Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

4/2/2022

The late Luther E. Vann (Dec 2, 1937–April 6, 2016) and I worked as hard as we did to complete ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, because we hoped the end results would help inspire people to employ healing creative vision, rather than destructive violence, to resolve various forms of conflict. I’ve thought about that a lot since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine. I thought about it further after seeing beloved actor Will Smith’s now forever-infamous assault upon comedian Chris Rock during the live broadcast of the 2022 Academy Awards. (Will Smith since then has reportedly resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)

The poem below, “Wings of Early Morning Light,” was published in ELEMENTAL and I am posting it at this time for several reasons. One is to celebrate National Poetry Month 2022. Another is to commemorate the sixth anniversary of Luther’s death. It is also to continue the Poems for Ukraine series begun with Angel of War and the Year 2022. And, finally, the fourth is to reaffirm at a time when the world can use such reaffirmations, ELEMENTAL’s major themes: creative problem-solving respectful of life as innately sacred, mindfulness strengthened by compassion, and coexistence anchored by the power of illuminated love.

The first public announcement that the late artist Luther E. Vann and author Aberjhani had begun working on ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, appeared in the former weekly Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) Newspaper called The Georgia Guardian on June 25, 1993.

Wings of Early Morning Light

Gliding above the ruins of the world’s broken soul
destruction and mutation speak in parables of the
ignoble history that dragged us here, and glittery
prophecies promising kingdoms and glories to come.

A man traveling on wings of early morning light
(this man, that man, the man that a woman is)
suddenly captivated by a group of children gathered
around a fire. Away from this circle an infant
pinned to an oak tree, knives and daggers crucifying
every possibility it managed to bring to this world.

“We’ve learned,” said an elder child,
“to rid ourselves of life before it can hurt us
too bad. That way we hurry up to the next existence
where beauty hopefully will join us.”

“But do you pray before you act? Or have you
taken barbarism for your imam and your prophet?”

“Prayer is a chasm of delusion for the hopeless.
Wouldn’t you agree our good wise brother?”

“No, I would not little brother.”

A volley of blades and arrows cripple his flight.
The man traveling on wings of early morning light
gathers into his soul visions of exultant sorrow
and sorrowful joy. From his spirit blood drops
like petals of night and bright crimson rapture.

The rocks below split like ancient wombs opening
to the language of an unwritten history, to the
lights and music of a city we’ve yet to create.
Six billion people shout one new soul into the universe.
Dawn opens the sky like prayers from a god just waking up.
(from ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love)

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on National Poetry Month and War in Ukraine
Holiday Letter for a Poet Gone to War Poem with Video
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Angel of Peace 2022
Ukraine, Russia, and the Art of Being Human
Angel of War and the Year 2022
Voices of Poets on War and Peace

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African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

2/17/2022

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“These clients taught me that, no matter one’s ethnicity or cultural background, most people around the world share similar traits or concerns such as money, health, family and love.”
––author Darrell Gartrell

The African-American identity within the international community is much like a global brand which historically has helped enable the career success of Black U.S. citizens outside their homeland. That is less surprising than it first might seem when considering: the heroic roles American Blacks have played in events such as World Wars I and II in Europe; or when acting as ambassadors of the cultural arts worldwide; or, when coaching voters in South Africa on how to elect Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013) as the country’s first Black and democratically-elected president.

The body of literature on African Americans’ adventures outside the United States is extensive and among the world’s richest and most entertaining. The significance of such explorations has been well documented in volumes like Tyler Stovall’s Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996); and, in musician Stew’s and Heidi Rodewald’s 2008 award-winning musical, Passing Strange (adapted for the screen by director Spike Lee in 2009).

Fans of iconic author James Baldwin’s famous 1953 essay, “Stranger in the Village,” will recall his blues-flavored musings, while staying in a snow-covered hamlet in Switzerland, on the evolution of racial identities in America. Contemporary author Darrell Gartrell’s 2016 memoir, 21 Years of Wisdom: One Man's Extraordinary Odyssey in Japan, contains equally-compelling insights but presented, obviously, through a very different lens.

