Cross-post: Adrien Salazar – wiqaable’s newest double agent August 31, 2009
Posted by Adrien in projects.Tags: Asian, queer, wiqaable
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I am now a contributing writer to wiqaable.com, the online source for unraveling the enigmatic question: “what is queer and asian?” Wooohooo!
From my introductory post:
Hello everyone!
I just wanted to introduce myself, Adrien, your newest wiqaa-blogger.
I am a poet, community builder, and whatever else you want me to be. My interests are constantly transforming but currently are condensing around pop culture, art, music, politics, community development, and social media.
In the future you can expect from me some biting social commentary on every day life and gargantuan issues that make every day life look like a holiday, all-spiced with some fierce queer and Asian one-two punches.
The Little Ripple Project February 2, 2009
Posted by Adrien in opportunities, poems, projects.Tags: Caitlin Meissner, HeartFirst Challenge, Little Ripple Project
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“It’s truth we’re after here,
hurting for, out in the streets”
–Yusef Komunyakaa, Safe Subjects
Last summer on a steamy New York June afternoon, I hopped out of the Metro deep in the heart of the financial district in Manhattan to meet up with the ineffable Caitlin Meissner, poet Goddess extraordinaire. What proceeded was the most magical forty-minute lunch I’ve ever had with someone I just met — filled with spontaneous poetry sharing, stories of love struggles, life movement, and one of the most beautiful voices to ever grace my ears.
Last month, Caitlin sent me, along with many others in her poetic community, an intimate email that ended with the simple prompt: “What is YOUR truth? Write it down. Tell it to your best friend. Put it on a blog or in an email or sing it or design it or whatever you do to do you. And then send it to me. I’m gathering stories.”
Thus began the Little Ripple Project, which in turn helped to inspire the HeartFirst Challenge. You can read the full email that started it all here and I encourage you brave people to participate in the Little Ripple Project.
Here is my submission to Caitlin, cross-posted on the Little Ripple Project blog.
My truth
I sit forty hours a week in the same chair the same desk. Between youth and adulthood. In between a new President and becoming a second class citizen in my own state. In between a man shot and a city on fire. In between Gaza and Israel.
This world I live. I a fresh breath bursting out of college into the face of a maelstrom sweeping me. History is time that won’t quit and my time just started.
Take me. All of me flesh and nerves a mess. I lay myself peeling back skin back layers of death and ash. A thousand years. A lotus pod. Unfolds. Find the beats in me beat even in the middle of still ness.
Find I am already bound in it like
Poetry pulses five quarts a minute out my aorta like
Protesters arrests the marching of feet pounds my ears like
Specks of struggle under my fingernails in the cracks of my skin like
My love for men seep out my eye sockets like
Communities in agony
History is time that won’t quit and I am already caught in it
Engulfs me
How else do I do
But bloody spit out my lungs into the thick air of it
Breathe the wind rushing into me
Dance the earth already turning me
Tumble into
Stumble
Live
word.
My HeartFirst Intro February 2, 2009
Posted by Adrien in poems, projects.Tags: HeartFirst Challenge
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Cross-posted on the HeartFirst Challenge blog.
—
Adrien Salazar – SF Bay Area, CA
I am an aspiring writer, performer, cultural worker, finding my way through the muck of life, getting a little dirty.
I come to the HeartFirst Challenge through the cross culmination of cosmological events and reflections in my life. Echoes of college graduation. Getting a new job. Intense thoughts for months on what I need in my life and what I want. I conjured boatfuls of mantras, would-be poems, wispy projects, all swimming whirling buzzing my head. Thought obsession. For a long while I just thought, sat, moved slow.
In a quick moment — the elections, the passing of Prop 8, Oscar Grant, Oakland riots, Gaza, and, and.
Like gunshots and bombshells the world moves. Even when I sit still.
I can not stall longer dreams and visions calling me.
We need them.
This is a matter of survival. My world. My moments. I fight for my life.
I need my dreams alive in flesh and nerves a mess. So now I move.
My heart beats ride out my body. I can not stop them.
There is no other way I can be.
HeartFirst Challenge Press Release January 29, 2009
Posted by Adrien in projects.Tags: HeartFirst Challenge
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Hey all you cool friends and bloggers, I would deeply appreciate if you help spread the word on the HeartFirst Challenge project that I started up. And please participate too!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
HeartFirst Challenge Calls You to Follow Your Heart in February
To all you quixotic dreamers, would-be adventurers, and secret passionates everywhere, San Francisco Bay Area native poet Adrien Salazar has conjured up a challenge … Read full press release.
Take the HeartFirst Challenge January 28, 2009
Posted by Adrien in opportunities, projects.Tags: HeartFirst Challenge
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The HeartFirst Challenge is a new blog/project I am heading up for the month of February. This is the first official announcement so be the first to participate! Check it and then hit me up!
Live Heartful: The HeartFirst Challenge
February 2009
In reclamation of the month of the heart, to bring more love and passion into the world, in the name of self-love, and because you deserve it: I issue a challenge to all of you out there who love anything, care about anything, feel something, deep in the pit of you. If you dare to live like you mean it, I challenge you.
The challenge is extremely simple: For 28 days in the month of February, put your heart first.
What might happen if for just 28 days, you gave in to your dreams? If for once in this fast-changing, money-driven world, you chose to live by what your heart needs. If you have wanted to be an artist, start painting. If you want to go to culinary school, sign up for a cooking class. If you’ve always wanted to be a revolutionary, go join a protest!
The challenge is this: commit yourself to your heart, firmly and decisively. Barring logistical constraints — you don’t have to leave your job or stop going to school — do all you can to live exactly how you have dreamed to live.
You can take many small actions or a few big actions! Following your heart can mean different things for different people. Here is a short list of of things you can do to start off:
- write that poem screaming inside you
- create a music album
- tell the person you love them
- come out of your closet
- send letters to loved ones
- go to the museum
- get that haircut you want
- redesign your wardrobe
- start your blog
- buy that ticket to Paris
- sign up for salsa dancing
- go talk to a stranger
- volunteer at an organization
- call your parents
Speak your truth
Don’t hesitate
Do it now.
If you feel something compelling you, go for it. And if you stop yourself, take a moment and reflect on why.
This challenge is predicated upon the possibility that our hearts know what is good and healthy and uplifting for us and our lives. That we are capable of everything we imagine. That good energy begets good energy, and that once you commit to your heart’s truth fully, all the Universe conspires in your favor.
Every day in February, live by that faith. Resist the I can’ts and I shouldn’ts. Tell yourself you deserve to live your dreams. This is your time, this is your life.
Try it out, just this once. Live by your heart. Then come back here and share what happens.
HeartFirst Challenge Instructions
This is a serious challenge, so considerate it seriously. By participating you are making a personal commitment to yourself, your heart, and your dreams. If you are up for it, email heartfirstchallenge@gmail.com with the following:
Your name, location, and an intro describing why you are taking on the Heart First Challenge, no more than 250 words all together, and a picture of yourself. When I get your email I will post your introduction here.
This website will document the Heart First Challenge. Weekly suggestions and exercises will be posted; but mostly I will post participant’s challenges, newfound blessings and opportunities, epiphanies, and revelations in their own words. Your commitment, asides your personal contract with your own heart, will be to send an update at least once a week in February to heartsfirstchallenge@gmail.com to be posted on this blog.
However if making public your dreams and wishes is not your cup of tea just yet, by all means, take the challenge on in secret as well! The point is to spread our love, passion, and the natural joy in our hearts into the world.
Think about it. Not too long though. Listen to your heart. Feel if this is something you need. If your heart says yes, then go for it.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.
-H.D. Thoreau
