Numb, Dumb, and High!

The events of this week have been weighing on my spirit.  Not for any reasons different for most and many that are.  It's incredibly challenging to manage feelings for something going on in the world that resulted from injustice while living the results of the same roots of madness yourself.  Yes, I don't have the extreme of a murdered black youth lying in the street AND I do have the walking zombie whose spirit has already been snatched.  I heard Al Sharpton claim our spirit has not broken, just bent.  Bend how far before it breaks?  I think we have long ago past the breaking point and continue to show signs of our brokenness.  I think most of what we do when reacting to a broken system is how people respond when they are broken and don't know it yet.  Addressing that toll on the spirit, the rerun we are in that rarely results in something different, seems so shallow an expectation to hold after experiencing the tragedies black people endure in North America as a result of white supremacy.  Hearing the rhetoric that labels our feelings as irrational, or something we should learn to get over, seems exhausting.  I get why survival would have me just stay Numb, Dumb, and High in order to manage it all.

Why engage?  Why get involved?  Why bother?  Simplistically complex -- there are not easy answers to complex feelings, layers of upset that make the body, mind, and spirit physically react leading to a FIGHT or FLIGHT response.  I was saved from spiralling into depression this week by a Mexican Proverb:

"They tried to bury us but the didn't know we were seeds!"

With each generation, a contribution, a legacy has been left that forces movement, transformation.  If what I believe is TRUE, people can not remain blind to injustice forever.  For those who experience it, the pace of change will never be fast enough.  There will never be enough to anesthetize the pain of the festering wound.  There will always be allies who empathize and are activated into action.  There will always be young people, not yet cynical and jaded, still piss'n fire, whose back's the revolution will occur on.  There will always be those who will offer their sacrifices to the cause.  And the cycle and cypher will continue to present opportunity to defend the DREAM.

And the minds who will work to create anew from the ashes of the old will be revealed.  Justice cannot afford to remain blind to oppression being one of the greatest motivating and innovative forces in the history of the world.  Cigarillos, Toy Guns, Dark Hallways, Loud Music, Hoodies, Lousy Cigarettes, Skittles, A Wallet, Iced Tea, Wrong Turns, Wrong Neighbourhoods, Picking up Your Kids, Bachelor Party, Poor Choice, No Choice, Any Choice, Defending Yourself, can't stop the show.  They all stand as examples of one understanding so awesomely articulated by my friend Deborah Peterson Small:

"White Supremacy should be treated as a public health crisis that endangers all of our lives in order to maintain the status quo"

It comes with heavy doses of HISTORIC AMNESIA so we victim blame and we commit 'Wag-the-Dog' distraction techniques fanning the flames of hopelessness so we don't fight back in the ways we can.  Instead, we fight each other.  It cements us in our Privilege, ignoring TRUTHS we don't want to face building up our apathy so there is no fight at all in the century of self.

It's all an illusion.  You see, on many days I do wish I had taken the BLUE PILL so I too can walk around in the general malaise and apathy of blissful ignorance, numb and high inside of the Matrix.  But I didn't.  I took the RED PILL.  I chose!!!!!  I chose my right to DREAM.  To DREAM a world I have the power to make real.  Not for any other reason than my unwillingness to sacrifice another generation of young people to some BULLSHIT!!!!!

Revolution will happen on the backs of young people and I'd rather see young people ready themselves to stand in their greatness then to lie in the street helplessly believing this is their fate.  So, as I manage trying to find a home for my homeless feelings, I know,

"Justice is What LOVE looks like In Public"- Cornel West 

Some Shit!

Shrimp/Prawns

Catfish

good healthy organically grown vegetables​/fruit

Shawshank Redemption

Short list of things that I love that grow from some shit! 
Andy Dufresne crawled through 3 miles of shit to get to his freedom. 
The perfect storm to wake the fuck up to the lusciousness that awaits me if I'm ready to walk through my shit,
some shit! 

Every morning, in the space of silence, I look at my shit to make sure I'm healthy. 
I know if I don't have that moment, my day will be full of shit. 
So I have to let the shit out. 
When I let go of some shit, I feel so much better.
When I'm not ready to let go of my shit, that shit stays with me.
Holy crap! 
I love this shit!
I love you all!

Sent with Love from my Crackberry10 device!
#BeMoreCommUNITY

Mc's Commencement Opening - Class of 2014

Every school year I hope there is a lesson that can be an opportunity for me to reflect on my own life.  This year, I was fortunate to receive that gift from two places.  One came from a former student who is living in Romania playing professional basketball.  The other came from a current student.

In the middle of the night, I received a message from a former student.  It has simple question: "How is good coaching good parenting?

My answer to him was the following: "It comes with the same accountability that balances providing someone with opportunities to be their greatness while at the same time nurturing that person to believe something that is only possible in the moment.  Coaches and parents believe what you say you want and then put you in a position to achieve it."

