Dear reader,
I am biting more than I can chew...but what's new? Since I was young, I felt the weight of this world's oppression and violent presence. I grew up in Kankakee (k3), Illinois (between E Maple and E Merchant). If you know, you know. I learned real fast to survive, as did my immigrant parents, sin papeles. Making sacrifices, cutting dreams and working hard to stay in front. Because we are in the mouth of a beast and it requires such things. Chewing us as we strive to accomplish someone else's Yankee American Dream.
I was of course that dead seed, filled with the false dream. One built on social norms, upholding machismo sensibilities and white supremacy. I use to think "I played this game well, I pulled up from the bottom and now, I'm at the Top!" But ancestors tell me "Buddy, we ain't never gonna be at the top and its not about you." I'd imagine my younger self using my conflict avoidant behavior to squeamishly bicker back at them as I internalize my own cowardice towards the truth. I promise you, I type this sentence with reflective wisdom. I am, after all my ancestor's dream which is not a false dream. (shade at the yankees)
I'm building a farming community but within a contradiction, The movement to re-define los palarbas y conceptos of my working class people. You'd be surprised by, who may or may not even recognize that they are perpetuating the Left & Right, Right & Wrong, War & Peace. So don't get it twiced, don't act like you are not the problem. Maestro says "we all need to remember most of us shit in water" and if that doesn't make sense to you...I don't know, read more.
We live in a contradiction here in Tennessee, growing trees & cutting them down. Sad, but with new knowledge comes new perspectives. Growers cut trees & burn them with flames larger than your house but to enrich the soil for the next planting of trees. That's Conocimento, a wisdom that very few people will ever get to experience and to understand what is a jeopardy. A balance of our world and our humanity.
Good news reader! I'm learning and apply new skills everyday to polish myself and reflect onto others. This is why I write to you - to enjoy the fruit of my own labor with a community of growers, educators, and ancestors. I invite you to my suicide prevention workshop that has been the heart of my work since 2017.
You can register below and link to virtual webinar will be sent.
-tlazcocamati