Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Christmas is neither white nor black, the Mother of Sorrows keeps talking... A BLACK VIRGIN MARY appeared in Kibeho, Rwanda

An image of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding 
the Christ Child is made out of African butterfly wings. (CR Staff/George P. Matysek Jr 
When your butterflies flutter peacefully and become my Mother, then does Nightbird sing of some joy for the sun in us, on earth. No one wants to be orphans
without you we are ...

Let it rain!

There was a time our dry banana fibres also became you and we loved your warmth. You filled our homes with rainbows. We walked everywhere in awe as the floor showed it has seen you passing on a cloud. You took the home of tobacco and turned it into that of silent conviction. 

But when the time to speak came, you were not silent. History is selected. Privacy has hidden treasures. It is necessary but not permanently? And not when it protects tomorrow´s explosion!
Ah, would silence reign for peace!

Long ago people shook hands to show that they were friendly and not armed. In the part of Afrika  where Nightbird conceived, a peace branch is waved BY MEN to stop war. Signs means something more than words. The women live in the hope of not attacking them and children. Never.

There are peace trees. What about this? Are there signs to stop poverty and hunger, other wars? Now arms are more in the soul and in the mind? 

Nightbird thought hard and answered, "It appears that we have to get bare. We must tell one another what really is inside there, what we have been teaching and hiding at the same time? Does it match? What we really think and what drives what fear? Why are we so private when it comes to our roots as souls? Should that separate us that much or so dangerously? Nightbird is just trying to find out.

Last week Nightbird and her friend Fatuma were discussing the attacks on Paris, Garissa, Beirut and so many places as well as crusades by Christians in the past and conversions by force. Nightbird agreed this was ugly and so much has been so. But they focused on beauty. Fatuma said beautiful is the sura on Maryamu in the Quran, very beautiful, she said because it explains so clearly how Maryamu was a single mother who conceived by a miracle.
Nightbird was rather intrigued. How little she knows. 

Fatuma told Nightbird that when she is depressed she goes to St. Michael, a church in the city where she comes from and finds a corner where she said Maryamu is. 

It turns out that it is the statue of Lourdes Mother that is there. And then Fatuma said, all the doubts disappear, the pain and the confusion and for a while, she feels a soft breeze consoling her. Nightbird could only stare. When she was there last, she only saw a dark reflection of the same statue. Or so she thought. 

She considered it strange, but when Fatuma, a refugee, got her permission to live in that city, she run straight to the Lady, to thank her. She said she learnt from Eastern Europeans whom Maria is. They came from a land where they were fighting each other on ethno-religious differences.

Why are we so concerned about what moves a radical to terror... if we hide our own convictions so much, or even visions unless they are being reported for funding? There is a vacuum then? Nature does not respect it.


Or why do we always show our ´mission´ and ´vision´ in a mathematical way which suits the economy if the result we want is freedom and social cohesion? Who steps out when it comes to ´what do you believe?´ which seems today to be the same as ´what do you think?´ Are these the same things, to think and to believe?

I revere your silent secrecy, and not having everything, everywhere is key too. We need oases of peace and privacy but only when their results are a surprising impetus for good in our lives and those of nature. Like that.

We try to transform other materials into new and beautiful things. Who can teach us to transform inhumanity to humanity and defeat inhumanity of violence. Nightbird carries words.

When your butterflies flutter peacefully and become my Mother, then does Nightbird sing of some joy for the sun in us, the world. No one wants to be orphaned.

Everyone wants to be enveloped by happy nature in which one can see the images of things one loves. 

 Like a tall giraffe walking as if on a cloud. Like an ocean coming home as if it is leaving ....

In the night, Nightbird sees trees becoming elephants and rivers singing silvery tears ring. In the morning buildings are part of the sky in harmony with the stars as the celebrated feast of Christmas. Has it got anything to do with faith for many? 

Who said a certain friendliness is not faith? Happy Diwali, we all love light? But nightbird manages. Where does she begin to tell the story of how...interesting life can be? From being a foetus?


Hearing takes priority in the human being that is yet unborn not sight. Nightbird listens. It is said to be the same about a faith, one might have, not have or may have heard about, but sometimes both come into play, Nightbird has learned at the same time.

 Nightbird calls on, again... for a mother...and now Nightbird wills that she turns all colors. Nightbird is happy in their darkness they share. Nightbird loves her black and tells her..that so black she should return to Europe where her songs could be louder. Her hugs. Her mystical ways. These are not about any one teaching. To be mystical you touch all by touching one. 
Nightbird, stop getting so preachy and excited, just wait!
No she answers, there is here a story that is interesting since NOBODY is pushed to believe it or in any apparition.

From the middle ages to this day, a figure of someone referred to as Mother, woman, Lady... Virgin... keeps appearing to different people with the same messages. Those who see her report great joy.

She warns of the loss of joy through her tears. Wars, genocides, lack of peace, ethnic hatred, hungry power, greed... all the anxiety that results from these she does NOT at all like. She suffers and sheds tears all the time. But freedom is her key and not force. Her dazzling light does not take away the responsibility to see with plain sight.

Who is she? She loves flowers and colors, who is she? She does not like it when people are sick and tired and heals whilst reminding of the pain that all human beings must suffer, in her words, the cross. Whose daughter is this?