Can I ask the entire staff of Woodroffe HS to please stand?

These are the people who for four plus years have held you up, supported, and nurtured you toward a possibility that didn't exist when you said it.  These are the people who came to work every day with a commitment to provide you with as rich an experience as possible such that you could discover something about yourself along the way.  They coached you when there was no light in the tunnel and an end was far away.  They held you could do it even when it was only a possibility!  I am proud to be part of a staff of committed passionate people!  Thank you!

The other lesson came from a current student who after a turbulent time, she came up to me and declared, "Miss, I'm always under construction!"  We are all always under construction.  The Me I was when I walked through these doors 16 yrs ago is not the ME I am today.  The you you are now is not the you you were when you walked in these doors four or five years ago.  Four or five years ago when you were a fresh faced grade nine student, there was a hope we all held for you.  Each and every one of us.  It was a start!

Class of 2014, Here you are again, at the 'Commencement' of a new opportunity.  Geared up to meet your new coaches who will support, nurture, and hold you in Love while you explore your potential once more wherever life's road carries you next.  Remember that you are always under construction, a precious work in progress.  Just like the Vanier Pkwy exit on the 417, the construction zone is ugly first.  We don't always see the final picture of what it's going to look like.  When the building is complete, the beauty that comes from what was created has us forget about all the work it took to get to the final product.  Don't forget about what it took to get here and always strive to be under construction, building and transforming the World!

Congratulations!

Miss Coddett

"The DNA of what we do will NOT change!" - Coach Dub

This weekend was an intriguing social experiment along the journey of coaching the lives of young men through basketball.  I'm not going to relive every upset associated with going 0-8 collectively, the events and decisions that brought us to that moment, and that we are soft as butter only pretending to be tough guys.  What's actually interesting to notice is how many times young men who lack confidence will use an excuse in order to never be required to fix what's really wrong - a slightly scary understanding considering that they believe basketball is part of their futures.  I liken it to what happens when there is a part of our body that stops functioning at full capacity.  We will create ways around it that provide the illusion we ARE functioning at 100% instead of the smarter step of seeing a doctor to find a cure versus just a fix.

This year's group of players has a huge case of that disease and their source of suffering lies in the gap (the gap that is created between where you think you are and where you actually are).  In practices during the week, they go through the training with similar struggle.  When they get in a game that translates into the experience of discomfort the comes from knowing how much better you could/should be but you're not.  Here's an example of what got me immediately present to the crazy this creates:

"Sir, why are you carrying your shoes in your hands when you have an almost empty bag to put them in?"  Answer: "I prefer to carry them in my hand because then they won't get lost."
WTF are you telling me?  Even when I said you're a rassoul and put them in your bag, he continued to assert his flawed logic and argument when it was met with another option.  He even may have had supporters for his flawed position who didn't possess the courage to back him up in the moment once they observed my freak out.  They would be, in that moment, choosing, like in the body example, to function at a lesser capacity then to be more efficient.

His was seemingly unable to even acknowledge the ridiculous of what he was doing as it was being pointed out.  This is just the tip of the iceberg for this group and generation of player.  There are always going to be moments given by life to test where you are at along your journey toward your own ideas / concepts of success.

DUMBNESIA - inability to acknowledge/ remember / recognize that what you did or said was dumb! (Source - #AfuaDictionary)

This was the word I created right after that child told me his dumbness.  It was the answer from the universe I had been requested in order to language what I have been experiencing from this group/generation of players.  His ridiculous was the inspiration but the experience of the whole team this year can be credited for the inspiration of the word.  He was just that moment's lesson.

Choosing.....

Scared over Courage
Failure over Success
Safety over Risk
Old over New
Bullshit over Sense
Not Try over Try
Easy over Hard
Self over Team
Bravado over Confidence
Fake over Real
Deception over Honesty
Lies over Truth
Take over Give

Somehow the consequences of Dumbnesia have supported the illusions that allow this team to be stuck in a place, faking a belief they are where they want to be OR they are going to get what they say the want OR they are going to get where they want to go.

The true sadness of a case of Dumbnesia is that many of these young men WILL get some of the things they say they want while never realizing how much they have missed because they were unwilling to challenge themselves beyond the pain caused by staying the same as they've always known.

If the fear of being NEW and BETTER is greater than the pain of staying the same as you've always known, then you will never get ALL of what is possible.  I actually know that.  Like KNOW it.....I think even a greedy person can see the logic of that so what would really be going on with a group of over 25 young men who seem unable or unwilling to see the bigger picture for their lives?  Why would I choose Mediocre over Greatness when Greatness is available?  Because it's HARD!

Well here's the NEWs FLASH - Important things are at stake here and we will not suffer a fool lightly.  "The DNA of what we do will not change." I AM Phoenix and I can say that because I WANT to be Great!  We are Phoenix.  We always RISE from the ASHES!