Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Marking a Savannah Milestone

1/13/2022

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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Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

11/1/2020

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A shortage of compelling topics to address via books, blog essays, podcasts, fine art, photography, electronic gaming, and other creative media has not been among the traumatizing events unleashed upon humanity in the year 2020. Painful history-altering occurrences have, however, included the following: a very stubborn and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, further evidence of climate change in the form of murderous fires in California, riots in cities across America in response to #2ManyLivesGone2Soon, and political unease in the face of an uncertain future.

Detail from artwork titled "Blue Rose of Remembrance for Black Lives Gone Too Soon" by Aberjhani.

Incorporating reports on important public happenings into ongoing projects has long been among the better practices at Bright Skylark Literary Productions. It goes back at least as far to the days of my former AXS National African-American Cultural Arts column when I created art graphics for my news stories. Articles sometimes included original poetry to enhance editorial impact. Where the year 2020 is concerned, the following steps have been taken:

To help combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bright Skylark added face masks to the line of products offered through its Fine Art America storefront.
To help correct social injustices generated by systemic racism and other forms of oppression, the book Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind underwent a timely revision and launched officially in September. Artwork supporting the same goal was posted on Fine Art America.
The Conversations with the World Blog Series launched to encourage dialogues on unifying as well polarizing topics to help bridge the gap between the two.
A previously dormant Facebook author account was reactivated to increase engagement with people concerned about deteriorating social conditions and help identify ways to improve the same.
Works of art presented as tributes to victims of COVID-19 and diverse frontline essential workers were made available at Fine Art America.

Although taking the above steps did not erase the different social, political, and environmental ills currently dogging the world, I like to think they contributed to the process of helping move things in a better healthier direction.

Aberjhani

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Moving forward with global release of: Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

9/14/2020

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“Of Peacocks & Skylarks” art by Aberjhani used in title graphic for "Moving forward with global release of: Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind" C2020.

Sometimes in the middle of a pandemic a writer has to make difficult publishing decisions. That sounds a little odd, I know, but this is one of those times for me as I move forward with the global release of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind, now on its way to online and offline book distributors.

The final stages of releasing Greeting Flannery to the public have not gone as smoothly as preferred but then few things have for most of us since COVID-19 arrived and refused to go away. With that being the case, I had to choose between either continuing to delay release of the book because of stubborn cosmetic problems concerning several pages incorporated to address the impact of coronavirus, or finally give readers access to the literary content I’ve been promising. I opted for the latter choice because the book as it stands, I believe, is a worthy contribution to current dialogues driving strategies to confront serious ongoing issues.

Consider that in addition to coronavirus, we are dealing more aggressively than ever before with: social injustices, correcting cultural biases, ending racial inequality, education versus misinformation, and adapting to a rapidly-changing world.

Quote from Greeting Flannery with art dedicated by Aberjhani to the U.S. West Coast: “With each passing day, I allowed myself to become a little more intoxicated by limitless possibilities which seemed sometimes to roll in with the fog, murmur suggestions that would have made me run yelling from them had I been anywhere [other than San Francisco], then leave me to cope with that special brand of terror bestowed by sweet and sour tastes of freedom.”

Lastly, when weighing the decision whether to publish or further delay release of the book, I was forced to acknowledge the old saying (paraphrasing Proverbs 27:1) that “Tomorrow is not promised us.” Truth of those words has never appeared more self-evident than during this #pandemic. Hopefully, however, the newly-released Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind (ISBN 1-716-68481-1) is only the first in a succession of editions which will improve more and more relevant with each publication . But because this is a first edition and features original art by the author on the front and back covers, plus some rare photographs in its “Antique Photo Album” section, it is a genuine collector’s item. Please remember as well that a collection of corresponding artworks has already been set up with several images on Fine Art America and more will be added throughout the month of September.

I welcome any and all feedback on the book for future editions and hope everyone investing in this one enjoys the read and finds the shared insights useful.

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist
Harlem Renaissance Centennial 2020

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<<Previous

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

Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

Aberjhani

Contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Moving forward with global release of: Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist
Harlem Renaissance Centennial 2020

Contact the Author-Artist

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

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

Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

Aberjhani

Contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Moving forward with global release of: Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

AberjhaniAuthor, Poet, ArtistHarlem Renaissance Centennial 2020

Contact the Author-Artist

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

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

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist
Harlem Renaissance Centennial 2020