Our Lady Of Afrika
Nightbird has been wordless with world news which are amplified by long nights like sounds in darkness. Why do we not understand the power of color? Another one downed, yet another group killed in terror. What color is joy?  Nightbird reads today about the theology of color, where black means life.


Restless beyond what any fiction or truth can tell Nightbird is. Is there a new coming? She kept asking. So, then Nightbird took a long break, and in silent darkness she listened. 

Sometimes in the darkness of the night
an owl sings how she knows.
And we all say she hoots,
and many yell foul,
as if in sport competition.
But still be the midnight´s silence,
the owl just sings,
and the moon washes her tears.
She is an owl bright and clear,
a star whether elf or giant
...

One night, the owl hears
the only answer,
from a little flower struggling to  grow
in a forest beneath so many huge trees.
To sight the moon is gentle,
my love,
the owl hears.
To look the sun --
is hard even where it shines,
all day.
The whole sun to see in a ray,
a rare gift,
of her sharp sight.

The owl shares the moon with the little flower sun
and we do not understand,
their sweet caress,
and their silent sound,
they fear us!
  Philo Ikonya, Out of Prison- Love Songs, Locker, Wien. 2010


"To sight the moon is gentle. The whole sun to see in a ray."
Nightbird is awake when the moon begins to meet the sun. The Morning Star has fascinated her with its absolute beauty on winter mornings, no matter. Stars still flicker. And she turns north and south. Back to the woman, Lady...Mother.

Nightbird understands her concern with social issues is what many people fear is political and very sensitive. In Fatima, named after Mohamed´s daughter who was married to a Christian there, the Lad left a message about the conversion of Russia and told about the problems of 1917, the revolution. It was so serious that St. John Paul II did what the Lady wanted in 1985. He consecrated Russia to her. What does that mean? Nightbird does not know. 

Nightbird has also discovered that the Lady is revered as Mother of All Nations. The Lady is concerned for all history and powers of nations.

This one, she does not make the news the way First Ladies of the world do through reporters. She, herself brings her own news. Nightjar was reading by the light of the moon and asking her why she was always in one part of the world. The North.

Why not dark, why not African? Now Nightbird has seen records of that is where she started showing up. She knew Egypt on foot. And then it turns out that some months before Nightbird asked her that she had been there, back there in her mystical form and beauty. 

Many of her visits are not recognised but they persist for years even when some thought that it was all hysteria... but the people say she was there, is there, and everything aligns itself in order. In Kenya she has a village in Subukia. The waters there heal or comfort and there is a way of cross in the trees.  

In Mukuyu- Ini or Mũkũyũ-inĩ, Koma Rock in Kayole Nairobi and now in Machakos somewhere, there is always her sound. She is there. 

In a place called Kibeho, in Rwanda, she appeared speaking of the terror that would come if the people did not pray hard enough. Her message there, in 1982, is just as she gave it in Sweden to a woman later to be known as St. Bridget of Sweden in 1343.  Her message: Think of my Seven sorrows.  In 1876, her visit was approved in France and she became a public entity for those who will at Lourdes.

She was always pleading about nations, economic problems, wars, genocides like someone who had read history before her story was on earth. And now at Medjugorje, Bosnia where so many Serbs died and where again religions clashed, she is attracting millions. Terror repels. She attracts like a magnet. People run to such a possibility and will even crawl there to see where it is said she stood and is waiting to bring about something that will baffle all nations.

Nightbird belongs to the world which wants stars, no matter how far one has to go. The world that aligns with light and victory no matter how dark the night is. For actually the most amazing miracle Nightbird knows right now is how the dream of possible peace and a happier world fights inside most people. Never dies. Can never be terrorised. Millions of people have hope. That is not news. It is the story of Nightbird blogging gone nuts!


Saturday, August 22, 2015

Zimbabwe don´t cry for poet Chenjerai Hove....Zimbabwe left him... he never left Afrika...

1956 - July 12. 2015. Chenjerai Hove, belongs to humanity as always... so Zim, don´t cry for him, cry for Zimbabwe....

http://www.philoikonya.com/poet-in-exile.html


Oh, but he loud and clear.... can say...


"Don´t cry for me, Zimbabwe, the truth is I never left you.... all through my life time, I kept my promise." His promise to letters and the arts, but not to 
authority that cripples, not to police that manage books as he writes here in this brilliant essay: Beautiful Words are Subversive:  file:///Users/philo/Downloads/chenjeraia_hove_be             autiful_words_are_subversive%20(2).pdf... 

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Woman in Exile, Nightbird on Micere Githae Mugo's Exile, a story of a woman undaunted


Micere Githae Mugo of Syracuse USA
The spirit of woman that lives in the play titled The Trial of Dedan Kimaathi by Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.... palpitates from Micere Mugo's gentle and brave heart as I know it now.



And of travellers we were all born.. on that journey. And travellers look for the next nook and the water that may be there in a silent cave or cove... still flowing, still. Still and silent waters of oru thirst demand now.

Tell me about her now who fills my soul, who pours libation to our women African ancestors... tell sing her to us now and not later. 

And tell Nightbird why a woman so immense can pass through the world without some stars falling in her path to just remind us that beyond the sun.... beyond the sun... and the rain, there are still universes... Sing Micere, sing!


