Aberjhani quotes

The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.

Love as a concrete foundation for an authentically functional civilization requires the around-the-clock labors of forgiveness. Without it, Love fails, Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.

The thorn is a bridge spanning the muddy depths of agony and sorrow so that one may on the other side dance to the drums of the rose of joy.

Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.

Un-winged and naked, sorrow surrenders its crown to a throne called grace.

The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various 'individuals', or groups of 'individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their "pursuit of happiness" to outright obliterating it.

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.

Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.

From her gospel-singing mother Cissy Houston, her legendary pop-diva cousin Dionne Warwick, and her Queen of Soul godmother Aretha Franklin, she [Whitney Houston] inherited gifts for skillfully interpreting lyrics and endowing them with new depth and jeweled nuance.

This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.

Within the universe of the extraordinary, those qualities we designate to human concepts of gender are often shared, exchanged, or even completely obliterated. Because of this mixture of traits, these twins called Genius and Madness often appear to be the same thing. They both have a tendency to blur the lines of what we call norms, or established reality. They both, when we study that grand tapestry known as history and modern-day society, tend to stand out in much bolder relief than other figures. -- from Dancing with Madness, Dancing with Genius

Minister and writer Barbara Kaufmann has addressed the subject of guerrilla decontextualization on both the 'Voices Compassionate Education' website and on 'Inner Michael', where she offers the kind of insights into the spiritual aspects of Michael Jackson's creative artistry that mainstream media mostly ignores.

Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mind most of our colors are amazingly the same.

Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.

If life is a birthday cake let my face be smeared with its icing of cognac and kindness.

Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy. Others would say it was the triumphant meaningful way he lived that allowed him to rise heroically above absurdity.

On faith’s battered back calm eyes etch prayers that cool a nation’s hot rage.

The words ‘I Love You’ kill, and resurrect millions, in less than a second.

Stars ink your fingers with a lexicon of flame blazing rare knowledge.

Poetry and art nourish the soul of the world with the flavor-filled substances of beauty, wisdom and truth.

Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.

Searching for a mind long lost I found it shaping colors and history near the cliffs of your heart.

First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.

In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.

Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.

The music of revelation announces itself to the reader in somber brooding tones or in melodies light as air and one is invited to dance with the most captivating of partners: poetry.

Beauty from another world gave birth to your voice-- sent to rescue scorned hearts from traumatized nights.

Millions of tears have fallen for black sons, brothers, lovers, and friends whose assailants took or maimed their lives and then simply went on their way.

Writing for me is a form of spiritual discipline and creative vision, a means of being in the world and giving one's love to it without compromise or dilution.

This is what our love is––a sacred pattern of unbroken unity sewn flawlessly invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.

Dreams dress us carefully in the colors of power and faith.

Overall, my books represent a kind of shared communion and meditation with my fellow human beings... The books are also a part of what I call the great continuum of spiritual literary dialogue that I feel has been in progress since human beings first gave in to the urge to pray to their sense of something greater than themselves and interpreted certain signs or events or silences as responses to those prayers.

Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World

At some point, a flash of sustained clarity reveals the difference between what someone would have you believe is true, and what you know from the depths of your own heart to the peaks of your soul to be true. What happens after that is up to you.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.

History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.

The dancing vortex of a sacred metaphor clashes horns and halos to make wounded music set to the tempo of a new era in brilliant labor.

A river is nearly the ultimate symbol for the very essence of change itself. It flows unceasingly from one point of being to another, yet continuously occupies the same bed or pathway, and accommodates life's endings with the same musical grace with which it accommodates life's beginnings, along with all the muted and explosive moments that surface between the two extremes.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.

Souls reconstructed with faith transform agony into peace.

And therein shines one major definition of what it meant to be Clinton D. Powell: someone who looked for, trusted in, and helped empower (if you will) the best in others. It takes a lot of beautiful love, uncommon sincerity, and spitfire courage to do that.

Human beings, in a sense, may be thought of as multidimensional creatures composed of such poetic considerations as the individual need for self-realization, subdued passions for overwhelming beauty, and a hunger for meaning beyond the flavors that enter and exit the physical body. A person might even be described as a self-contained multiverse.

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.

Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.

What a lover’s heart knows let no man’s brain dispute.

Movies can provide tear-inducing or comically-entertaining representations of love, but many agree that its deeper conflicting complexities often seem unfathomable.

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.

Rainbows introduce us to reflections of different beautiful possibilities so we never forget that pain and grief are not the final options in life.

War poisons the land Like diseased minds downloaded/ into bowls of tears.

Because Mr. Mandelas early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.

As life in general constituted much pain in the form of struggles against poverty, disease, ignorance, and emotional anguish, what more civilized way for people to alleviate the same than by giving themselves to one another as brothers and sisters in deed as well as in word? A society of people hoping to become politically superior needed first to become spiritually valid.

As history has demonstrated many times over, change may arrive slowly or quickly but it is the one constant, in one form or another, on which we can all count.

While many people like the idea of exercising unconditional love, most eventually find it too draining and impossible to sustain, often because the attempt to practice it is misunderstood, discouraged, brought under attack, or made a target of willful abuse. As sad as it may be to admit, in our modern world people are far more accustomed to hearing news of war, genocide, murder, disasters, famine, and disease than they are to hearing anything about acts of love or grace.

If I say your voice is an amber waterfall in which I yearn to burn each day, if you eat my mouth like a mystical rose with powers of healing and damnation, If I confess that your body is the only civilization I long to experience… would it mean that we are close to knowing something about love?

