Mother Se’May Sayer: The ARC of Time
Season 2: Episode 10: My Role Is…
Prologue:
(When am I going to stop running from every facet of my life? Huh? Tell me when will I embrace all the complex, necessary and ordered parts my training begs me to embrace. When will I accept the decree laid upon my name? Mother is struck or presently awash in knowledge after every session with the ARC Council. This time she feels like the information from multiple sessions held weeks apart have begun to flow in a cascade across her mind. The intent of it she can only imagine is to speed up her learning. Make her absorb the information internally at a faster rate. Mother feels a spiritual presence is unsatisfied with how things are going.
Who is she helping? Have those interactions resulted in tangible or measurable results that are needed to spread forth a better world. Mother long ago knew her presence was being looked over. Like a parent watching the children playing in the yard through the front window of the home. There would by necessity be a ‘charge’ placed on her life which she knew comes with the wisdom and knowledge she asked to usefully possess.
All of this wisdom and knowledge doesn’t come with an instruction manual or complete disclosure. She has long gotten past that truth. What Mother just recently has begun to understand is she has got to practice with some of this stuff like a team comprised of different position players. How all members of a team work together so their ‘roles’ externally and internally present a unified sense of purpose.
Mother now understands more of the old phrases like ‘A woman’s heart is full of secrets’. She releases her guilt and ignorance about this point immediately. Now I know what I must do she says. I have to take from the parts of myself I’m not using at that moment to have the energy needed to address current conditions. I can’t keep my mind on one thing or allow it to wander if the situation doesn’t call for it. I have to always remain adaptable. There’s that ‘military training’ rising to the surface again. Mother thinks ‘man if I could just recognize what I needed to know a little sooner’.
Mother quickly squashes such ‘would a should a could a’ thinking with joyful relief that she has unlocked some chains from her mind all by herself…).
Mother Sayer: What do I need to focus on today. (Mother sets her thoughts on what is the most pressing piece of business she will have to address to start off the week).
Sarah W. Certainty: I believe the mentoring business is starting to show a profit.
Mother Sayer: Ha Ha that’s funny Sarah.
Sarah W. Certainty: All jokes delivered I’d say I may have been wrong about a few of your people. Oakli and O’Woh are still projects for sure, but the way you came at them keeps me coming here daily.
Mother Sayer: Oh, why?
Sarah W. Certainty: When you said you weren’t a ‘Colonialist’ that struck my senses. I’ve never been at a company where the owner didn’t want to exploit the wage earners at the bottom of the ledger.
Mother Sayer: The balance sheet mentality is still the top priority at all companies I’m sure. What about growing the business? I believe this is the flaw in many companies how they look at growing or expanding their market.
Sarah W. Certainty: I know a little bit about expanding territory, but the way I’ve seen it done is probably not the way that is in your textbooks.
Mother Sayer: The way your father did it.
Sarah W. Certainty: I’m not talking about the crap shown in the movies where killing counts for expanding your grip on the market. Markets that are already established are markets you don’t need to cultivate.
Mother Sayer: Persuading the people who control those markets to play ball with you made more sense than killing them right?
Sarah W. Certainty: I see you’ve had some upbringing around some dark corners in the world.
Mother Sayer: My father is Ableman Sayer.
Sarah W. Certainty: Just ‘checking on learning’ is how you say it in the Army right?
Mother Sayer: (Mother nods.). Go on you have my attention.
Sarah W. Certainty: Nowadays even the ‘underworld’ relies on market research. Can’t know if going into business with somebody is worth the effort if the organization being run is slipshod. Name is everything in that business because it can keep you alive in every way, or it can have you looking at the clock knowing time is not on your side.
Mother Sayer: Time in what you’re talking about is one of your guys giving you up to the cops. Keeping the exact details of the organization privy to a select few.
Sarah W. Certainty: Yes right, but the most important thing is what you said a while ago. You’re not a ‘Colonialist’. In the underworld you have to pay your people well. That’s why a drug dealer stays in that so-called profession. He is making money he knows McDonald’s couldn’t come close to paying.
