Pictured from far right to left are: “Christie” Cummings, Aberjhani, John Beary, Zoe Randall, Javier Matos, and Susan Patrice. (April 6, 1996 Creative Loafing photo by Marcus Kenney from Bright Skylark LP Archives. Originally published with story titled “Commune Strives to Blend Art and Life Into One Big Picture” by Bob Ruggiero) Some like-minded, and like-spirited, friends once told me that because we had spent so much time “meditating in the light together” we would always be connected on certain levels. That is how I feel about my now departed multi-talented friend Christia Cummings-Slack (?-2022): artist, spiritual coach, women’s empowerment advocate, angelologist, and courageous compassionate human being. We met in the mid-1990s during the hey-day of the former Blue House, described in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah as a place were: “…artists, poets, musicians, soldiers, and social theorists had gathered to share their talents and talk about possibilities for Savannah’s future. There were black, white, Latino, male, female…” She was then a recent graduate of SCAD and I a bookstore manager also recognized as a columnist and poet. Christia, known then as Christine Cummings, was also a principal supporter of the now legendary Blue House and a member of the production team for its “’zine” journal publication: OUT OF THE BLUE. The theme for its fall 1996 issue was “A Celebration of Home.” Among the contributors were: now well-known artists like Marcus Kenney and James Russell May; plus, an excerpt from work by poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992) and poems by Blue House founder Susan Patrice, Kathleen Thompson, Don Newman, Louisa Abbot, and Zoe Randall (among others). Christine and I also contributed to that special historic issue. My contributions to the journal were the poem “Calligraphy of Intimacy” from I Made My Boy of Poetry, and a review of a mini-concert by a beloved acid-jazz rock group called the Hunab Ku Quartet. Christine may have been the most prolific contributor of us all to that second issue of Out of Blue. In addition to drawings and ads about workshops she was conducting, included was an untitled prose piece in which she reflected on the emotional pros and cons of going home for Thanksgiving. Within her words are clear signs of an evolving spiritual seeker as she notes observations like: “I have been learning lately that if you really need to do something or want something that is ultimately good for you, the energy will be there to make it so.” In response to an aunt’s interpretation of the sudden appearance of certain caterpillars, she later states: “…I feel as though I am in my cocoon already emerged in the darkness and beginning to transform into a soul that can fly free…” Christina also contributed to the Out of the Blue journal something which took me completely by surprise. It was a poem: Autumn by Christine Cummings She tires easy now The wind blows cooler Her color changes The wind blows faster Her color fades She misses the warmth of the sun and children playing around her. Soon she will be barren She will get sleepy and draw within herself and dream while her roots draw nourishment from the Great Source, the Great Mother, feeding her dreams of belonging and of coming HOME. The Blue House had to close its doors after a few years and our life paths led us in different directions determined by personal obligations. Via occasional in-person visits and a new thing called email, we managed to lose touch with each other reconnect many times over the years. We shared a passion for angel lore, which in her works manifested as inspiring art and channeled insights. In mine, it took the form of poems that gave birth to the book The River of Winged Dreams. We also both greatly appreciated and drew encouragement from the poetry of Rumi. All of this meant we were able to encourage each during uncertain times in our lives. She thought I got it wrong when I said a popular journalist friend of mine would likely become a friend of hers as well because I felt the essence of their natures to be very similar. She later decided I got it right. When we discussed the “possibility” of her becoming engaged to Richard Slacks Jr., something in her voice told me it was already a beautiful done deal, and one that would bless both their lives for a long time. It was an honor to watch, from a short distance, as she evolved in the manner which she sensed was to come when writing in Out of the Blue and became: Christia. I smiled to read the different testimonies of people who said she touched their lives in healing and sometimes life-changing ways. Almost like an Earth-Angel they had never dreamed of encountering. "BE LOVE"For her part, she knew her approach to spirituality would be viewed as “radical” by some and did not apologize for it. Just the opposite in fact: “I AM A Certified Angelic Life Coach, an Ordained Minister, Usui Reiki Master/Teacher, and hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in painting.” Such radicalism, if it really can be called such, seemed an essential antidote to the extremes of violence and hatred which flooded the world throughout her lifetime. This remembrance tribute to my friend could have ended with her poem. At this particular time in history, however, I feel it more important to end with the following words from her 2005 op ed letter published in CONNECT Savannah: “Now is the time to be Peace, Love, and Understanding in the face of conflict, pain, and suffering. Now is the time to BE LOVE.” Think of how much the world could gain at this very moment if humanity chose to take to its collective heart those extremely simple and profoundly wise words. Aberjhani |
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“Loving, Happy, Untamed, Passionate"
Somebody call the cops!
My muse has been stolen
I repeat my muse has been stolen…
The pain of this crime is felt in each stanza as she dramatically describes the sleep deprivation and loss of creativity it has caused. Yet there is also gentle self-deprecating humor while observing:
I feel too normal
I need my abnormality back…
The depth of her need is amplified with the following simultaneously pleading and demanding lines:
I want it back the way it was taken
Opinionated, LOUD, wild, confused
Loving, happy, untamed, passionate
Smart enough, encouraging, kinda shy
Uncorrupted by the norms of society
Unpierced by the actions of my peers
AND ALL MINE
In the poems which flow immediately afterwards, titled “Nicking,” “Lost Scared Afraid,” and “My Muse,” the poet’s attachment to what most inspires her can be understood at different times in different ways. In one moment, it is an addiction of a healthy variety rather than a destructive one. In the next, it reads and feels a lot like a love affair brutally interrupted by the kind of heinous disregard which too often in our current over-technologized world leads to tragic consequences.