When some friends of Micere Mugo gathered in April 2015 at Syracuse to celebrate her, Nightbird would have liked to be there, but travel on bird's wings is not always light.

But her ear is never filled and she could hear the voices of the world that speak about Micere and to Micere and that are in many ways children of Micere.

Nightbird wanted to be there but she sent a letter in which she shared from her heart. A thing Micere Mugo does in such a special way and with so much humility. Micere Githae Mugo, a child and mother of Kenya who to Nightbird is a return of Isis, an African goddess. Amost always invisible do the women go and come, are in exile and later, we sing of their godliness. Nightbird wants to sing her now.

Nightbird has been silent for a while, quite shocked by the rediscovery of some people who live among us as angels, always open to share, to give and to urge life on.  And that is not easy when the idealism and glory of youth have been abused by a nation. Kenya, did not treat Micere Githae Mugo well and Nightbird is not ready to take little change for that.

She went into exile at the same time as Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and she too was arrested and traumatised. She first went to live and luckily work in Zimbabwe before leaving for the USA. 

Her life of success and losses gained and endured in her times away from home is touching in its silence. For a woman fleeing intolerant authorities with children in her heart and mind is the limit the hardest extreme of exile.

Where should I hide my heart in writing about Micere here, and where will my often praised words, when will and how can they fly high enough to touch her dignity. Not just because she has been personally kind to me and also taken my work seriously but also because she does that with a whole lot of people who have not much time or chance to ever say it!

It is like that...stars, bear me out.

Nights can be so dark but they will never beat strong spirits. The real dawn is not the one Nightbird sees. She means, the one you see in the morning or in your mind. The dawn is greater than that.

 It comes with splendor no doubt but in her, there are sunrises and dawns that never fail because they are lit up by meetings with persons who light up souls. Prof Micere Githae Mugo is one of these. We have to sing our world of the beauty of mind and soul of many women. She is one of them.

The point is that even before I delve into sharing on the beauty of the life and the spirit of Micere who is still working hard in this world, the point is that women in exile are often forgotten. Even that is gone out of our Tweetlives. Find me there @Philowriting...sometimes.

Many writers and readers, activists, philosphers and commentators even just wayfarers ... 

She took her son by the hand... in that poem and yes, Daughter of our People sings, and there Nightbird recalls her beloved works. It is easy to forget about a woman in exile. It is easy. It should not be!

In the name of Ngai...

 Nightbird cannot shut her eyes but she is not here to cry but to remind us of a our  own Mother in exile who was celebrated at Syracuse University recently, and decked in a golden dress that women whom am checking if to acknowledge publically sent her. What a beautiful sign. 

For women have found it hard to show love women, Shailja Patel, says in another message and this leaves us all weaker. Here women are not afraid to stand up and say it. Micere deserves many accolades. For her work as a teacher, for her poetry and other writings and for ever being ready to write back and lend a hand, to anyone from a nation that rejected her, and a world she learned to embrace in pain.

Nighbird remembers a little girl asking her mother if any woman in Kenya was a professor. Well she looked at her and said... "We have Wangari Wa Maathai!" It matters for all of us that there are role models we can relate to. I don't know what became of this little girl but for sure, she learnt something. She was watching TV and all these men, always, were being mentioned with titles in every part of the news. 

From the presidency to agriculture. An area in which also in Zimbabwe whereNightbird watched news for some days, the President's visiting activities were more important than the big fact in Africa. Agriculture and so much lies in the hands of women with and without degrees. Prof Wangari Maathai was a vetrinary doctor. The giant mind which sang "Lauda Si" before Pope Francis did.

So, I laud, although in the hurry of travel blogging.... Micere Mugo.... in exile whom I shall write to and about again. Her words have fed Nightbird's exile
in a way that only holy food can. I write this with joy knowing that no word is enough to capture the spirit of a human being, and definitely not one like Micere Mugo. Read her life. Read her works. A woman in exile goes to the world like an open page.... read... read!




 

Monday, May 18, 2015

The power of place and us, here is a shadow of Eva Pĕtric, does it touch you? It has touched Nightbird


I am a birdie... photo credit, Eva Petric
Eva Petric towering, flying... I am a birdie, poem by Eva Petric, below
In our times, Nightbird likes finding some deep questions which sound quite familiar ...yet they seem to fly away... Birds. Originality you cannot put down. 

Only upohold

To connect with poems and to disconnect. To move with the shadows and to abandon them. This is her new heartbeat and it goes on. 
So Eva Pĕtric caught her attention. Eva writes herself as a pronoun with a small 'i'. 

Listening to her questions you might imagine you know the answers but do you? To know them you have to read her 1215 pages... of her.. Gr@yMatter language of shadows. Nightbird has only just began. But it is exciting to read...

"Me and the other?" Asks Eva. "Why am I I and why am I not you? When do I become you? When does you become I and I become you? Is the shadow that I see mine or yours? We all have shadows, whether we want it (sic) or not, whether we notice them or not. Shadows belong to each and everybody, regardless of age, sex, education, social status etc. Shadows always tasteless, odorless, immaterial, are great equalizers...My installation of shadows is an open box, box without skin, floating.... ?" Nightbird reached out to Eva to hear her own answers.

Nightbird was once invited to an art exhibition by Eva Petric in Vienna. It turns out that she could never sleep because of the shadows of hope and change that Eva's art cast on her. And so it is, so it is. We all leave something and Nightbird is very sensitive to these things as well as footsteps. 



