“Heaven On Earth“

“The best part about creating your own heaven is how unreal it seems when you compare it with the hell you came from. I was 15 in these pictures. Can you tell I had vision? Yet can you tell I still couldn’t see that things would be different one day?”

I grew up an only child. I grew estranged from my family by the time I was 5 and was a runaway by 10. I left home in Jersey City at 16 and moved across the country to become a man in the South, on my own. In Jersey, the hood raised me. In Atlanta, the 5% raised me… In the hood!  By the time I was 20 I hustled my way into buying my first house. In the hood! I stayed there for 16 years. That’s where I built a family around me since I ain’t have one of my own! Most of the family in this picture right here, especially those in their twenties now…those are my babies. I been building with and raising them like they my own blood for over 16 years now. If they need anything, I got em. If I need anything, they got me. Young, black, gifted and fearless, but above all, they’re family. If you ain’t got it, you make it. 

And there’s more than this, but this picture was a rare occasion where a bunch of us was together at once. I can’t even describe the love in that room. I tried to leave early cause it was too much for my secretly sentimental ass! Now for those of you who say you don’t like the hood, this is how you make your hood beautiful! It can only start with love though, so make sure you got enough to give away! How can you build a new nation from the ashes of this one when you still in love with all the devil offers you?

…

Journal Entries: 2017Read More »

“Don’t live in fear and love yourself first.” – Mecca Wise, 2012

I’m thankful to have been strong enough to not only survive the trials I’ve endured but to continue teaching through them. Even when all I could teach was by my own example as I traversed every tragedy imaginable. You either spend your moments in fear or in love. Like you’re either seeing things for the negative or the positive and it’s based on your perception more than the reality of it. If you caught glimpses of it, they were a look into the man behind the books, the life of not a teacher, but a practitioner of the principles I want you to use to survive your own struggles.

I’ve made success, stability, and above all, peace and happiness… Out of this dark mountain made of broken pieces of myself and all I’ve cared about. It’s no castle in the quicksand. I make the darkness shine like melanin. I had a terrible temper. Never been even-tempered and grief made me worse. I was always aggravated or anxiety-ridden after Mecca died.

…

Journal Entries: 2018Read More »