Cauleen Smith: Mutualities

Cauleen Smith: “Thank you very much. I’d like to play the piano for you now. One selection was composed several years ago, and is entitled One for the Father. The song is dedicated to John Coltrane.”

(Applause)

(Music: One for the Father)

(Applause)

(Music: “Om Supreme” from Eternity, by A. Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, 1976)

“When I called you
to California
You knew I would meet you
in California 

When I called you
to come to California
You knew I would meet you
in California

California

California

in California

in California

Om Supreme Bhagavan

Om Supreme Bhagavan

Om Supreme Bhagavan

Om Supreme Bhagavan

When I call you
to Kama Loka
You know I will meet you
in Kama Loka

When I call you
to Shiva Loka
You know I will meet you
in Shiva Loka

When you come home
to Turiya Loka
You know I will meet you
in Turiya Loka

And when I call you
to Viranya Loka
You know I will meet you
in Viranya Loka

Satya Loka

Brahma Loka

Turiya Loka

Shiva Loka

Viranya Loka

Om Supreme Bhagavan

Brahma Loka

Om Supreme Bhagavan

Shivananda

Om Supreme Bhagavan…”

Eldress Rebecca Jackson: “Page 98. On Monday, after breakfast, I went to my place of prayer feeling blessed, and while I was beholding the clouds, these words were spoken: ‘Do you know what you have done? You have climbed to the heaven and have taken hold of the clouds.’ I was frightened. My knees gave way. I know not how to lift up my heart in prayer for so great offense. I then wanted to pray to almighty God to forgive me for my ignorance and wickedness. These words were spoke to me: ‘Thou has done no wrong, but – if you can climb to heaven and take hold of the clouds, which are above thy reach, and have power over them, then thou can have power over your life and over thy own body also. Thy must be unmade and remade. And thou must be made a new creature.’”

(Music: Om Supreme)

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: “Lessons on astral navigation were included among the tests. There was forward, reverse flight, also vertical and horizontal. My astral body was always in an upright position. This made standing descents at enormous rate of speed feel devastating. It was like the down rush of a falling elevator. In an astral body, you can fly through glass, through a brick wall of a building, or through any material obstruction without pain or impact, and you can move on air smoothly and swiftly, without stepping and foot pedaling like a human being.”

Eldress Rebecca Jackson: “Page two twenty. Monday evening, February 18th, 1850. I was instructed concerning the atmosphere and then bound. I saw it in its form. It is like the sea which has her bounds. It covers land and sea, so far above all moving things, and lasts so far beneath the starry heavens. Its face is like the face of the sea, smooth and gentle when undisturbed by the wind. So is the atmosphere, when undisturbed by the power of the sun and moon. When agitated by these, it rages like the sea and sends forth its storms upon the earth. Nothing can live above it. A bird could not more live or fly above its face, than a fish could live or swim out of water. It is always calm and serene between its face and starry heavens. The sight, to me, was beautiful.”

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: “Chapter four. Realizations. When you travel around the earth in your spirit body, without the use of machines, you actually stand on air, and travel faster than the speed of thought. The earth, its form, its dimensions, look so peaceful from above. When traveling through some of the astral worlds, I find a beauty that is rarely seen on this earth. The health and vitality of departed souls from this earth is remarkably good.”

(indistinguishable street noises)

Speaker: “Yeah, it’s a whole art creation of Alice Coltrane.”

Speaker: “I think we want it up here.”

Dr. Barbara Ransby: “..We’re all about celebrating each other and celebrating life. We also realize we’re in very serious times, where Chicago police are killing our people in communities throughout this city. Actually very specific communities in this city. Certain parts of the city are very rich, and our people are suffering from lack of jobs, lack of schools, lack of resources, and so the coalition that we are a part of has been very much involved in the streets, and really making an issue of Freedom City. What would it look like to have a Freedom City in the city of Chicago. We are very, very far from that. And we feel like people are being disappeared from our communities now. They’re being disappeared from different parts of the state into prisons. They’re being disappeared by violence, disappeared by mental illnesses that are untreated. So they’re being disappeared in various ways. But we want to remember victims and survivors of state violence…” 

Charlene Caruthers: “Hey y’all. My name is Charlene Caruthers. I was born and raised in this city...”

Eldress Rebecca Jackson: “February 8th, 1849. I was brought into deep tribulation of soul about our people and their present condition, seeing the awful event that is at hand. I cried unto God, who hears the ravens cry, to hear my cry on their behalf. Signed, Rebecca Jackson.”

From Combahee River Collective Statement: “One. The genesis of contemporary Black feminism. Before looking at the recent development of Black feminism we would like to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life and their struggle for survival and liberation. As Angela Davis points out, in Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. There have always been Black women activists. Some known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell. And thousands upon thousands unknown, who have had a shared awareness of how their sexual identity combined with their racial identity, to make their whole life situation and the focus of their political struggles unique. Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, miltancy, and the work by our mothers and sisters.”

Eldress Rebecca Jackson: “March 20th, 1848. I dreamed that Rebecca Perot and I were at a house upon a rock together and a storm rose, which made us feel that we were in great danger. A storm rose also in the west and both met together and came with great force upon the house. A stream of water ran north and south upon the east side of the house, and I thought the storm would dash the house into the water and it would carry us down to New York, and then our friends would see our good home, and our destruction also. I felt not to go out, and I said to Rebecca, ‘We will stay in the house,’ though the storm was heavy. And the house stood firm, because it was built on a rock. “

From Combahee River Collective Statement: “Two. What we believe. Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered our specific oppressions as a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. Merely naming the pejorative stereotypes attributed to Black women, (e.g., mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous treatment we receive, indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community, which allows us to continue our struggle and work.”

From Combahee River Collective Statement: “This focusing upon our oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identities, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression. In the case of Black women, this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious that from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. Combahee River Collective, April, 1977.”

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: “Page 48. The Lord can produce sound from such non-musical entities as motors, electrical appliances, clocks, dishwashers, refrigerators, cars, airplane engines, window panes, water, trees, the wind, and from people without their knowledge. I once listened to a great musical play on melody and rhythm during the sleep of some relatives. Their respiratory rate increased while they slept and their out- and in-going breath became a vehicle for sound and song. Six people sounded as if they were one hundred strong. Effects of cymbals, bells, tinkling percussion and dialectic inflections, if the songs were of foreign origin, were clearly audible. Many of the celestial instruments can be played without the use of hands, or any physical contact whatsoever. Your mind, your heart, is your only approach to them. Your thoughts open up the many avenues of sound and expression on these wonderful instruments.”

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: “What is monumental and eternal to me is to feel the Lord’s play and hear the Lord’s laughter or talk. Why, just this morning, the Lord said to me, “Hey, Turiya. At dawn, sit at the feet of action. At noon, be at the hand of might. At the eventide, be so big, that sky will learn sky.”

(Music: “Spiritual Eternal” from Eternity by Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, 1976)