Mother Sayer: I know this. While elite entertainment media types love to demonize drug dealers they always report it in ways that keeps them looking shall I say ‘heroic’ by the way they characterize drug dealers.
Sarah W. Certainty: Are you looking to mentor someone in the drug trade now?
Mother Sayer: No, I’ve told myself the truth a long time ago concerning drug dealers and their buyers.
Sarah W. Certainty: Can’t help them all can you?
Mother Sayer: There is help for people struggling with substance use disorders. The facts are still such that if they are 18 and over they got to seek the help. Children are a different deal as parents can force them into treatment. No I don’t spend my time worrying about grown people and the decisions they have the right to make.
Sarah W. Certainty: Can I get an Amen sister?
Mother Sayer: Amen sister.
Sarah W. Certainty: Back to how my father did it was multifaceted I would say. He used many approaches for many different communities if you get my meaning.
Mother Sayer: Where Black communities would not allow a White Italian slinging on its’ street corners no more than were the opposite to happen.
Sarah W. Certainty: Good, so you identify necessarily the strongest physically amongst Black drug dealers to sell your products. You’d still want to have somebody capable of independent and rational thought.
Mother Sayer: Self-explanatory I’d suppose, but what about people with violent reps? I’m sure your father didn’t go into neighborhoods with say Russians and demand they work for him right?
Sarah W. Certainty: The Europeans required an approach they were familiar with. Violence. My father let them know that the difference between them was that he or his men wouldn’t be doing any of the dying. The Russians would be doing that, and he told them how it was going to go, and he let them decide.
Mother Sayer: Your father, Don Se’Stone, could play different roles depending on the who was in front of him sort of like ‘situational awareness’ the Army taught me.
Sarah W. Certainty: That’s what you need to do more of. You can be tough with the ones here you think need it, but what face are you going to show to suppliers and the like?
Mother Sayer: My role should not be ‘static’ in the face of complex challenges you say? It should be kinetic?
Sarah W. Certainty: I going to say something you might not like. I know we discussed Laine Goone in the past after you got your daughter back. The reason you got played was because of that. You didn’t see him coming because you were unprepared. He smelled you up over the phone long before sizing you up in front of him.
Mother Sayer: You’re right Sarah that can’t happen again. That’s not the reason I’ve been reluctant to pull the trigger on new business alliances. It is for that reason I didn’t know the ‘lay of the land’ before I began traversing it. I’ve been putting in more time studying people from all walks of life.
Sarah W. Certainty: I must give it to you. Consistency is one of your strong points. Truth also as lying to yourself won’t score you any points on the field of business as we both know you’re playing to win.
Mother Sayer: Ain’t that the truth. Did your mother help him like give him some pointers? By the way how is Sparklett?
Sarah W. Certainty: She is fine as ever, and I do mean beautiful.
Mother Sayer: She has that alluring presence I show wish I had. I’d say that’s that Italian blood in her from the homeland.
Sarah W. Certainty: I do have beautiful parents which I’m also glad to be truly loved. Even more I appreciate the fact they poured a little of that wisdom, strength and presence in the room over my head.
Mother Sayer: Parents that are strong don’t transfer that strength in ways that most people think they could. The child has to open say a path to allow the parents’ energy a way in. Every child won’t get it Sarah.
Sarah W. Certainty: So you’re saying I’m old school? I’d say that’s correct. I looked at it more or less that way. I had two powerful forces that created me, and I wanted to get a line installed with the quickness so that I could feed from them until I’m fully charged.
Mother Sayer: Someday you knew you had to disconnect that direct line and sustain your own energy source. You. What drives who you are and would it have the capacity for self-sustainment. The energy within you to produce more energy to pursue new and exciting interests than just living day to day.
Sarah W. Certainty: What matters right?
Mother Sayer: I can’t just be thought of as a mother or be put in the category of businesswoman. That’s just not good enough for me. That’s why I push everybody to achieve greatness in every facet of their lives. My role will not be defined by other people. I will not be restricted in the things that I know I can do.
Sarah W. Certainty: That’s why you put some of your people in authority just to see them struggle, fail, achieve what?
