An Introduction to Black + Breathing

7:44 AM

Black and breathing is a social practice project by me, Lory Ivey Alexander. I believe that our collective trauma as Black and Brown people can only be healed when we come together collectively, really seeing our past and our future as an interconnected past and future. I believe that the strength of Black people on this planet globally as well as in the United States is rooted in our sense of self through the lens of community. I believe that the village is how and why we are still here.

Our adaptability, our resilience is rooted in our centering of the family and our understanding that family is more than nuclear. This is a cosmic understanding. I hope that you as a Black and Breathing participant can acknowledge that your ancestors had a cosmic understanding that they passed down to you.

You are here doing the self-care work because you are not of a solo-care people.

You are here on your own two feet, perhaps alone, perhaps in a quiet space where you can see no one else, but you are always connected. You are always rooted to the people from whom you came. You are always connected to the people around you. With them, you share the breath.

I often say the Blackness is a big small town. There is Beauty in that. There is interconnectedness in that. There is love in that.

There are also problems in that. We can acknowledge the problems. We can acknowledge the love. Both are inherent. And, in some ways, both are necessary.

But we are still here. And it is the love that carries us. It is the interconnectedness that carries us. So, as you do these meditations, I hope that you can find a connection. I hope that as you breathe through these meditations and do the restorative practices, I hope that you feel inside of yourself the connection to your foremothers, to your children, to your ancestors, to those ancient people who came so far before you, that you were not a twinkle in the eye.

I hope that you can feel deep in yourself the resilience that allowed for our people to endure. That is in you.

I hope to that as you consider what it took for people to get to here, knowing and enduring all that our people endured. I hope that you can acknowledge that some problems came along with that. The brain and the body are focused on survival. And as the human animal, our brains and bodies brought us through.

That left scars. And we are here to treat those scars.

The scars are neither good nor bad, they just are. We talk so often about trauma as if it is something to be ashamed of as if it is itself problematic, but it's not. Trauma is something we can acknowledge. We can think we can even be proud of having bodies and brains that have endured. That have kept us alive.

We can thank our physical bodies. We can thank the collective body. We can thank our ancestors bodies for finding a way to endure. In order for us to get to here.

We can also release that trauma.

We can recognize what serves us and what no longer serves us. The fact that we no longer need some practices, the fact that we are no longer in harm's way, is something to be acknowledged.

It is not shameful or bad that we were once in harm's way.

That is itself, a fact of life.

If we can acknowledge that life has twists and turns and the body protects us, we are able to feel the body. If we can stay present in the body to feel what the body feels to understand, what the body knows, and to let it go, our possibilities are endless.

I also want to acknowledge that most of these meditations will not explicitly address Blackness. That is not because these meditations were not created specifically, in fact, solely for the care of Black people.

I generally don't mention Blackness or the experience of racism during a meditation because I don't believe that it is necessary. I believe that if we center Blackness and Black people in our thoughts, they become the default. When I speak of people, when I speak of love, when I speak of the human-animal, I am speaking of Black people. Black people are the center of my focus. My gaze is set upon our people.

I don't have to categorize us because we are we are not a throwaway species. We are not a sidelined concept. We don't live alongside a default. We are the default.

Furthermore, I don't generally mention racism, or racial trauma, during a meditation because I believe it can be triggering.

I choose to focus on the feeling of pain, the feeling of anger, the feeling of hope. I choose to focus on these very, very human universal feelings. I believe that anyone can pick up most of these meditations and get something from them, but that does not mean that each and every one of them. Every word, every breath, every smile, every laugh, every time I get off and cry: every single piece of this project has Blackness at a center because I believe Blackness needs and deserves to be centered. If not in our own minds, then in whose?

I hope that as you move through these, you can center Blackness for yourself. And take what serves you while leaving, what does not I believe that that is the center of restorative practice learning to take what serves us, thank it, and release what does not, while also thanking it.

I take great pride in having survived. But I believe that life is about more than mere survival. Yes, we are animals. And our species is a survival species. But we are also beings. And we are supposed to BE. We are supposed to exist.

And we should be free to be and to exist.

Through these practices together, this Collective Healing, I hope. I have deep, deep hope that we will all be able to be centering ourselves, recognizing the life force in each other. And recognizing that that life force relies on the life force in each other.

We are a survival species. But we are a WE. We move through time and through a space together. Our breasts are not always in sync, but they are always together. We draw in the same Air. We sit beneath the same Sky. We are rooted to the same Earth.

The waters that brought our people here are the same Waters. I hope that in these restorative practices that you are able to rest in that connectedness.

I thank you for your time, for joining me, for becoming a part of this important project. Your vulnerability builds Blackness.

Black breathing is Black life.

Black restoration is Black future.

Thank you.