So, she watched Eva tell everyone that women have used needle and thread for years to do what surgeons do without hearts when they operate. Did I skip a beat? Did you? Nightbird liked Eva's originality and power and followed her. She had questions not so much about gray matter but many other things. 


Eva was born in Slovenia in 1983 when Nightbird had already written her PhD in Spanish after studying Latin, Kiswahili, Literature and Linguistics.  She wanted to know if Eva, now a hard working and focused artist remembers her early days in Africa. She travelled far to reach her. Not in the way of kilometers but in the mind. Nightbird wanted to see how a girl with four continents for wings, flies. Eva is a poet too.

Another bird in flight...and when searching beyond shadows she is lost... and we if we do not search with her will be lost even more...

Birdy*

searching

for the lost in me-
searching,

for what I lost inside me.
searching.
i am lost inside me.

i am birdy.

i wish to no longer be.

i wish to rewind.

i am forward.

i am not i.

i am birdy, flown ahead…

*Eva Petrič, This Space Is a Box, Drava Publishing House 2007, Klagenfurt, Austria, p.65;
Eva Petrič, Dieser Raum ist eine Schachtel, Drava Verlag, 2009, Klagenfurt, Austria, p. 63.

The birdie is strong ... she says..she uses words that carry you away...and lean between philosophy and art... is there such a space for play?

"I take space and develop it further, by extending it, changing it, adapting it to an already existing

space, out of which or inside of which potential exists for even many more spaces. I am interested in

the phenomena of exponenting - on how may exponents I can reduce a certain existing physical space
and/or transform it into many more. By “playing” with various perspectives that are enabled to me by
using various media, from photography, performance, literature, installation to video and film, I try to
acquire the characteristics of a bird, aiming for the clouds!"


It was a long journey which also involved the silencing of Nightbird's wings and so it has been months. In the meantime as Nightbird flapped around, Eva flew to many places with her art work. Then Nightbird threw some arrows like spears at her to try and see if she could find out what is in this great love of art in Eva. Who is Eva?


Eva Petrič, b. 1983 in Slovenia, grew up and attended schools on four continents (Africa, Asia, America, Europe) and now lives and works in Vienna, Austria, and in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is engaged in art photography, video, performance and writing. In 2005 she graduated cum laude from psychology and visual art at Webster University Vienna, and in 2010 graduated MFA in new media at the Transart Institute Berlin/Danube University Krems, Austria.. She is a member of the Kuenstlerhaus Vienna as well as the Association of fine artists of Slovenia..
Her visual work was displayed at 27 solo exhibitions and at 37 group exhibitions in Slovenia, Argentina, Austria, China, Germany, Italy, Philippines, Spain and USA. She has received numerous recognitions and awards, among them the recogntion of the 2011 Pfann Ohmann Preis Vienna, Austria, the 2010 Vordemberge-Gildewart award, grant of the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia for 2010, "Art critics' choice" for February 2008 by the Association of the Slovenian Art Critics, "Artist of the month" for June/July 2008 of Art Lab, Hilger Gallery, Vienna, Austria, and was Finalist (as Z+E+M art collective) in 2009 International open call of ID Consonni, for public art intervention in Sondika, Spain. In 2006 she received the Čižek award for the best short digital video in 2006 in Slovenia, as well as two grants of the Film Foundation of Slovenia for the development of two of her screenplays. In 2012 her work Solar Cell was selected for the 2012 Beijing International Art Biennale and in 2013 she was one of the ten nominees to represent Slovenia at the 2013 Venice Biennale of Art.
Eva Petrič is the author of two novels (Box without skin, floating and They all ate sushi), published in Slovene, English, German, Spanish and Macedonian languages as well as of the poetry book This space is a box, published in Slovene and German language, illustrated with her series of black and white photographs. The covers of her books contain her artwork.

Her 1215 pages book of the artist Gr@y Matter - language of shadows, from which the present display at the BergdorfGoodman shop-windows stems, contains 300 black and white analog in dark room manipulated photographs and is part of the permanent collection of the International Centre for Graphic Art in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as well as the Salon for Artists Books in Vienna, Austria. 


Black and white make gray...Nightbird thought that Eva was most original in her approach to things we grapple with often and fail... some borders we create and boxes we like to sleep in? Nightbird asked Philo Ikonya to ask Eva three questions and just report them verbatim and here you  can read them and see why Eva fascinates.

Philo I (PI) How has place impacted on your art? Or can you explain the power of place?


Eva Petric (EP) Ever since i have been little i remember moving around to different places, houses, names, people surrounding me, from Ethiopia to India to Washington DC to New York City to Vienna to Slovenia and back again to Vienna and Buenos Aires....so naturally being small i searched to connect these "differences". In this "self defensive action"  i came to see and realize, that we are not so different at all, but in our base very similar! We all have emotions and we all have a body and senses...but the way in which to bring about these emotions in each and every one of us differs. No one person, no one lifetime is replicable, identical, as we all have different experiences. But paradoxically i think, even though the experiences are various and vary so much, the emotions resulting are similar... This fascinates me and shows me that we are more similar, more connected then might appear to us... And naturally this inspires me to think, to hope to continue working with the idea in mind that greater harmony is possible between us all as a people and also us in relation to our home, planet Earth.... I think that art should strive to bring its viewers into such emotional states where this is made apparent, obvious, and thus believable and with this bringing about the yearning for more and a prolongation of this felt state  -to ensure greater possibility of its materialization as well as sedimentation amongst us as a people and inhabitants here of planet Earth...