Got just enough room to be a friend of yours. Oh I hope you got room to be a friend of mine.

Many may very well continue to ask why more value is placed on technicalities of a law than on a man's flesh and blood life, especially when there is any amount of "doubt" at all regarding his guilt or innocence.

Such are these places where lovers of bliss behold the angel of peace

Ours is an age in which thousands are driven daily from their homelands by the unforgiving brutalities of war, terrorism, political oppression, starvation, disease, economic piracy, and the relentless suffocation of that singular breath which makes human beings individuals.

Shine your soul with the same egoless humility as the rainbow and no matter where you go in this world or the next, love will find you, attend you, and bless you.

By consciously meditating upon spiritual truths and cultivating personal integrity, one need never fear negative circumstances.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

Millions cheer the warriorspilling blood across the ringwhile the one who stands for peaceis ridiculed and shamed.Must hearts forever sufferfrom ignorance and greed?Can bombs heal our soulsor set our spirits free?

That good gardener, who wept thorns plowing his fields - harvests grace with joy.

In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.

Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.

The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American.

Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.

Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession. The next sensible step would be to use them.

The political, social, and spiritual impact of the life example set by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela might be measured in part by the profound and unique gestures made by people in different countries to honor his life upon learning of his death.

A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.

Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.

Although himself frequently a target of guerrilla decontextualization, a major part of the meaning of Michael Jackson's life was to help balance the accumulation of horrors with something closer to love in its most empowering and healing sense.

Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same. Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social disease.

An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.

To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.

The study of history empowers nations and individuals with an ability to avoid errors of the past and lay foundations for victories in the future.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

Change is one of the scariest things in the world and yet it is also one of those variables of human existence that no one can avoid.

While it is unlikely that poetry or art shall eliminate the reality of war in the twenty-first century, it is thrilling to know there remain individuals, and even entire communities, still willing to invest in art and poetry's own uniquely explosive contributions to the great, and small, dramas of human history.

Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate.

As goes love so goes life.

Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams.

In its essence, Martin Luther King Jr.'s ‘I Have a Dream' speech is one citizen's soul-searing plea with his countrymen––Whites and Blacks––to recognize that racial disparities fueled by unwarranted bigotry were crippling America's ability to shine as a true beacon of democracy in a world filled with people groping their way through suffocating shadows of political turmoil, economic oppression, military mayhem, starvation, and disease.

Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.

September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror’s sting, rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles’ wings.--from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001

Life possesses an amazing array of profoundly sad faces.

All the world loves a ghost. The evidence of that simple statement can be found by looking in nearly every direction.

What can bombs know of the illuminated fields so golden with heaven in your heart’s sacred lands?

With its leaves so rich and heavy with elation and its crimson face made brighter with visions of divinity the shadow of a certain rose looks just like an angel eating light.

Dare to love yourself

Many people can rightfully claim, as much as anyone can rightfully claim anything, that much of their lives have been spent stumbling through a cloud of cluelessness.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth.

Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

What hell condemned, let heaven now heal.

Passion presented with a greater challenge achieves a greater goal.

Just above our terror, the stars painted this story in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.

The more sincere the soul, the heavier the cross endured.

In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace.

We can cry for years but sometimes gotta smile too.

The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passion–– cools your fears with peace.

Michael Jackson National African American Art Examiner Series

True lovers earn their genius in schools of blood, prophecy and dust.

This rose of pearl-coated infinity transforms the diseased slums of a broken heart into a palace made of psalms and gold.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.

Mainstream medias representation, or its guerrilla decontextualization, of black mens lives in particular can set the stage for erroneous assumptions capable of damaging an individual or a nation.

Nation-building is never a 'done deal' confined to history already established.

Varieties of angels, like varieties of love, are many.

Careful studies of cases dealing with supposed 'mental disorder' have at times revealed that many thought to be insane or warped in some fashion were actually simply highly sensitive individuals. What they suffered from was not mental debilitation, but personal and communal ignorance of psychic reality.

Like a Passover Poet gliding from house to house and from trembling soul to trembling soul the wind scribbled sonnets of first time love and weeping haikus of last hours on earth.

Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new.

Authentic inspiration endows individuals with mental or spiritual energy which they are then able to transform into positive action. It can make all the difference between a man, woman, or child allowing despair to permanently paralyze any dreams they may have for their lives, or, exercising sufficient strength of will to make those dreams a reality.

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.

Hope drowned in shadows emerges fiercely splendid–– boldly angelic.

Someone had to embrace positive beginnings before anyone could celebrate successful conclusions or continuations.

The job facing American voters… in the days and years to come is to determine which hearts, minds and souls command those qualities best suited to unify a country rather than further divide it, to heal the wounds of a nation as opposed to aggravate its injuries, and to secure for the next generation a legacy of choices based on informed awareness rather than one of reactions based on unknowing fear.

Creative visualization may be described as an extended meditation session that reaches beyond passive contemplation and achieves transformative action. The uses to which it may be applied are limited only by an individual's imagination.

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.

A man sitting monkey-like on the rooftop of his brain is due the applause such feats earn him.

Classic romantic love is an emotional attraction between two individuals in which they may share a heightened awareness of mutual adoration. Erotic love, traditionally, has been described as shared sexual attraction.

Each star is a mirror reflecting the truth inside you.

Stars wishing upon the potential of humans shine faithfully on.

Feet sandaled with dreams tread paths of vision leading to wisdom’s sharp peaks.