An Act of Liberation
A white man shot 8 people, 6 of which were Asian women, in my home country the United States of America - "the land of the free" they call it, where "all men are created equal."
Police officers and the media - the people who are supposed to be protecting us and feeding us information & knowledge - have not named it a hate crime.
I have been feeling a spectrum of emotions. Waves of numbness, confusion, rage, grief, sorrow, despair move through me. I am breathing through it, dancing it out in prayer, and channeling words with pen to paper.
I come to you, pouring out of me this transmission in sharing my voice, as an act of L I B E R A T I O N.
Here it is.
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I am an Asian American woman - California born & raised, the daughter of Taiwanese Chinese immigrants, currently living in Bali, Indonesia.
I contain multitudes.
I have been fetishized, mocked, and disrespected. I have been sexually assaulted more than once. I have felt like I do not belong.
Not a day goes by where someone doesn't ask me "Where are you from?" - I generally assume the best in people and assume it comes from a place of genuine curiosity. And yet, sometimes I am exhausted from answering the same question over and over again before being asked what my name is. My name is Holly and I contain multitudes.
I am Asian and I am American.
I am feminine and masculine.
I am from the west and the east.
I am soft and I am deep.
I am giggly hehehe and I am intelligent mmhmm.
I am spiritual and I am science.
I am structure and I am flow.
I am awake, woke, aware and I am so fucking tired and sick of this shit!
I am sad, angry, and scared. AND I am HOPEFUL that we can and we will rise together, that this is revealing a bigger lesson for us to learn.
I am listening and I am screaming.
I am crying and I am singing.
I contain multitudes.
And what I know to be true, is that I've got that H O P E.
Hope that we can do better,
that this gives us an opportunity to rise, together.
An opportunity to unite us all
To see reality for what it is and know that we will answer the call.
We are not okay. It is not okay.
How do we help each other?
How do we evolve together? We cry together, fight together, rise up together.
Rise up, rise up, rise up. Together we rise.
We see each other, we hold each other, we offer a helping hand, we give a little bit more, we listen to the stories of how we got here, we look someone in the eyes and hold the gaze. We contain multitudes.
The suppression and taking and killing have been happening for centuries.
It is engraved in our bloodlines, regardless of what color our skin is or where on this earth we were born.
And maybe, maybe, maybe...
we've had enough, and we're evolved now.
On this day in 2021 - the great turning point.
Where we've killed and hurt and suppressed enough people that we finally realize that we are all one on this planet.
We come from the same source,
you & me and them & us.
Here on planet earth, simply to be in our purest form -
LOVE and LOVED.
Maybe one less person has to die, has to suffer, has to cry.
Maybe, just maybe.
I have hope within me. This innocent joyful hope. I am willing to let go of the past to be present for this moment, and entertain the maybe. Are you?
They say optimism is way more difficult to hold on to compared to pessimism.
And I'm here for it. Here I am.
Showing up, standing tall, even though all I want to do is crawl up in a ball.
I stand here, before you, smiling, breathing, dancing.
And so what will I do first? I will start by loving myself so fully and so deeply that it overflows and pours out of me all the way to you and you and you. I love you too.
And may you love yourself so deeply and so fully that it overflows and pours out to your lover, your neighbor, your enemy, their children, and your children.
And that love overflows and flows and flows and flows - love is limitless.
And may this love ripple out across the planet.
The one big blue planet we all reside on called Earth.
This prayer is my healing, a dream, a declaration - and may the simple act of me being fully expressed be one step forward in the liberation of all people.
These words.
This body.
This dance.
This moment.
This breath.
*Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale*
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