your visions
By applying incision
you pull us apart
Yet you feel it in your heart
Now say OHM

This is a poem i wrote after not writing after a long time. enjoy!

Long time passed
Since I spoken, wroten, written, spitten
Never wanting to ask
Because of the choke
So I be hitting my chest
Couldn't cope
With what was in my throat
No Hope
Dazed Eyes
Confused
Verbs Misused
Couldn't Spoke
Correction
Speak
Eat
To Defeat
My Worries
Nightmare Stories
No Ease

Until I blanked out.....

For what seemed a century
Must Find a Remedy
Then it hit me
Coughed up the choke
No remedy
Refused to float
Realization
Letting it Sink into me
Drowning
That Intermission?
Yes I drowning
Taking gulps
Gasping
Never Asking
Taking too much
Until....
I stopped

Floating in the light mist of blue
Water current moving soothing
My body moving through
violently excitedly
passionately exactly
As i should be...
Lasting?
Never but to the shore
Depending on the weather....

I was just talking to my boyfriend a couple days ago and we were both in a slump. He's in his freshman year of college and I'm in my senior year of high school. Late at night we were on the phone venting about our frustrations. I've been kind of stressing about college financially. It seemed like everyone around me was getting into college and getting full rides except me. I had only heard from one school and although that school gave me a lot of money i would still have to take out loans because my parents wouldn't be able to pay for me. My boyfriend then began to tell me that he doesn't know if he can afford college anymore because he failed the midterm of one class and was stressing about getting a passing grade in order to keep his scholarship. it seemed like nothing was going right.

I have just created my very own art gallery on-line. I have five pieces for sale ranging from 500-750. I was blessed to have sold one entitled "Emancipation of the White Lily" so far that is worth 1,000. I am hoping that people will be inspired my work and/or words that are in my artist's statement. I would love to hear some feedback either here or on the site. http://www.artvibes.webs.com/

Well it's the end of my senior year and i've been working so hard for four years so that I could get to this point. Now I feel like a battery that has run out of juice. When i get home (at about 7:00 pm everyday) i want to nothing but soak in a hot shower and write some blogs and check mail. This routine has started a month ago when i finished all of my college applications and financial aid sheets.
So i feel like i should be feeling bad because i usually do when i feel like i've been slacking. But a little voice in the back of my head is whispering to me..." you deserve it". But that little voice that sounds so cheerful and soothing has deceived me once already. But like i said this is my senior year and you know what? i think that my little voice is right. I do deserve this. I AM like a battery and now i need to collect my battery juices so that I can start fresh for college.

Greetings! I am a new sister that just joined this site and i mean wow! i never knew there was a site that had this many insightful and inspiring sisters in one place! it's truly overwhelming. So overwhelming that i hardly know where to begin! inspiration is hitting me left and right. So guess the best way to start things off is to introduce myself:

My name is Ariel Jackson and I live in New Orleans Louisiana. It is truly a blessing to live here. My school is in the region of treme' (so much history; this is where many great blacks during the reconstruction came up and became powerful and free even before the civil rights) and right by the french market (so much authentic art/clothing/food/misc. objects from around the world) where i spend my time mostly. Some nights me and some friends will go and listen to some great jazz music at what is called "Snug Harbor" where they sell some of the best burgers and present some of the city's best and authentic jazz New Orleans has to offer.