This is just one of my favorite things

We are our thoughts , courage and choices.

Every day we lay it all in front of us ,tread on it and capture the moment.

And with every moment our intentions and expressions

change us and the world.

EVEN THE STARS LOOK LONESOME

...
were stolen and sold from the African continent together we crouched together in the barracoons, without enough to share between us. We lay, back to belly, in the filthy hatches of slave ships in one another’s excrement, menstrual blood and urine. We were hosed down and oiled to give sheen to our skin, then stood on the auction blocks and were sold together. We rose before sunrise from the cold ground were driven into the cane field and the cotton field together We each took the lash that pulled the skin from our backs. Each of us singled out for the sexual enjoyment and exploitation of those who desired our bodies but hated us.
…

MAYA ANGELOU

JOURNEY TO BELOVED

...
TURDAY, JUNE 21, 1997

[In order to research her role, Oprah participated in a reenactment of the Underground Railroad. In costume, with a new identity, she literally escapes from a plantation; and endures running and hiding to avoid capture. It was grueling, painful, and authentic.]

The Underground Railroad experience allowed me to go inside to feel the grief of losing control of your destiny. The meditation process to transition from 1997 to 1861, being blindfolded and vulnerable, having no power over when you can even speak. Amazing. Amazing Grace. Look at where I come from. Look at where I am. My God from Zion! It’s incredible. The realization of the depth and Truth of it. Slavery was about having no power whatsoever. That’s what became so real to me yesterday. More than a concept of no freedom. Freedom, I felt with such clarity, is the ability to think your own thoughts and do with them what you will. Choice. ¶1 briefly glimpsed the reality of NO choice. It was deadening. It was so painful. T didn’t want to feel it. Not even in that controlled, contrived space. So deep. So real. So much pain.

...
OPRAH WINFREY

O Navio Negreiro
...
IV
Era um sonho dantesco... o tombadilho

Que das luzernas avermelha o brilho.

Em sangue a se banhar.

Tinir de ferros... estalar de açoite...

Legiões de homens negros como a noite,

Horrendos a dançar...

Negras mulheres, suspendendo às tetas

Magras crianças, cujas bocas pretas

Rega o sangue das mães:

Outras moças, mas nuas e espantadas,

No turbilhão de espectros arrastadas,

Em ânsia e mágoa vãs!

E ri-se a orquestra irônica, estridente...

E da ronda fantástica a serpente

Faz doudas espirais ...

Se o velho arqueja, se no chão resvala,

Ouvem-se gritos... o chicote estala.

E voam mais e mais...

Presa nos elos de uma só cadeia,

A multidão faminta cambaleia,

E chora e dança ali!

Um de raiva delira, outro enlouquece,

Outro, que martírios embrutece,

Cantando, geme e ri!

No entanto o capitão manda a manobra,

E após fitando o céu que se desdobra,

Tão puro sobre o mar,

Diz do fumo entre os densos nevoeiros:

"Vibrai rijo o chicote, marinheiros!

Fazei-os mais dançar!..."

E ri-se a orquestra irônica, estridente. . .

E da ronda fantástica a serpente

Faz doudas espirais...

Qual um sonho dantesco as sombras voam!...

Gritos, ais, maldições, preces ressoam!

E ri-se Satanás!

...

CASTRO ALVES

(1847 - 1871)

IMAGES

From the book:

JOURNEY TO BELOVED

...

From the book :

JOURNEY TO BELOVED

...

Unidentified artist