PI 
You have lived in many continents, what in art draws people from different backgrounds together?

EP I think it has to do with emotions...like we all have a body and thus a shadow, we also all have emotions, which we unfortunately too often place in the shadow...In my work in art, I deal a lot with emotions, with shadows...precisely because I am interested in that which is common to all people, because it is that which is able to  bind us together into a tight network of what may be the human pattern... The medium of art are emotions and it is exactly emotions which draw people together! Because it is through our emotions that we are aware of our being here and now, in this space and time.Thus i am interested in emotions and emotional states and how they are built up. But even more so, I'm interested to CREATE emotional states, emotional landscapes for people to walk into , submerge into and in this way travel to places where their inner voice leads them to ...

PI 
Name one or two problems that you think all people on earth share. Has your art brought testimonies of impact on that same level of such a problem?

EP

Not being aware of their emotions, the emotional level of their being , which is a pity because if we look closely, it is really only through the emotions that one can really be HERE and NOW and get the most out of our current material reality, exploring it, experiencing it, and sharing it further through a reinterpretation of it...

Borders, barriers, mental, physical as well as psychological. This is why i was fascinated to explore the crossing of, the surpassing g of borders in all possible ways. The concrete one which i focused a lot on was that of transplantation...in search to find the answer to "where does i end and where does you begin and where does you begin and where does i end" i asked for a co operation with Vienna's main hospital the AKH - if i could take part in their transplantation sessions and document what i see and what i experience. I feel it is very important for artists not to only document the visual, via various apparatus, the camera and the idea, but also in terms of feelings...this offers a view into how we ourselves might have changed...

PI
What is inspiring for change?


EP
 For me, what is inspiring for change is that which is invisible, especially hematomas, weak and pressured spots in society, the body, the psyche ...as well as taboos, and cliches, because it is HERE that i see room for reinterpretation in todays context of living here and now. If anything, i feel it is art which has the ability to initiate change as it subtly opens the doors for change to even be possible, giving it the chance to  leak out into the greater common worlds....So it goes to say, all the things lacking in something, that which needs fixing....the imperfect because it is so much more full of potential for transformation, which I feel is the key role of art... like a destination, a refinery... 

And the Nightbird can fly off ...with much fuel and food for thought from the ever creative Eva who does these astonishing works... with a stroke of genius. 

Nightbird will be back... with some more knowledge of German which is keeping her zwischen dem blog und Gramatik Bücher in a language that cares very much not only for where every capital is but also for every single sign. Das ist alles! Nicht Alle! Kein Artikel!




Sunday, April 5, 2015

Racism in ideas keeps all of it alive, Dark Matter might redeem us... Higgs Boson...Super gliders...


EIght bullets for Micheal Slager and... killed by cop in North Charleston
Killed. Eight bullets... is this not an epidemic... In the mean time.. science is far
advanced. Where is the balance? April 8 2015
Nightbird has been thinking about the absent of some ideas from some parts of the world in what the world passes as books on thinking....and then it happens that just when she wanted to write about it, some very bad news is out. And apparently good news on Dark Matter.

Nightbird never thought that the matter of understanding that black life must have dignity in America, in America and everywhere, would be much more advanced. Much more by now.

Searching for Dark Matter begins. Science. Five beams around the tunnel. New insight into Dark Matter is exciting. It may come from one man but Nightbird really hopes that one day, nobody will write about thinking without pointing out that all people of all races think and write and speak out. And thoughts should not have color. But one wonders if all this is just above the surface. What is underneath the perpetual treatment of black males especially like this? Treatment? No? Shooting them dead. 

But Nightbird can ask some questions on the side. Nightbird know how much value there is in inventing, working hard on sciences and philosophy. Nightbird also believes that we are caught up in not showing how and about what people think in the world unless they are at the centre of big prizes and inventions. There are many inventions by black people that are simply downplayed. If everything you use is made only elsewhere by others then who are you? And yet, should production determine who you are?

There is nothing or pretty Nightbird can change on who invented what at what time and where they came from. As long as some people are presented as absent in the world of thought, of philosophy. As long as their achievements are only in the body, in Football and sports and even there they are abused for it, then forget about any meaningful liberation.

To find out more and more about the universe and where we are and who we are is welcome. Have we found out who we are on earth and where we are and where we are going. We are going to learn far more about the universe. The topic is on BBC as Nightbird writes this... and these are the words. It is a huge investment and yes, technology goes up and Nightbird is for it.... but questions linger on earth. What have we done with light and darkness in the world so far. 

The speed of stars, how they look, how they swing... the gravitational pool.... mass. Can Dark Matter benefit humanity?

Beauty hits us everywhere. But Nightbird does not forget that in the middle of pure degradation, the Shoah, the killing of the Jewish people for reasons nobody has ever explained and never can fully explain, people were listening to the best of music of their times. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven... so many.

Let Nightbird make this simple. Check your books, the people who represent your media, look around your hut and find out where you are with understanding of a thinking humanity reaches. I mean your hut in every continent. 





Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The importance of tolerance in our world …. for whom is this intolerable?

Copyright, Philo Ikonya. Subtle watermark within, ask before use if keen.

Is this the picture of what it takes to tolerate? Strength? 
  There is cement down there... rocks... water...Who will allow some naked roots for tolerance to grow? Who will show us our see through bodies belonging to all? The hole in us?

Who is tolerating who here? Is it the cement? The ruins? The sky? The leaves? The people- there was a wonderful guide. The monkeys? Isn't that more about ecology then, ecosystems?

 This photo is taken at the ruins at Gedi in the Kenyan coast, near Lamu. It is near some ancient mosques and houses of the Arabs who lived there. But...

Let me confess that this blogpost title, the first part... "The importance of tolerance in our world..." was written in a totally artificial moment because a TV journalist asked Nightbird to forget her blindness and sit upon a chair and be filmed working Nightbird. I was meant to show something. 

Nightbirds are mistaken for romantic birds of the song of the nightingale sometimes. No. I have always included the owl and sometimes bats in my thinking. Blindness and perfect sight. Birds know both like us. Nightbird feels her way blindly, she thinks. She wants to travel or fly around differently and now always with all the lights on. But here was the camera and it has a different story with light.

Nightbird had just answered the question what she thinks tolerance is in this context of talk of people learning to tolerate  one another in our world. "Tolerance", she said, is the recognition of the beauty of diversity, the strength it has and the reward it gives. She added one could see diversity and love it but that even if one did not love it, one should feel compelled to at least let it be... let things be because they are, let others be. She also said it is not a passive thing. It includes hard, hard work. 

Letting things be in one thing but where tolerance is worked, and this is the burden of it and perhaps the sound that makes some dislike the word, is visible. If there is tolerance, there is something growing, blossoming, maybe with thorns but we can talk about thorns without hurting.... " She had been told she could be asked to repeat her answer but in this case the camera was at once pleased and she could go onto the next step which is to write on her blog. There was no rehearsal to be done. Later she thought she should have opened the post she has on Albert Luthuli and Maksim Gorky and explained a few things about our world. But she was already free of cameras.

Now Nightbird reflects. She has to say this word 'tolerance' is one of those she has often wondered about. She can hear the Latin part of it. Sometimes she felt as if this word belonged somewhere else, to the words that get tired despite the urgency of their meaning? Did this word have enough of the 'long intestine' in it in spite of being so long. Do words have limbs, heart and all? All of them? Standing alone? So Nightbird is still thinking. Freedom. Love. Work. Recognition.



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Are we all blacks like we were Charlie Hebdo? Nightbird has been clinging to bats on the ceilings of Paris Metros, "We are racists, they chanted, racists and that is the way we like it!" Is this about football?


Reminiscent of the Mahatma Gandhi being thrown out of a train in South Africa back in the 20th Century is what happened in Paris only yesterday in 2015! Here a black man is prevented from riding the Metro  goo.gl/tqz5JR
This drawing is the property of Knowledge is Simply Knowledge
writers of biographies. Find the company on Internet.

                                              

A woman cringes and recoils from the entrance of the Metro. Nobody is mentioning her. This are public means of transport. Terrible this happens. But it did. Many will tell you it only happens that brazenly where Football is involved. 

Nightbird says help the world stop all forms of discrimination including the ones the discriminated practice on themselves after experiencing hate. Let us acknowledge that hate exists. Nightbird dislikes the word but has to acknowledge that it does not go away just like that. 

Should Nightbird be grateful to those who make no secret of their hatred, make her see it in so many other subtle forms? Football fans put it out on the pitch. Not a care. And that is where many young black talented people are, putting their best foot, actually both feet, forward. 

Nighbird cannot see world leaders marching in Paris or taking a metro ride in that city and declaring like they were Charlie Hebdo, that they are all black. The game of the haters. A word Nightbird dislikes to write but it exists. 

We, those who love are too far from seeing the urgency of this, and the creativity we need to STOP racism particularly as it manifests so openly against black people. Those who go for it are too energetic compared to those against it. It is terror. It seems they beat us at networking. They attract people to wanting to give their lives in death for their cause. Obama has spoken well and said in the case of terror this is not about Islam. We know that. 

Nightbird knows there are many types of behavior. But that of two types of persons make things happen. Those who love to tremendous levels burning with their silence and burning in their words, and those who go for destruction. These are fewer but they always get everyone else running behind them. They are able to manipulate situations so fast that those who are lovers of justice are found still on the spot by the time things blow up. How can that be, Nightbird often asks herself.

How many people will blog on this incident, how many Tweet it in full condemnation? Are we all black people now? Or are we running away from even mentioning the word race, racism? Pacifying the language in order to cheat reality?

In London, a individual interviewed about the terrible event of a black man being shut out of a Paris Metro repeatedly and the chants for racism said on BBC that he is terribly saddened. Above all, the said, now we shall all be called racists because of this event. You may not have watched that but Nightbird did. But should this be the main concern? 

Could it be that as Nightbird wrote before that we shall continue not to understand that racism is deep within most of us and among us? Is this part of the reason why it is fought mainly or strongly by the survivors of it? Strong voices we see on TV against racism are often black. The civics rights defender in Paris interviewed against the same was black. I can't understand. 