Mother Sayer: I thought for the longest my father was crazy. Crazy in my limited understanding at the time he started instructing me. Nothing was off limits for me. I of course was respectful. He corrected my leanings toward complacency when the pace of instruction was numbing. He kept me shocked and inspired enough to get me through rough patches.
Sarah W. Certainty: Like a child discovering sex for the first time.
Mother Sayer: Right. He blew through my shock and awe. One thing he taught me I still shake when I recall it is how grateful I am that he laid it before me. Sarah he said, “The Devil is not you judge. You are not your judge. God is your judge in all three manifestations of what is Holy”.
Sarah W. Certainty: Sort of like the Catholics use the priests to shield them from their actions.
Mother Sayer: Yes. I learned for myself many things beyond his teachings in the area of spirituality. Most of the people preaching things about God don’t have a clue what they’re saying or affirming. I’ve come across a lot of people taking as doctrine all what they hear in their so-called church settings.
Sarah W. Certainty: I see we’re going to have another one of those long mornings in conversation.
Mother Sayer: Are they starting to wane for you? No longer enjoyable?
Sarah W. Certainty: Absolutely not. It is time for motherly love and may I make the point I always feel more grounded afterwards. Our talks bring us closer together as family.
Mother Sayer: That is so true for me also.
Sarah W. Certainty: You were saying the error of some people taking as gospel the word of some low grade teachers.
Mother Sayer: I don’t get it Sarah. A young fool sitting alone on the internet consuming things totally destructive to their psych is one thing. The adults are the ones that are peculiar to me no matter how I turn over their blind loyalty to a cause. They keep coming back for more. It’s like a stupid soldier lighting a cigarette on a dark battlefield.
Sarah W. Certainty: Letting the enemy know their position and where to train their firepower. The heart of the one they’re following they care not to know. Some people totally ignore the lessons of tragedy. History shows that the majority of the dangers we face approaches us cloaked in darkness.
Mother Sayer: That is why I’ve sought out the tough topics for answers all my life. I was never treated with kid gloves by Mister Sayer. My father kept pouring it on. He taught on a level that was age appropriate, but once I got into my teen years he didn’t hold back anything. I handled it or I didn’t that’s what he said. So this is who I am and I’m not going to make myself smaller because somebody else can’t handle my strength.
Sarah W. Certainty: Come at me Bro?
Mother Sayer: That’s right. I live downrange and I will stay there. Let me tell you something else about me. I was around my father as he exposed me to many situations that would make a normal person seek shelter for their mind. I absorbed everything about those circumstances. You know what changed in me as a result?
Sarah W. Certainty: Tell me.
Mother Sayer: The blankets dropped from my head as I lay in bed at night. I know that look. Just listen. All human beings have thoughts pass their minds and we both know some of them look to torment us. Life is scary if you’re not learning the tools needed to defend yourself. I don’t like being at a disadvantage to anyone physically, spiritually or mentally!
Sarah W. Certainty: So you want to be prepared at all times. That’s why you want to be a mentor so much. Wait for a second. Have you ever started to cross a bridge and halfway across you doubted getting to the other end?
Mother Sayer: Yes of course. I have you with me now because of one of my failures. You are the best thing that came from dealing with that knucklehead Mister Goone.
Sarah W. Certainty: I heard my father and mother talking about you and your dad. This union has changed my life forever as well.
Mother Sayer: The Army contributed to much of my presence in ways of command and control. Dealing with people while part of a team. Putting everybody in the best position possible commensurate with their skill set. All the while not letting people escape the difficulties of their jobs because they on purpose shy away from increased levels of responsibility.
Sarah W. Certainty: I can surely testify to that. If you work here you won’t be hiding in a corner thinking you’ll go unnoticed.
Mother Sayer: Status check now Sarah. All the marbles in the bag. Life is always 90 plus percent from the neck up. I’m going to tell you something else from another source of wisdom and knowledge you know I turn to for clarity.
Sarah W. Certainty: Victor. You’re talking about Victor right?
Mother Sayer: Correct. In one of the best counseling he gave me was about religion. He asked me if I sat in a church and a so-called preacher was orating from the pulpit would I believe him or her word for word without question? I had to say yes because that’s what I was taught to do at the time.
