my first clue: freedom now
“You here to remind people of free.” Marvin K. White in Our Name Be Witness
How far can newborns see? How about a newborn destined to be nearsighted? Either way, it’s only today as I look back at the words “never sold” above my fathers heart while he held me in the hospital that I realize, this was my first clue about my purpose. I was born to end slavery.
Some people believe that slavery is already over. Some textbooks pretend it never happened. But not only do we live in a world where people are still trafficked and forced to do physical and sexual labor against their will without pay, we also all live each day in a world structured by slavery. Can you tell that this is a sweet and loving post celebrating my Dad’s birthday? Not yet.
My mother labored with me for 36 hours. All through my Dad’s birthday and into the next morning. While my mother brought me into the air, breath by breath, my father drank his first cups of coffee in the hospital cafeteria (he says it was bitter and disgusting). He initiated himself into a new form of wakefulness watching for my immersion. And he was terrified, not only by the life and death stakes of every birth, but also about what it would mean to be responsible for someone else’s life, especially when he didn’t understand his own yet. And then eventually as my mother rested, I was in his arms, swaddled and wiped clean. He put on the standard issue hospital smock to hold me.
The stamp “never sold” on the hospital smock is not a protest against slavery or capitalism. It is a mark of institutional ownership. It probably has something to do with measures of sanitary use and liability. That doesn’t stop it from being one of many clues that I was born to end slavery. Maybe it imbedded a reminder that would be activated years later when I visited the first site of enslavement in the Americas, a sugar mill in the Dominican Republic, and heard the message that I am here to be part of a movement to end slavery in my lifetime.
But how do we replace the current system with life-giving freedom? It was right in front of my face, labeling my father’s heartbeat. The third heartbeat I would learn. Our aliveness cannot be bought or sold. This is the founding lie of slavery, reproduced violently in a system that says you have to sell your aliveness or steal someone else’s to pay for that same life. It took my father a long time to trust his way out of this system. I think it had to do with this moment 44 years and one day ago when his “never sold” heartbeat sounded true in the value of my listening.
This was a special moment, but not a unique moment. We were all born. We all studied the heartbeats of the people who birthed us and the first people who held us. I am potentially not even the only newborn to have seen this exact reusable hospital smock on that day. Which means everyone born in that hospital could take a clue and understand that they too are here to end slavery. You too are here to end slavery, in your own life and for all generations. If you are reading this and you were born in a hospital you were probably greeted by a similar smock and thankfully all clues can be shared and are transferable so if you were born at home or in some other place, you can get in on the assignment too. We are all here for freedom. It just happens to be that the guy wearing the smock also left a map.
Happy Birthday Dad. I’m so grateful that you lived beyond extraction into resonance. I’m grateful that you taught me to listen to my heart, let it be loudest. And I’m grateful that you left a map, a literal life-purpose road map that can support anyone to listen to their purpose and reclaim their breath. The Chrysalis Life Purpose Road Map takes an imaginal approach to transformation and breaks all contracts with fear and scarcity. Sangodare and I are following this map that my father created for individual transformation into collectivity because we know (as my Dad knew) that freedom does not exist on an individual scale, it is only possible in a world of transformed relation where we relate purpose to purpose in resonance, not only with our own reasons for being alive (yes) and not only even with each other’s gifts and genius (yes) but also with the aliveness of this planet which has not been bought and can never be sold.
This month, my Dad’s birthday month and mine too, Sangodare and I are implementing the first 3 month cohort of the curriculum my dad invented: The Chrysalis: Life Purpose Road Map. The virtual-only version of the full curriculum kicks off on the solstice/father’s day (Sun, June 21st at 3pm eastern) and the retreat version kicks off with a weekend in Durham, NC on June 27-28th. You can get all the information here.