Baldwin was an American Black Man self-removed from his beloved community of Harlem in New York City to escape the toxic atmosphere of Jim Crow racism and further develop as a writer. Gartrell did something many techno-charged Millennials accustomed to the practice of working remotely at home might find intriguing: he left his home in South-Central Los Angeles with the intention of seeking and claiming his fortune in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Journey to a Distant Shore

Gartrell introduces readers to his life in the city of Osaka, Japan, 1990s, as he is driving home on a mostly deserted street at 4 a.m. and pulled over by a policeman––on a bicycle. (The scene is more gently humorous than foreboding; yet, for readers unable to shake scenes of fatal encounters between Black people and American policemen over the past decade, it makes a strong contrast.) What starts out as a routine traffic stop for running a red light on a street absent of any other traffic evolves into a requirement for the author to upgrade his international driver’s permit to a valid Japanese license. As he begins to accomplish this, he is reminded of a lesson in survival particularly valuable for the millions of people today immigrating, or fleeing as refugees, from one country to another:

“I would discover in the most blatant way that the driving exam itself had little to do with actual driving, but rather, how well you could take an ass kick’n and keep on tick’n—or at least smiling––a fundamental theme in Japanese society and culture called gaman” (21 Years of Wisdom, pbk ed p. 8).

In the pages which follow, as he experiences a series of thrilling ups and painful humbling downs, it become clear this ability to survive in order to thrive has served him well more than once. And very likely will do so again.

Before delving deeper into the narrative detailing his rise to eminence in Japan’s language school, or “eikaiwa (ae-kai-wa)” industry, Gartrell takes us back in time. Readers are treated first to the thoroughly American story of his mixed ancestry. We are then steered through scenes from his youth, including a visit to Savannah, Georgia, at the age of six with his father, Barnet Gartrell.

From Tragedy to Triumph

Thanks to the entrepreneurial “hustling” of Barnet Gartrell, our narrator’s family had the good fortune of living in relative upper middle class comfort next door to Harlem Renaissance great Flournoy Miller (a celebrated performer whom this writer wrote about in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance). Comfort, however, did not mean immunity from disruptions such as some of the most violent race riots in American history, harrowing confrontations with members of L.A.’s notorious street gangs, and death. As he points out regarding one fateful season in his adolescence:

“There was a lot to ponder that summer: losing my father to cancer, my best friend and two classmates to murder, even the dog was killed” (p. 30).

The very elements which shade his youth with a sense of tragedy also push him to earn a B.S. degree in finance from California State University and begin exploring possibilities of establishing a life for himself in Europe, or elsewhere, outside the United States. A series of almost mystical encounters eventually find him negotiating his way through the intricacies of Japanese language and customs.

Striving for Success

There is little Gartrell does not cover in his memoir, a book which could also serve as an important college classroom text on business ethics or cultural literacy. From the kind of quirky racial biases and distinct social preferences found in most countries, to observations regarding cultural r/evolutions and his own sexscapades, he paints a large, detailed, and frequently fascinating picture.

Since he is writing about a Black American living in Japan, readers might expect accounts similar in tone to the first chapter’s. Such stories are in fact delivered in a style which effectively blends rhythms of the author’s personal anxieties with the kind of detached observations one might expect from an anthropologist. This becomes less surprising when noting his basic personal philosophy: “…My main beliefs were and continue to be rooted in science. A scientific mind and a refined intuition constitute the perfect balance for any self-respecting Libra” (p. 166).

Anchored by the convictions of his beliefs and his Cal State degree, Gartrell takes his first steps as a “certified sensei,” or teacher, shortly after his arrival in Osaka during Black History Month 1991. In addition to working with a prestigious business college, he pulls double duty by offering private English lessons on the second floor of a McDonald’s restaurant while also managing to learn the Japanese language largely on his own.