Sarah W. Certainty: I suppose it should if you thought it helped you in some way. You were probably taught to accept it as helpful.
Mother Sayer: That’s where we all get it so wrong. Victor said if you’re going to be fed again metaphorically in the spirit which is unseen, then shouldn’t you receive something that you can keep down. In order words something your body could process so it could become part of you?
Sarah W. Certainty: So in other words you’re comparing a spiritual message to a good meal that is meant to stay down?
Mother Sayer: Honestly I blindly followed the message of a lot of preachers because I assumed they knew what they were talking about. I didn’t put two and two together until I started talking to Victor. If I couldn’t keep food down for whatever reason I know it’s coming back up or the toilet is about to have a visitor.
Sarah W. Certainty: You ignored the response to the mental health part of your body which started to show outwardly in trying to live or do good things off bad input. Feeling like you still had a full belly even though you just threw up the crap that wasn’t sitting well with you.
Mother Sayer: I am impressed Sarah. I see you’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the essence of things. The metaphysical I should say. It is often the invisible but divisible things that always seem to have a high rate of success against us. The good we decide to do gets polluted by our inability to tell what is good and evil.
Sarah W. Certainty: I do believe all of us start with say a basic understanding about life. Family, obedience, right and wrong are a few things we get early lessons on. Life starts to get serious before we reach adulthood for sure.
Mother Sayer: That’s where Victor feels strongly the worst lessons are learned. He suffered or should I say groped through many dark patches in his younger years.
Sarah W. Certainty: Parents, teachers and preachers weren’t up to the task for him am I right?
Mother Sayer: Amen Sister Victor would say, and not because he wishes to condemn their emptiness of knowledge to answer his many inquiries. He would condemn their apathy in acquiring the knowledge in order to answer his questions.
Sarah W. Certainty: Isn’t the common refrain given to why parents of his generation didn’t care to answer his questions was that ‘they were born in difficult times’?
Mother Sayer: Yeah. Momma or Daddy couldn’t read or write or whatever stupid reason he said they always gave him. The adults never failed to render an excuse why they couldn’t answer him. Everybody just seemed to accept the fact nobody had any answers.
Sarah W. Certainty: That never satisfied your friend did it?
Mother Sayer: That man is relentless in his quest to always render an answer. He says if a client comes to him he can very well tell in the first meeting where the problem lies. When tough questions never receive consumable answers the results are that mental injuries never receive the healing care they deserve.
Sarah W. Certainty: Being somebody that has consumable answers is very important to you I see. You know there are people that will choose to be ignorant. They like being ignorant because it causes disruption and will likely keep them in the spot they feel most comfortable.
Mother Sayer: Exactly. I’m in no way making a case to convince them otherwise. I do have an answer for them when they groan about their lives to me. That the life you are living is the one you want. Change it if it’s not.
Sarah W. Certainty: Some people have lives they had nothing to do in creating as far as the social status they enjoy. Some people live in poverty, and it is okay with them as well. Can they receive instruction from you?
Mother Sayer: Knowledge is always there for those that seek it. I’m going to include much of what we discussed today into television and movies from the media department. No I’m not worried if some will reject my philosophical moanings. I have a feeling there are a lot of people that are yearning for something that makes sense. Something they can keep down and hopefully can become a part of them.
———————1st Interlude—————-
Sarah W. Certainty: All of what you said sounds incomplete. I know there is something else you want to say.
Mother Sayer: I would be disappointed in you if you didn’t catch that. Black folks remember the meaning of family. Family has clear mandates. Relationships mean you know the people you’re spending your life with. When they are good and when they aren’t so good.
Sarah W. Certainty: If family is family then the family should know when family members are struggling with something whether it be physically or mentally.
Mother Sayer: Self-care is what it’s called. It’s not called being a busy body or being noisy to be clear. Knowing yourself first is the only way you will then have the space to know someone else.
Sarah W. Certainty: I’ve seen it in my parents’ home. My mother knew who the man was that asked her to marry him. She was drawn to the only man that could match her energy. My parents found each other even in the old country with all their arranged marriages. I could tell you some stories my mother spiritly remembered confounding her father. We’ll save such entertainment for another time.