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In the Tradition of Baring One’s Soul
Instead of offering strategies for navigating the painful uncertainties of her personal journey, the Savannah, Georgia-born poet simply presents her own efforts at balancing them. In this way, she self-identifies with humanity as a whole rather than with a single segment of it. Near the end of the volume, she notes the following in a letter to herself:
I know you
From your favorite color
To your deepest secrets
From your untold feelings
To your wildest dreams
I care about
Your every word
Simplest request
Smallest dreams…
There is a tremendous amount to appreciate in this first edition of Aurie Cole’s debut volume as her pen makes its free-styling way through shock and despair toward hope and self-determination. However, it has to be said as well that serious readers of poetry are likely to find a number of typographical errors distracting. These are understandable enough because talented young poets rarely receive the kind of publishing support which ensures the absence of such mistakes. (How many, after all, such as the celebrated Amanda Gorman are likely to receive an invitation to recite their poetry at a presidential inauguration and subsequently get Oprah Winfrey to write a foreword for their book, basically guaranteeing its status as a number 1 bestseller?)
Other critically-minded readers may question the absence of poems dealing with such timely issues as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, or Black Lives Matter. In a way, it may be argued that the more deeply personal writings inspired by the poet’s muse are a kind of response to these very concerns as they illustrate the power of sheltering within the integrity of one’s own sanity in a world knocked off balance by myriad forms of chaos. The important thing may be the knowledge that Talks Between My Pen and Muse is only a first important literary step for Aurie Cole and readers hopefully can look forward to many more writings from her pen and muse in the future.
Aberjhani
Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
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“The most shocking moment in my life was when I was told that in two days I was leaving my country. It was a small moment in in which I felt that the world was falling on top of me.” ––English Learning High School Student (from the book Where the Rainbow Ends)
The extraordinary significance of those words is demonstrated repeatedly in the collection of brief stories written by more than 90 anonymous English Learning Students in the Oklahoma City Public Schools system. These brave young authors range from fifth-graders to high-schoolers.
Intense debates regarding the migration of populations around the world have been ongoing for the better part of a decade but the voices of youth whose lives are most impacted by those debates are, as indicated, rarely acknowledged. Within this volume, they come through loudly and understandably enough. The word ‘understandably’ is emphasized here because the editors have very wisely left speech patterns and vocabulary as originally penned. These are, after all, individuals who are slowly adjusting to new ways of comprehending, relating, and behaving on different levels.
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Those of us already proficient in the English language might wrinkle our brows when reading certain sentences with obviously faulty grammar. But we know what the authors mean and these sentences help us understand the gigantic challenge of uprooting oneself from a known cultural environment and reestablishing your life in a new unfamiliar locale. The most hard-hitting statements go beyond such considerations as syntax and brings to mind what the great Harlem Renaissance leader W.E.B. Du Bois called the worst blow which people of African descent suffered during slavery in America: the destruction of the Black Family.
Human migrations forced by desperation in our modern times have resulted in similar devastation; however, in the pages of Where the Rainbow Ends we experience painful separations as well as healing reunions. So it is that one student recalls prior to leaving El Salvador: “My sister went to the USA when I turned 4 years old but she got a VISA to get here so I have no memories of her.” The opportunity to make new memories would not come easily but it would come. Another student from Honduras demonstrated the importance of such a prospect when declaring: “And I learned to love my dad after seven years I was separated from him.”
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Historical Consequences
Hopefully, additional volumes or ones similar to Where the Rainbow Ends will present readers with the flip side of the immigration coin by sharing the voices of different Americans’ experiences of adapting to immigrants. That is something I attempted to do in the story “A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Savannah” published in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. For the time being, it’s good enough to know my quote at the beginning of Where the Rainbow Ends has played some small role in helping the student authors amplify their voices and educate the world about the realities of one of the most consequential concerns of our volatile historical times.
Aberjhani
author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
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She followed the novel Wise Blood with a collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, in 1955; the novel The Violent Bear it Away in 1960; and the short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge ––a book on which she worked virtually right up until her death–– published posthumously in 1965. In between the writing and the publishing, she marshaled her strength to travel (aided by crutches) and lecture, write articles for popular magazines (for which she was generally well paid), and write numerous letters to friends, supporters, and critics.
(To read part 1 of this story please click here. For part 2 click this link.)
The O’Connor readers and scholars now know would not have been possible without a tightly woven network of friends and family members who supported her work through belief in, and out of love for, her. After illness derailed her plans to live the life of a postmodern New York author, she famously surrounded herself with peacocks at Andalusia, her family’s farm, and allowed the world to come to her just as much as she continued to embrace it on the page and through speaking engagements. Fellow authors, theologians, aspiring writers, general admirers, and would-be lovers in the form of men as well as women often made their way to her front door.
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Mother and Daughter Together
As such, she did the kinds of things caregivers tend to do when committed to ensuring as high a quality of life as they can for someone they love: setting aside a thermos of hot coffee at night to share with Flannery in the morning, running a farm to secure an income, tolerating the droppings and cries of beautiful but annoying peacocks, traveling abroad with her daughter even when she herself was ill, and standing guard at her hospital room door to ensure a chance at rest and possible recovery.
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In Praise of Those Who Wait
Then, approached by an editor in 2003 about a biography on O’Connor, it clearly was not an offer he could refuse. A dream which had been deferred for more than two decades finally saw the light of day in 2009 and by most accounts it was very much worth the wait.
Author
Aberjhani is co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance as well as author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah and Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind.
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