By page 102, he is conducting lessons in his apartment. Then, rather “improbably” as Barack Obama described his election to the U.S. presidency, only 78 pages later he is opening his first Wisdom21 school. “I settled on the name ‘Wisdom21,’” he writes, “to reflect all the knowledge I had gleaned from reading New Age books, as well as the new millennium just a few years away” (p. 180)

The various obstacles he overcomes to expand this eikaiwa enterprise teaching English as a second language take their emotional and physical tolls. Keeping his eyes on a long-sought prize, he eventually manages to open a sixth branch in Japan’s capitol city and one of the major financial centers of the world: Tokyo.

NEXT: African Americans Far from Home (part 2): Intimacy, Ethics, and Take-Aways

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Marking a Savannah Milestone

1/13/2022

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Editors at Time Magazine in July 2021 reached the same conclusion as editors of the Literary Savannah travel anthology in 1998. They decided the city of Savannah, Georgia (USA) was one of the “world’s greatest places” and listed it alongside such frequently-visited locales as: Cannes, France; Seattle, Washington; Arouca, Portugal; KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; Nuuk, Greenland; and North Goa, India.

Among the distinctions noted by Time Magazine for placing Savannah on its list of “100 extraordinary destinations to explore” was its impressive revitalized riverfront. Hill Street Press, 24 years ago as of 2022, included the city on its roster of “Travel Literature” titles following the phenomenal success of author John Berendt’s “nonfiction novel,” Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Surviving to Tell Our Stories

With my poem “Return to Savannah” concluding the volume, I was one of eight living writers (out of thirty-seven total and not counting editor Patrick Allen) included in the Literary Savannah travel anthology published by Hill Street Press in 1998 (and by Trinity University Press in 2011). Of the other authors living at the time, James Alan McPherson and I were the only ones actually born in the city. (Long-time resident, and Savannah State University professor, Ja A. Jahannes, 1942-2015, was a native of Baltimore, Maryland).

As of this writing, I am one of four of the anthology’s remaining living authors and the only native. The others are John Berendt, Rosemary Daniell, and Ben Greer. Publication of the compilation is something I celebrated in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, and, an event I commemorate now because too many noteworthy literary voices become targets of historical erasure prompted by commercial indifference or literary genocide.

A Cultural Arts Milestone

The publication of Literary Savannah represented a major cultural arts milestone because it was the first to showcase a comprehensive diverse selection of living and historic authors associated with the city. As writer Lynn Hamilton put it:

“…What will attract buyers to Literary Savannah will probably be the rich collection of stories and bon mots by the cream of Savannah’s local and living (kicking and screaming) literati. The wry, slightly wicked, Tom Coffey is not omitted from these pages... poet and story teller Aberjhani is a presence with his contribution… Though there’s little subversion present in the pages of Literary Savannah, Ja A. Jahannes does provide a surprisingly pointed comment on the exploitation and subsequent historical revisionism of the Yamacraw Indians which is not just good protest, but also beautiful and powerful poetry.” (Savannah Creative Loafing, Vol 5, No. 40, Dec 29, 1998)

Just like the city itself, now 24 years after the book was first published, Literary Savannah continues to demonstrate why so many still find America’s 13th colony such an exciting and intriguing travel destination.

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
& Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 2: Compassionate Comic Relief

7/11/2021

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"Seeker With the Inkhorn No. 2" art graphic by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions)

On May 1, 2017, late-night comic and celebrity influencer Jimmy Kimmel tearfully announced to the world that his son William John Kimmel had been born on April 21 with a pre-existing condition in the form of two life-threatening heart defects requiring immediate surgery. His newly-born son survived the three-hour procedure.

