Tea With Alice Walker

Today, I have become a book reviewer.

I’m not sure that particular designation will fit on the back of my business card along with Author, Artist, and Activist but that is a problem for another day.

In case you’re wondering how such a transformation came to be on a chilly, gray Wednesday when there are countless loads of linens to be washed before my girls arrive, I will tell you.

A new book dropped, like manna from Heaven, into my awareness.

But before that, I discovered — via the oracle known as Amazon — that my teacher, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, once illustrated a book of poetry for none other than Alice Walker, herself!

The title was enough to insist that I needed this book and needed it as closely as possible to immediately.

HARD TIMES REQUIRE FURIOUS DANCING

How could I resist?

A bit of button pushing later, and a couple of days worth of camping on the mailbox, it arrived.

As I sipped tea and eagerly flipped pages, tasting words like really fine dark chocolate, I knew I had to tell you about it.

But, of course, the copyright page insists, as even those in my own books do…

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

No worries!

Well, just one.

Which “brief passage” would I choose?

As sometimes happens, the right passage chose me.

It’s from the poem, CALLING ALL GRAND MOTHERS, which begins on page 30.

Step forward

& assume

the role

for which

you were

created:

To lead humanity

to health, happiness,

& sanity.

I call on

all the

Grand Mothers

of Earth

& every person

who possesses

the Grand Mother

spirit

of respect for 

life

&

protection of 

the young

to rise

& lead.

My apologies to Miss Walker for not having the technical skills to make this look just like it does in her book. WordPress blogs are opinionated about such things.

Still I suspect you will recognize the amazing truth of these words as you read them. The book is full of such truthful words.

Enough so that, today, I became a book reviewer.

The art is fabulous, too!

For now, though, the Beasties are insisting that it is dinner time and then some.

Here’s the link in case you’d like one of your own:

HARD TIMES REQUIRE FURIOUS DANCING