ngifunaukuya-blog

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“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” -Anaïs Nin

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“What if me trying to hold the world together is what keeps me from falling apart?” Titus, All the Sinners Bleed

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”Sometimes grief is love unexpressed. Other times it’s regret made flesh.” -Titus, All the Sinners Bleed

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"When you take the perspective of using violence as a tactic then the movement ceases to be democratic, because in your revolution the differently abled cannot participate, children cannot participate, the elderly cannot participate. You are glorifying healthy men and putting everyone else on the sidelines."

-Vincent Harding to Otis Moss III, Dancing in Darkness

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"The silence that consecrates chaos is what prayer is for"

-Rev. Otis Moss III, Dancing in the Darkness

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"...in this I hear God is heavy: the spiritual is not immaterial; it has mass. What came to Mr. Butler in dreams and at night literally moved him into hammering and painting and drilling and attaching. When I know of this weight, it follows that the work I do to keep the invitations out is also physical; it takes physical and energetic effort to keep myself from making art, which is to say, I effort with my body when I deny relationality with what surrounds me. Isolation is a psychic and physical exertion, because the two aren't separate. And if that's the case, there is always some level of agency present when isolation threatens."

-Katie Robinson, Here's How I Let Them Come Close

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"You meet no one but yourself."

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"There is an unending, whispering web of stories about how we met and how we know each other. Relations have always catalyzed our transformations, and what is encountered was already entangled."

-Katie Robinson, Here's How I Let Them Come Close

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"How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor."

-Paul, 1 Corinthians 36-41

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"When a fear is too terrifying. I realize, we are scared to give it words, as if that will make it all too real. But the anxiety doesn't go away. It's like a weed that continues to grow, sprout, and choke the plant."

-"Thirst", Varsha Bajaj

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A “TOO MUCH” WOMAN / by Ev’Yan Whitney

There she is… the “too much” woman. The one who loves too hard, feels too deeply, asks too often, desires too much.

There she is taking up too much space, with her laughter, her curves, her honesty, her sexuality. Her presence is as tall as a tree, as wide as a mountain. Her energy occupies every crevice of the room. Too much space she takes.

There she is causing a ruckus with her persistent wanting, too much wanting. She desires a lot, wants everything—too much happiness, too much alone time, too much pleasure. She’ll go through brimstone, murky river, and hellfire to get it. She’ll risk all to quell the longings of her heart and body. This makes her dangerous.

She is dangerous.

And there she goes, that “too much” woman, making people think too much, feel too much, swoon too much. She with her authentic prose and a self-assuredness in the way she carries herself. She with her belly laughs and her insatiable appetite and her proneness to fiery passion. All eyes on her, thinking she’s hot shit.

Oh, that “too much” woman… too loud, too vibrant, too honest, too emotional, too smart, too intense, too pretty, too difficult, too sensitive, too wild, too intimidating, too successful, too fat, too strong, too political, too joyous, too needy—too much.

She should simmer down a bit, be taken down a couple notches. Someone should put her back in a more respectable place. Someone should tell her.

Here I am… the Too Much Woman, with my too-tender heart and my too-much emotions.

A hedonist, feminist, pleasure seeker, empath. I want a lot—justice, sincerity, spaciousness, ease, intimacy, actualization, respect, to be seen, to be understood, your undivided attention, and all of your promises to be kept.

I’ve been called high maintenance because I want what I want, and intimidating because of the space I occupy. I’ve been called selfish because I am self-loving. I’ve been called a witch because I know how to heal myself.

And still… I rise. Still, I want and feel and ask and risk and take up space.

I must.

Us Too Much Women have been facing extermination for centuries—we are so afraid of her, terrified of her big presence, of the way she commands respect and wields the truth of her feelings. We’ve been trying to stifle the Too Much Woman for ions—in our sisters, in our wives, in our daughters. And even now, even today, we shame the Too Much Woman for her bigness, for her wanting, for her passionate nature.

And still… she thrives.

In my own world and before my very eyes, I am witnessing the reclamation and rising up of the Too Much Woman. That Too Much Woman is also known to some as Wild Woman or the Divine Feminine. In any case, she is me, she is you, and she is loving that she’s finally, finally getting some airtime.

If you’ve ever been called “too much,” or “overly emotional,” or “bitchy,” or “stuck up,” you are likely a Too Much Woman. And if you are… I implore you to embrace all that you are—all of your depth, all of your vastness; to not hold yourself in, and to never abandon yourself, your bigness, your radiance.

Forget everything you’ve heard—your too much-ness is a gift; oh yes, one that can heal, incite, liberate, and cut straight to the heart of things.

Do not be afraid of this gift, and let no one shy you away from it. Your too much-ness is magic, is medicine. It can change the world.

Don’t believe me? Check this: All of your favorite women, the ones who’ve made history, the ones who’ve lent their voices for change and have courageously given themselves permission to be exactly who they are. Some examples: Oprah, Ronda Rousey, Beyoncé, Kali, Misty Copeland, Janet Mock, Mary Magdalene … they’re all Too Much Women.

So please, Too Much Woman: Ask. Seek. Desire. Expand. Move. Feel. Be.

Make your waves, fan your flames, give us chills.

Please, rise. We need you.

(From the author’s website > sexloveliberation.com/too-much-woman/)

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"and fortunately for me, I was a runaway success in the world at large because I had a globe so passionately approving of my presence in their midst that nobody could dismiss the fact that thing on the horizon called Belafonte could really not be fucked with..."

-Harry Belafonte, Is that black enough for you (2022 documentary)

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"When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. the rushed heart and the arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace. Beauty is mysterious, a slow presence who waits for the ready, expectant heart."

-John O'Donohue, Beauty

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"The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It's dismissive. I don't understand this person, so they're crazy. That's bullshit. These people are not crazy. They strong people. Maybe the environment is a little sick."

-Dave Chappelle

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"He inhabits and engenders a radiant dark, reminding us that a scene of opacity can be a site and source of clarity, that revelation can emerge in shadowy spaces, that some subtle truths are easier to behold under the cover of night than in a blaze of sunshine."

La Marr Jurelle Bruce, How to Go Mad

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"sometimes coming undone is precisely how one falls into place. Sometimes a breakdown doubles as a breakthrough. Sometimes a snap is a click."

-La Marr Jurelle Bruce, How to Go Mad...