(To read Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 1 Please Click Here)

Kimmel used the traumatic incident as a teachable moment to help Americans ' better understand the potential consequences of failing to adopt an adequate national health care program. Being a wealthy man with a published net worth (in 2017) of $35 million, Kimmel could afford the best care available for his son and might easily have kept silent about the matter. But compassion convinced him to avoid apathy and consider the plight of those in similar situations who do not possess his wealth:

“We need to take care of each other. I saw a lot of families there [at the hospital] and no parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child's life. It just shouldn't happen.”

Think of Kimmel’s words (spoken in 2017 but so applicable in 2021) in the context of: the global immigration crisis, the unhinged assassins whose supposed religious radicalization is often traced back to documented mental disorders, the feverishly-toiling single parent attempting to hold down two or three jobs to earn the equivalent of a living wage, or the child-turned-killer-soldier who one day will look back on his life and wonder why he was never allowed to be a child and how can he now reconcile himself with the blood that haunts his sleep. In such contexts, Kimmel’s words hit home with ferociously bitter truth in many different cultures and languages.

Moreover, compassion was not only something he extended to others. It was a grace many through social media in turn extended to his family in the form of prayers (regardless of religious affiliation), emotional support (demographic classification notwithstanding), and simple hopes for the best possible outcome pending future surgeries for his newborn.

Unlike Kimmel, most people do not have millions of dollars at their disposal to guarantee the best healthcare for those they love. Still, the comedian’s candor reminded us of a truism too often forgotten: Just as the richest, most powerful and famous among us can be humbled by painful mortal circumstances, so too can the poorest among us harness the powers of collective will and wisdom to impact patterns of history and human behavior for the better.

Compassion as a Birthright

Back now to that 91-degree Fahrenheit day in July when I entered the world: Had someone cared enough that my mahogany-hued mother could not afford a doctor's attention or a hospital's clean cool room at the time of my birth, they might have been compassionate enough to somehow make facilities available anyway. Perhaps they might have done the same for any number of women along with the babies--Black, White, Brown, Red or Yellow-- they were ushering into the world.

It would have been a kind of good karma for her because she had maintained a home which helped make it possible for numerous extended family members to relocate from the more virulently racist rural areas of Georgia at that time to a somewhat less-aggressively-racist urban center.

"Summertime Blossoms of Mindful Compassion No. 2” art & quote by Aberjhani.

Compassion on every side of any given fence, wall, or border can provide a route to mutual understanding capable of voiding the source of destructive conflicts within a community or between nations. But what we call compassion does not weave itself out of particles of nonexistence and then ooze through veils of reality to reshape our consciousness. It is something to which we have to assign concrete value and then invest in the same in such a way that it is not diminished by: threats of war, xenophobia, hate, or the unavoidable demands of change created by history.

We may then, throughout various stages of our lives, proclaim compassion as a kind of birthright, or as an essential tool capable of correcting an onslaught of modern-day wrongs: be they the kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria, the displacement of populations seeking refuge from war and starvation, or the unresolved questions and decisions spinning like lost comets within the universe of our collective soul.

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 1: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life

7/8/2021

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"Seeker with the Inkhorn" title art graphic by Aberjhani.

A couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, I published on the Charter for Compassion website a blog series titled Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life Infused with Democratic Vistas and Creative Resistance. A long title, yes, but also an accurate one. It was an extended reflection on the state of our world as one writer approached a milestone birthday.

With the USA economy cautiously reopening even as worldwide deaths from coronavirus surpass 4 million, it is worth reposting a shorter version of one series installment titled “Seeker with the Inkhorn.” Why? Because our species learns some things, like the priceless value of peace or love, more slowly than others. Consider reports this first week of July 2021 regarding the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. Think about the controversies over whether to get vaccinated against COVID or not, and the painful necessity of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.

The need for a collective commitment to coexistence has never been greater and yet somehow remains stubbornly elusive. Therefore, what follows is about making the best use of what life continues to teach us as we struggle to move forward with greater knowledge, wisdom, and hopefully, reinforced resilience.