I can understand that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was he was, I do not need to repeat color. I can understand Rosa Parks, I can I understand Mahatma Gandhi but today in 2015, I cannot see why creativity has not changed here. I cannot see why it is still the black man saying, look at what they do to me? Do you know why? 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Says light to darkness, I see best through you! We have not been creative enough against racism, Pope Francis agrees

     Nightbird is hovering around the Cologne Cathedral, in Germany. She had seen it before in spectacular lighting.  It is in darkness now. The lights are switched off to protest against a protest. Don't say you could not be there...

Were you here for holidays?

        Entrance exam to reading this...
Anne Braden a topmost activist against racism died on 06, March 2006. She left an institution for education against discrimination. Please write and tell me who is the face of anti racism in the world today, or the faces. Are they all the same color? Which news media owns this as a subject in the world? Who tweets about it most before and between and after the deaths of Benjamin Hermansen of Norway and Mike Brown of Missouri, U.S.A?
Please don't tell me over there it is still Mahatma Gandhi. And least of all, don't let me hear again that Dr. Martin Luther King would cry if he ROSE from the DEAD today. Where are your tears? And... and... and... why after all those presidents since the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s would you like to pack this neatly on Obama's in tray?

 Things you can do about discrimination around you today, racial or otherwise:

A) Accept it exists. Call it by name. Don't be afraid of it
One thing you might want to do with others
                A( Read the history of racism in the world
                 B) Tell someone how it harms the perpetrator and why we all need to act against it especially economically, in employment and education.      
Carter C Woodson begins Black history week in
the U.S.A in . Curtesy of Wikipedia ( donate to Wikipedia. I am not employed there
...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_History_Month


Those in Germany are using light and darkness to protest those protesting against immigrants based on Islamophobia. 

Lights went off and on in Germany so that people can see. In most places Nightbird has been, she cared cared for the moon and the sun, the stars, the ecosystem. There is room for everyone. Our lives ensconced is in the universe. Look.

"In the horizon, the moon rises gently. Fist she gleams her soft rays. When her powerful rays strike the ground, rings of hope rise into the air. The moon is fully visible now." Still Sings the Nightbird, by Philo Ikonya 

Nightbird is thinking hard. How all this comes to hit all weak points in us including inviting racism. We are not in an easy place. Therefore it is important to keep flying and talking.

Nightbird flies to Mahatma Gandhi. He suffered discrimination in South Africa, particularly. He was thrown off a train. When Nightbird first read that, she never slept a wink again. She was horrified by the evil done. Gandhi hypnotized her.

He said he was a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, and himself all in one. Some people got rather angry. He had weaknesses. He had much moral strength. Has the idea that somewhere in the east life is more like sunrise for nights are varied days of wisdom. 

Nightbird met the owls of questioning status quo in the womb of her mother. Her grandmother, barefoot like no other, had left many question marks in her mother's womb. She sucked them. She learned to read and swallowed Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington's book, later in life. Read again. 

There are copyright rules on Wikipedia. They include that you can use the links anywhere but you must acknowledge them. Nightbird checked that at night.

She read more. There was a poet and teacher in Kenya. She found his words. Kimaathi wa Wachiuri. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedan_Kimathi
Nightbird is looking for the remains of this poet and teacher whom the British hanged in Kenya's colonial days. Hanged? No. Executed. He went singing love in poetic stanzas Kimaathi wa Wachiuri. He too was himself, a traditional man, a modern man, a Christian man, himself again, and a fighter for justice and peace;  in war,  peace. Why do humans have to agitate for justice, peace? Can't it be there just like the air?


Nightbird thinks hard. There must be those who cannot see it any other way. Nightbird thinks, well, sometimes one has to turn off lights to see. 

She tweets to her soul...@PhiloWriting...#StopIslamophobia. What are the risks? She adds #Stophomophobia #Stoptribalism #Stopnepotism#Stopracism. She trembles on big words and a new found branch called hashtree..hash tag# She is #chirrupy #todayandalways. She hears a friend call her out... 
#Kerengende! That is a dragonfly in Kiswahili. +Linda Cracknell 
Some lights are from so far. Some nights are so long.

She remembers when she used to ride freely on grasshoppers in villagers where nobody spoke her language. She was free. But now she speaks Latin if she wants to. Everyone is going back to their root language. 

Arabic and Latin are in vogue. She takes refuge in singing, avoiding war cries. War songs. She remembers that languages are free, free but dangerous bridges. She remembers people lost their lives in Kenya and elsewhere for not knowing how to answer in a verse from, from.... out of ... a Holy Book!

Other darkness has been on in the light. "Go home!" They yell at all immigrants. At home they yell too at one another. 
Nightbird was in the London underground, she who never felt at home in England. Never. She was only there because her plane landed there and she ventured out. 
Her first greeting was from a man. It should not be written down here because it perpetuates hate of a people because of where they come from. 

But Herstory becomes unfair so let her say something close... She was told ... "I hate... ... People... Especially the ones from ...are you from Jamaica?" She laughed actually. She had only asked for Westminster Abbey. What answer could she give? In those early 90s days it was not possible to ring up cops for that and if it was, she had no idea. Luckily the menacing man had no gun. Everyone she told of her panic both in London and in the world answered that was a mad man. She always retorted and snorted. Mad?

