In Honor of Pride Month, we are both pleased and honored to offer this powerful praise and prayer poem by Nicole Oxendine, a member of the Braxton Institute President’s Circle. Nicole Oxendine (she/her/hers) is an Indigenous Queer feminist mother, artist & founder of RiverShe Collective guided by the love, whispers & stories of her Lumbee, Cuban & Celtic ancestors. Nicole lives with gratitude on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway & Nacotchtank peoples, 300 miles north of Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina current & ancestral homelands, 45 miles south of the Baltimore ‘Reservation’, 330 miles east of Jewel Ridge, Virginia, & 1000+ miles north of Cuba & Miami, 3000+ miles west of Scotland, Ireland & the Canary Islands. We welcome you, Nicole Oxendine, wise woman, poet, and lover of life!
RiverShe Queer Family Summer Sanctuary Invocation
(Capital Fringe Festival, Washington, DC 2023)
by Nicole Oxendine
This entry can be found in the upcoming Encyclopedia of Radical Helping to be published by Thick Press.
Let us ask our ancestors — all who have made this road by walking before us — to be here, today & always. As Chrystos* reminds us — we walk in the history of our people. Those of our blood & those of our belonging. Some whose names we know & many whose names only whisper in the mysteries. We invite all who have served us with their experience, wisdom, strength & their longing. We are their wildest dreams & we are grateful for their conjuring.
Let us call in those who have uplifted & enlivened us. Let us bring our minds together to honor their names & invite them to share our joy & our togetherness. Together, let us raise our hearts & call out their names with gratitude. Thank you to the grandmothers, grandfathers, aunties, uncles, mentors, writers, artists, sisters, brothers, healers & love warriors of all kinds for making the way to our today. I call some of the so many here & too, your calls & all unnamed into our collective breath.
• Audre Lorde • James Baldwin • Gloria Anzaldua • Fannie Lou Hamer • Ida B. Wells-Barnett •
(Breathe In)
• Pauli Murray • Paula Gunn Allen • Beth Brant • Pat Parker • Marsha P. Johnson •
(Breathe Out)
• Sylvia Rivera • Barbara Jordan • Essex Hemphill •
(Breathe In)
• Ma Rainey • Gladys Bentley • José Sarria • Stormé DeLarverie •
(Breathe Out)
& in the ways of those who have gathered in circles & have gathered me in circles so that I may remember who I am, let us honor the motherline — all mothering in all forms that carried us forward. I offer my motherline — & we gather your additions into our collective call — as prayer & medicine on behalf of all. May we listen & know that we are held, loved & adored.
• Cheryl Ann Oxendine • Lilly Virginia Young Oxendine • Cecilia Garcia Chavez •
(Breathe In)
• Mary Christian Young • Charity Oxendine Sampson • Evarista Rodriguez Diaz •
(Breathe Out)
• Maria Negrin Perez • Grandma Christian • Eliza Ellen Pruitt • Susie Jane Oxendine •
(Breathe In)
• Florence Oxendine • Maria Felicia Diaz Fleitas • Manuela de Paz Toledo • Louisa Smith •
(Breathe Out)
• Rachel Young • Charity Oxendine Jacobs • Mary Paul Dial Sampson • Mary Oxendine •
(Breathe In)
• Hilaria Fleitas • Josefa Corona • Antonia Toldeo Yanes • Josefa Leal Gonzalez • Mary Smith •
(Breathe Out)
• Eleanor (Nellie) Steele • Delilah (Eliza) Lowery • Edith Paul Dial • Nancy Carter
Sampson •
(Breathe In)• Abigail Oxendine • Christina Deskins • Nancy Pruitt • Elizabeth (Betsey) Locklear Lowery •
(Breathe Out)
• Elizabeth Revels Oxendine • Mary Lowery Dial • Milly Hammons Carter •
(Breathe In)
• Elvie Hammonds Sampson • Margaret Francisco Deskins • Sarah Ellen Hurt Pruitt •
(Breathe Out)
• Sarah Locklear Lowery • Mary Elizabeth Lowery Revels • Honor Erwin Lowery •
(Breathe In)
• Elsey Hammonds Sampson • Pussie Lowrie •
(Breathing Across The Motherline)
Nicole Oxendine (she/her/hers) is an Indigenous Queer feminist mother, artist & founder of RiverShe Collective Arts guided by the love, whispers & stories of her Lumbee, Cuban & Celtic ancestors. Nicole lives with gratitude on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway & Nacotchtank peoples, 300 miles north of Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina current & ancestral homelands, 45 miles south of the Baltimore 'Reservation', 330 miles east of Jewel Ridge, Virginia, & 1000+ miles north of Cuba & Miami, 3000+ miles west of Scotland, Ireland & the Canary Islands.
*Chrystos is a Menominee, two-spirit writer & activist. Their poem, “I Walk in the History of My People” is included in the renowned feminist anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa & Cherrie Moraga. (Kitchen Table Press, 1983)