Identifying Our Best Options

When studying activities of human advancement as they take shape throughout history, we find a lot of attention given to the areas of military domination, economic schemes, scientific discoveries, political showmanship, and emerging patterns of social interaction.

The cultural arts, spiritual concerns, and developments in education often appear to be acknowledged less frequently. They are usually somewhere in the background of officially-recorded history functioning like unseen digital code that drives more ostensible programming. Individual lives can also be that way. They/we get lost or displaced in the dynamically-charged cross-currents of opposing priorities and agendas.

As a species, human beings may not be able to collectively shift from one history-shaping mindset to another in a single instant. But we can, collectively, take time to identify our best options for a sustainable shared future––be they ethical, political, economic, spiritual, or educational in nature––and make them our common goals.

Seeker with the Inkhorn

In the course of composing one life story, my individual character has gone from that of impoverished youth and scuffling student to military veteran, family man, bookseller, caregiver, author, social justice advocate, and artist. Each transformation required exchanges of compassion wherein I was both a recipient and a contributor.

Once, when living in San Francisco, after an emergency situation left me short of funds to pay rent for my downtown studio apartment, an older Black man gave me a lesson in practicing and extending compassion without attempting to compromise my physical or psychological well-being in any way. He insisted on giving me the capital needed and asked that I do one thing in return: “Don’t pay me back no money. The next time somebody come to you for help, just give them whatever you can the same as I did for you. Understand?”

I did. And when possible, I have.

Bright Skylark LP quotation art with image of Author-Poet-Artist Aberjhani holding book of history on African Americans. C2021)

Later still, as an equal opportunity enforcement counselor for the U.S. Air Force Reserves, I saw up-close-and-personal the way private traumas centered around issues like spouse abuse and alcoholism damage people’s lives. And I saw also how we sometimes so effectively shield ourselves with masks of pretense that we fail daily to recognize the life-preserving need to study and practice that simple, yet so powerful, practice I was taught in San Francisco: the art of compassion.

At the core of all my functional personas has been the seeker with the inkhorn constantly transcribing autobiography into diverse forms of literature and journalism. However, that fundamental anchor at times has also undergone the kind of scrutiny which prompted biographer Annie Cohen-Solal to note the following about Jean-Paul Sartre during a powerful transformational period in his life:

“The writer has to die to give birth to the intellectual in the service of the wretched of the earth.” (Cohen-Solal, Sartre, A Life, 2005 Centennial Edition, p. 359.)

Put less dramatically, the statement means acting beyond the need to express individual creative artistry with a conscious intent to render tangible humanitarian service. Some of our best creative thinkers manage, when possible, to combine the two.

NEXT: Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 2: Compassionate Comic Relief

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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<<Previous

National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

Wings of Early Morning Light

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

Journey to a Distant Shore

From Tragedy to Triumph

Striving for Success

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Marking a Savannah Milestone

Surviving to Tell Our Stories

A Cultural Arts Milestone

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
& Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 2: Compassionate Comic Relief

Compassion as a Birthright

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact the Author

Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 1: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life

Identifying Our Best Options

Seeker with the Inkhorn

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

​Wings of Early Morning Light

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

​Journey to a Distant Shore

From Tragedy to Triumph

Striving for Success

By AberjhaniCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My MindCreator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Marking a Savannah Milestone

Surviving to Tell Our Stories

A Cultural Arts Milestone

AberjhaniAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah& Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My MindCreator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 2: Compassionate Comic Relief

Compassion as a Birthright

AberjhaniCo-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My MindCreator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact the Author

Seeker with the Inkhorn Number 1: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life

Identifying Our Best Options

​Seeker with the Inkhorn

AberjhaniCo-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My MindCreator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Wings of Early Morning Light

Journey to a Distant Shore

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
& Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Seeker with the Inkhorn

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle