Spiritual Warriors (Still Standing)

¡Hola! Everybody…

It never fails: whenever I go on an extended rail on an unpopular topic, someone campaigns to get my 360 blog deleted. My 360 blog is set to “mature content,” I don’t stalk women, nor do I bother anyone. Shit, I hardly visit people’s pages on 360 (it’s too slow). I did make the observation the other day that one woman would screw a black man but not vote for one, but I was just tellin’ the truuuuf! LOL

At first it was my religion/ sex blogs, and then it was something else, now it seems my same-sex advocacy rants got somebody’s pannies in a twist.

People? You can’t win through censorship. Anyone interested, my “new” 360 blog can be accessed by clicking here. BTW, this is the 4-5 time my 360 blog has been deleted. Fcuk you, biotch, and the camel dick you rode in on…

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-=[ Spiritual Warriors ]=-

“I got not time for nonsense. You will be free!”

-- Harriet Tubman

Imagine, if you can, that you are a woman raised as a slave. Now, some conservatives like to say that slaves weren’t treated very badly, but as someone who has experienced loss of freedom, I personally think such people should be flogged. If you’re lucky, you will meet at least one spiritual warrior in your life. For me a spiritual warrior is someone who delays their own freedom until all have attained it…

So, imagine you are a woman raised as a slave. Somehow, you find the inner strength to break free from your shackles and find freedom up North. That alone is a tremendous accomplishment. However, imagine, if you can, the following: Having achieved your freedom, you go back -- again and again -- to guide others. Imagine that Southern slave owners, inflamed by your audacity, have pooled their substantial wealth to offer a very large reward for your capture, but your intelligence, intuition, and ability to improvise helps you outwit your would be captors.

If you can imagine all this, then you begin to get a glimpse of the stature and greatness of Harriet Tubman. I don’t know if Harriet Tubman uttered the words in my quote above, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. Tubman became such a powerful force for freedom that some people called her the Moses of her time.

I realize that if you have no sense of history and you’re here merely to spout talk show worthy bullshit opinions, you may not fully understand what it took to run North to freedom. Many, many people, I’m sure, wanted that freedom, but fear ran deep, and the consequences of capture were too horrific to ponder.

Accounts of Tubman paint her as a tall, no nonsense woman. It’s even said that she would carry a gun with her and pull it out if you dared think about running back. She was smart and not just book smart. She had an intuitive grasp -- a way to read the world that told her exactly what to do. My take is that she understood what motivated men and she knew how to make them see what they wanted to see.

It is said that at one time she took a train south when they were closing in on her. It never occurred to her pursuers that she would ride straight into the trap they had set for her.

I believe she turned many men around -- made brave men out of slaves even if it meant she had to do it from the business end of a pistol. It is said that she a fierce glare in her eyes and that she could crack a mean joke -- which she did often.

Some accounts say that she suffered migraines, the result of an injury by her master for daring to interfere in the punishment of another slave. He thought he had damaged her for life, but what he did was make a leader of her.

Some of us take our pain and grow weak. She took her pain and grew strong. She took the violence of her master -- the violence of the world -- and used to forge an indomitable spirit that helped free so many people.

She took hundreds of slaves North -- hundreds of scared people, horribly conditioned to fear freedom, and never lost one. It is said she came back south nineteen times -- some say twenty. I don’t know how many times, but I do know she went back again and again. I would like to say that I would do the same, but I don’t know. They had a $40, 000 bounty on her head -- a substantial sum for that time -- and yet she came back to help free her people.

I believe she had a strong spiritual foundation -- that she saw her work as a spiritual mission. Like I said, some call her the Moses of her time, but I don’t know. What I am certain is that she had courage enough to stand down the fear not just within herself, but the fear of those she guided. For never knowing freedom, how could you not fear it? To think of deciding to go North in those days was to know a fear few of us could ever understand. A fear like a storm of darkness around your heart.

Having summoned that courage and making it up North how many could begin to think of ever going back. Tubman had the courage to make the journey to freedom and then turn around, again and again, to help save her people.

It is said she was like a magician or ghost in the woods. She knew how to camouflage herself and those she guided, knew what roots to eat, what bark to take, how to trap small animals for food. But more than anything else, she knew which direction to take.

We live in tough times and if you ever need to find your way in a difficult world, you couldn’t go wrong if you think on my spiritual ancestor, Miss Harriet Tubman.

Love,

Eddie