But fast forward to 2014. Mad? Guns and men. Mad still? Colors and blood, mad? Apes? Bananas? Monkeys.

Nightbird has perched on a branch. There is a tree in the London Underground. She read lines of poems by poets from different lands or if from the UK from different stocks. She felt better and she sang. She sang online and on the phone. 

Guess who answered her. Christine De Luca. He poem on turning 60... the bird twitters on a branch.  I was balancing lines. After the Scottish referendum, and because of blogging... I love this, I found her poem The Morning After...As for Scotland, may it be so for all lands. ... She is the Makar of Edinburgh...Poem here. http://www.cityofliterature.com/the-literary-city/meet/meet-the-makar/word-christine-de-luca/morning-christine-de-luca/

A hundred years are not over since Nazi times. The Fuhrer of Germany, Hitler. 1933. It is 82 Years ago but still now. There are those who are saying Gegen Nazi, Against Nazi... but others are not. They are pro Nazi... they do not want foreigners. 


Nightbird notes they do not see the foreigner in themselves. We all have one inside us so what are we running away from she wonders. She sings ruefully but she has been thoughtful for a long, long time. Create.

Ultimately, nothing can resist creativity. Nothing. Not even faith, for it came of it, dogmatic or not. Pope Francis has been rather frank. He was a good Fr. Christmas 2013. He brought with him live coal goodies for the Roman Curia stiff -boned cardinals. He told them that we are chocking on our own errors but looking for terrors out there in others' eyes.

He told them to own up to their terrorism. Philomena is a movie, just one little piece. There has been serious betrayal in religious circles. Abuse too. But we have been pointing at somebody else. Nightbird had seen Pope Francis washing  the feet of a Muslim girl in prison. Meaning?

Nightbird heard told and retold the story of Mehmet Ali Agca in 1982. John Paul II forgave him who wanted to dispatch him faster to his place subito before he could say subito!


Before all this came to mind and happened, there was one thought nagging Nightbird. Creativity has failed in addressing racism. It is not a color thing on its own though it hides there. It is a fear although it escapes there... It is in glances although it might be imagined there. In figures it is palpable. There is a scarecrow shouting at Nightbird.

"Don't you dare say it is only white to black!" But Nightbird knows about both Blackbird and Whitebird. Morning has broken!

Night has healed!

It was not enough for someone to note that Black presence was being left out of history and start a Black History Month in the U.S.A. I wish slavery had lasted only for a week, and its consequences obliterated forever. But that remains a wish.
Slavery might be the biggest motivator for dark color stereotyping, also in Asia. May be so. But if you do not think so, find something to think about it.

In centuries that have blown the mind in technology and other advancements, we have been slow to open up. Children in Germany, heard of one recently, are still asking if a dark color person is a monkey. I mean toddlers. Pointing at them in buses. And the parents are professionals...'educated'? They know the animals from around the world pretty well. Panda, rhino, buffalo, elephant, giraffe... and more..not to mention the canines and cat families.

21.01.2009 Children in Kogelo the birthplace of Obama's father read from
The Kenyan Boy who Became President of America. Kogelo is near Kisumu
© Linda Cracknell

Well, in Australia, a 13 year old called Adam Goodes, an ape. She never saw an apes football team? But racism, has been the rave ... football and racism. This discussion should be over. 
How on earth, name calling and all!? 

There must be ways of introducing people of different types to children. We are not even going to mention dolls. 
Everywhere I go, in Europe they talk of Black History Month or Week. Where as Carter G. Woodson and others started this, it is ridiculous in the first place that it HAD to be started in order to be ... started!

Everytime I read books, there is often the absence of the history of black people. That happens in Afrika, Europe, Asia, America and Australia. Yes, Afrika learns about Europe and America in detail in many places, before learning about home. Of course people are going to imagine Europe and America are havens on earth. 


The thinking of the world is shaped vertically. Knowledge is about the North usually. Often. Except for independent places like China. South and North Korea.

It is a shame that we do not mix cultures and philosophers, thinkers of today often quoted or seen on media are of the West. The Internet has come... Nightbird. Try. 

If messages are to be passed around the world then let them come from all over. Everywhere Nightbird has been, it is people who are discriminated who fight most against discrimination. Is that not right? But, how come? Why is it that way? 

Time all people took it very personally, and the more people in the peoples that are associated with being at the top of it the better. We say even domestic violence and discrimination of women will not end until the perpetrators become the inhibitors, the fighters. More role models please!

What Nightbird means is that the world in her flight is round. Take messages from all around. When she saw the Cologne Cathedral darkening, she heard words of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr ring in her mind. 


“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate:  only love can do that.” 

― Martin Luther King Jr.A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

More thoughts from different peoples and their pictures then need spreading? And sure those whose ancestors went long a go as slaves or immigrated became part of those lands? How not? Not so long ago a long BBC TV had this as its topic. Some steps have been made but it is still news. Yes, news. #Stopracism. Take this around the world. 
©Philo Ikonya Giraffe Center Kenya 2013



"To come to the boundary line and hear a 13-year-old girl call me an "ape", and it's not the first time on a footy field that I've been referred to as a "monkey" or an "ape", it was shattering,' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2331552/Aboriginal-Aussie-Rules-footballer-confronts-13-year-old-girl-allegedly-called-ape-escorted-stand-racist-abuse.html#ixzz3O44ZelOz
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