Sunday, May 1, 2022

A Reflection from a Participant in the Remembrance Ceremony and Soil Collection in Bel Air

A reflection from someone who participated in the Remembrance Ceremony and Soil Collection on March 26, 2022. 

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Original Location

I feel the stain today. It was there even when I didn’t consciously feel it; now it has risen from the dark bottom where such truths are covered and lie rotting and stinking. It is here now, in my hand. I hold it. It feels heavy yet it is dried out and dead. The fact is it was never buried correctly.

We didn’t gather silently, speak words to each other in ceremony, acknowledge that what was alive and well is now dead and we are putting it to rest in the earth, in ourselves. We didn’t lay it in the ground, place handfuls of dirt over it, and weep.  

We didn’t do this. Instead, like a white mob leaving the victim of their terror for all to see, it was there to keep us silent. And we were. It was dead like the bodies of ancestors who spirits remain, never put to rest. Our silence kept it buried alive as the stink followed us wherever we went. It didn’t matter how far we removed ourselves from the original location, we couldn’t get away from it. That original location, it ends up, is carried within us. Far and wide it is carried, hidden in many lives. Until we stop.  We have to stop. We are stopped, by the sheer force of unacknowledged truth. We get knocked to our knees like we should have been at the original location. Some of our kin were perpetrators, some were behind the scenes supporters, some were bewildered, some hid in silent fear. Many just didn’t speak or act. For generations. Today it sits in our bellies, and makes us stop.

We return to the original location. We have to have the eyes and the stomach to see what was there. We have to have the courage and wisdom to see what is there now, what has remained, what form it is in in the present moment.

Weep, children.  Perform a proper burial. Gather together and lay that stinking decay in the ground and remember it. Make a marker stating who and what lies here so others can find their way to the location, stand on the spot, read the words and take into their belly the impact. So others won’t have to go searching blind, we’ve marked the spot. We gather there, remember, acknowledge, and turn to face a new future, carrying some of the soil with us to fuel our courage and conviction. Reverence is the nature of our love at this time. With a proper burial, which did not occur for so many victims of terror, we challenge the code of silence, we feel the weight in our bellies, and we do the work to restore humanity to us all. This we do today.

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