Abbey Lincoln becomes an Ancestor

"When everything is finished in a world, the people go to look for what the artists leave. It's the only thing that we have really in this world -- is an ability to express ourselves and say, "I was here."

Jazz Legend, activist, beauty, and icon Abbey Lincoln passed on yesterday.

I am deeply saddened by her loss despite not knowing her personally. My sadness is because of what she represents to me. Beauty, sophistication, boldness, genius, resilience. And her sound! Wow! What a sound! A sound that resonates within our collective consciousness as she called us back to our Source.

While beautiful in her own right, she lent her spirit to inspiring us to fight the ugliness of racism and Jim Crow during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

When she called for Bleek to practice his trumpet in Spike Lee's Mo Betta Blues, she reminded me of my own mother whose shrill voice was always full of good intention and tired from sacrifices.

Who will carry on her work? Who will keep pushing the boundaries of this art that has our history in it?

If we are happy with what we are producing as a people now? What will we be leaving behind?

Ashe' Abbey Lincoln

Resolution: A Love Supreme Pt. Deux

No truly good thing comes without its hardships and challenges. Love is no different. We have been infected with the idea that it will come in a neat and pretty package stamped with a Hallmark crown. Love doesn't always look like an upper middle class Pandora, with a white picket fence, 2 1/2 kids, and a dog.

For me, love was present in Taste the Tropics ice cream after getting As, staying up to watch boxing with my Pop, and action figures from Red's Toy Store.

It was also in getting whooped from time to time. It was in the yelling after disappointing my parents for one reason or another. It wasn't all toys and ice cream.

And some of us know that all too well.

Yet for one reason or another, many of us are lost from love. Perhaps it was a hug that was shunned, a best friend who moved far away, or longing for the embrace of an absent parent. One could argue that the essence of love is found in family. Our families serve as our earliest teachers. We learn to love them because we depended on them to carry, clothe, and clean us. We trusted them with every fiber of ourselves. We grew and had growing pains.

For some of us, the pain was significant enough to negatively shape our perspectives on love well into our adult lives.

We often confuse love with fantasy - projecting our infatuations with our minds' creations onto others. We continuously expect them to be who they are not and do what they may have never been created to do.

It is a tough pill to swallow, but I believe that within every problem is a secret desire to be resolved.

The love we seek externally, must first be found inside. We have to reconcile with our past in order to see clearly into the future. Love won't be found in the bottom of a bottle or in expensive clothes, but it is found in forgiveness. Not just of others - but of ourselves.

Love is an endless dance of forgiveness, and most of us have two left feet. But I'm confident we'll get better at it...one step at a time and one step closer to A Love Supreme.