Arts.Advocacy+Wellness: "Feed Your Spirit..."

"Feed your soul, Your Spirit..."

My apologies for the late post today, but sometimes you just need to wait for a good prophetic word for inspiration. 


Feed your soul, Your Spirit, with music that supports your mood, finances, relationships.  Maybe its a song that gets you out of depression, worry over lack of finances, your unemployment has run out or you've been denied services.  Maybe it's a song or lyric that you need to chew on to bring you out of suffering, suffering from an abusive relationship with another person, with alcohol, or a chemical substance.  

Feed your Spirit, with medicine of music, lyric, and melody that detoxifies your system (physical and mental psyche).  What we listen to and put into our minds, our bodies is just as important as the real food and fluids we digest.  It's all connected to our physical and spiritual being working in tandem.  




A song that filled my belly today is James Fortune's "Still Able."  Find a song for you today.


Namaste.  




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QUIET THE CHATTER: PT. 1, the physical

Quiet the chatter today.  Take a moment, find a still place and just breath.  If sitting does not help,  stand in a comfortable position; Feet hip width apart, arms by your side, ground down and feel the four corners of your feet, press your toes into the earth, close your eyes.  Think of a song, that is soothing for your ears and has soothing words or again, simply listen to your breath.

Allow yourself at least 3-5 minutes each day to quiet the chatter.  We face chatter and chaos every day as we leave our home and enter into the land of the living.  Sometimes the chatter and chaos happens in before leaving our home, like an early morning phone call or a text.  Challenge yourself to avoid the call or text, for at least 3 minutes. I'm sure if it is urgent, 3 minutes, won't make or break the situation.  If you don't have a private room in your home, try escaping to your bathroom.  The bathroom is naturally a quiet place for all.
 
The last few days have been a whirlwind of emotions.  Exciting, mixed and low.  I am here and I am breathing.

Hope this helps.

Arts.Advocacy+Wellness: "Peace & Surrender"

PEACE & SURRENDER

Bonjour friends,


I've made it to Paris safe and sound. Taking in the sights and sounds (literally as I type I'm enjoying the chipper voices of young lads playing catch on the street corner.)  Play,  what we did a lot when we were younger, like there was no tomorrow.  Playing in peace and surrendering to the moment, contentment.  


I received a word very prolific, motivating, and wise in meditation on Sunday at Kadampa 
Meditation Center in Silverlake. It went something like this:  "If something can be remedied, why be unhappy with it.  If something can't be remedied, still why be unhappy."  I can use this to assess many situations in my life. I hope it can offer you peace in your surrendering.  Find the joy and go play in peace, just like the kids I'm hearing on the street corner.   

Arts.Adocacy+Wellness: "Shaktai Gawain. &Now2012 New Writing in Paris"

"The Universe will Reward you 

for taking Risks on it's behalf"

These are the words of Shakti Gawain, pioneer in the field of personal development.  Living by this mantra has been a practice of mine since deciding to leave the comfort my Broadway show "The Lion King," in 2007.  Though I have returned to the show on many occasions since my first departure, it was the courage I had in self and the promise of the universe that carried me along every step.  


Every morning I pass this house during my walks with my dog Boogie.  The house is quite unique and peculiar.  It has this cool contemporary/industrial design and bouquet of red roses outline the front door pane.  Located in the Hollywood Hills, it's an intriguing house. Leveled flat on the ground is the front half of the house.  Supported by a cast of beams, welded into the ground, which drops on a decline is the remaining half of the house.  Kinda scary when you look at it and the mind thinks how "risky" it is to live here with all the natural disasters in Los Angeles.  This house has been around for your years maybe even decades, and is still standing.  I've taken the approach of seeing the light in this situation and connecting it to my spiritual walk. As my life and some choices are, to some degree, risky, the universe is my foundation, my ground, my beam.  Constantly supporting me.  

Dale Carnegie once said, "The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare..."

I encourage you to dare with me in this journey and I am here to support you in YOUR journey.....

Arts.Advocacy+Wellness: "Remembering the Honorable Percy Ellis Sutton"

Percy Ellis Sutton

1920-2009

former Tuskegee Airman

Media Mogul

Power Broker

Pioneering Civil Rights Attorney

Last week I had the honor of attending the homegoing service for Mr. Percy Ellis Sutton. The service took place at The Riverside Church, located on New York City's upper west side. People came out in droves to pay respect to the legacy Mr. Percy - "Jimmy" (as his family calls him) left to live on.

Reverend Jesse Jackson offered a personal tribute while Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Council Member Inez Dickins, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, to name few honored Mr. Percy's life with fond and exciting memories. Broadway veteran Melba Moore lended her vocal gifts by singing a selection of Amazing Grace, Stevie Wonder beautifully performed an emotionally exhausting but gentle version of his song As (I'll be Loving You Always), and Reverend Al

Sharpton delivered a radically stirring eulogy, which left me feeling even more inspired to continue to live in my personal journey and purpose as an affirming black gay man fighting for honorable love and respect for the human condition.

Attending Mr. Percy's funeral was completely educational for me. The life this man cultivated and the legacy that is living on is greatness. Although I didn't know him personally, I'm thankful for what he offered to the community because humbly I've been awarded with many of his gifts. Future Fans and A.A+W readers I am blessed this day to say: if you didn't know Mr. Percy, you really did!

Below, I'm leaving you with just a few highlights from his amazing life.

• Organizing and founding member of The New York State Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus in the New York State Assembly
• Participant in the southern Freedom Rides, arrested 14 times and imprisoned at the dreaded Parchment Farm Penitentiary in Mississippi.
• Recipient of the 72nd Springarn Medal from the NAACP in 1987
• Organized the successful effort to have the Apollo Theatre receive NYC landmark designation
• Reopens the Apollo Theatre and operates it as a concert venue, television facility and recreates the tradition of the weekly Wednesday Amateur night show.
• Creator and Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated television show, "It's Showtime at the Apollo".
• Cofounder of the Annual HARLEM WEEK Festival.
• Authorized New York state legislation creating SEEK program at New York City Universities.
• Spearheaded the expansion of the Manhattan race to the five-boroughs; thus, creating the New York City Marathon.
• In 1971 with Clarence B. Jones, Wilbert Tatum and John Edmonds acquired ownership of the New York Amsterdam News.
• With his son Pierre M. Sutton founded the weekly newspaper The New York Courier.
• In 1980, created & operated Amistad DOT Venture Capital, Inc., a MESBIC (Minority Enterprise Small business Investment Corporation), with offices in Washington, DC and New York City.
• In 1993 established Apollo Theatre Records, a record label and recording company.
• Created ACTEL, a joint venture satellite telephone company with operations in Africa.

Think you didn't know Mr. Percy...think again. He rewarded us in so many ways.

In a time when it seems the economy has the best of us, or even when we personally feel either inadequate or unmotivated, this was a man who reinvented himself in so many ways, and inspires me to keep keeping on. From the words of Shakti Gawain, "when old dreams die, new

ones are created." Keep moving on and pushing through your dream, create new ones, or start over again and create a different life.

Have an A.A+Wsome Wednesday.