Mother Sayer: I can’t wait. Self-care can be likened unto a railing that follows along or traces the steps we take. It is something that stops the panic we feel when we lose our footing on our way to a fall. It’s there as we grab for something to break the fall.
Sarah W. Certainty: Because everyone has moments of real doubt about their ability to defend themselves mentally. The common issues of life receive an amplified boost when our defenses are barely holding their own.
Mother Sayer: Right. It sounds simple yet when our need to for instance maintain a certain standard of living or appearances in a specific profession; the chances of harm to our mental health increases without the corresponding defenses there to address the possible outcomes.
Sarah W. Certainty: That’s what you were saying about Victor. He spent many years heeding the teachings of idiots until he finally accepted the truth. The ‘shit they were spewing from their mouths was being rejected by his body’. Sometimes coming out of ends at the same time.
Mother Sayer: It sounds impossible that a human being would allow themselves to be deceived for so long, but the conditions are ripe for abuse when that’s the system. Children have to taught by somebody. Fortunately as Victor did I hit a ‘crossroad’ which crystallized an opportunity for me to make a violent course correction.
Sarah W. Certainty: A slow right turn wasn’t going to happen huh? No hitting the brakes to avoid a rollover for you. No ma’am I’m going to take this corner. Either I better stay on the road or I’m going to flip this thing.
Mother Sayer: Precisely that Sarah. Everyone has facets of their lives. All of us have the capacity to change slowly or abruptly. The facets that have been hiding behind other parts of our lives are now getting shoved to the front. In America for far too long the mental facet of human nature was fiercely shunned. What do you think happens as a result?
Sarah W. Certainty: Metaphorically it’s like restarting an engine that was gleefully allowed to rust and corrode because it was seen as a drag on the fun side of human nature.
Mother Sayer: Careful Sarah, I will submit an application to UofL to have you awarded an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy. Philosophy 101 when a crucial facet of humanity is neglected the ruins are enormous as the destruction lies in the path of us all. Mental health isn’t something to play with.
Sarah W. Certainty: I need to hear this. Please keep going.
Mother Sayer: I’m about done. Have you ever noticed this about some of our troubling times? How odd it is that the heaviest struggles come in the dark of night. Like all our problems suddenly tap us on the shoulder after we’ve said our prayers at night.
Sarah W. Certainty: I have felt like that before.
Mother Sayer: That is the image I have in my head when I’m struck by those attacks to my mind. Visualize crossing a canyon in the dead of night on a rope bridge. Now the rope bridge symbolizes the defenses you’ve fortified to withstand the darkest of trials in your life. What if the rope bridge is constructed of dumbass shit you learned from dumbass idiots?
Sarah W. Certainty: I’d say you’re in ‘trouble’.
Mother Sayer: Let’s say you learned something from somebody that had just enough usefulness that it held up under your feet and you made it to the other side of that ‘void’. As you were just about to step on solid ground the bridge collapsed leaving you there clinging to the rock face five feet from the top. I would imagine you’d be kicking yourself for trusting in the advice given with assurances it would not fail you.
Sarah W. Certainty: Pissed wouldn’t be my response. I’d say I put myself here for consuming the shit coming out of people’s mouths who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
Mother Sayer: Maybe they knew what they were saying was cow dung. That is what I concluded long ago. In the end responsibility lies with the individual paying good time to hear them talk. I stop blaming other people for my decisions long ago. Not because I stopped listening to them. I put the ownage squarely back on me. I needed to hone my own senses to know who can assist my deliberations when I face the issues of life.
Sarah W. Certainty: I wouldn’t expect you to do no less.
Mother Sayer: Here are some of my techniques I use in those times when my state of mind is tipping precarious over a steep cliff. I repeat a two or three word phrase like ‘Jesus wept’ or ‘More than a conqueror’. For the moments when I feel I’m about to be defeated by my mental struggles I force one or two thoughts like that into my mind and replay it like a broken record.
Sarah W. Certainty: What more would you say to yourself?
Mother Sayer: I’d say ‘Se’May you cannot be defeated. No harm will come unto you. You are more than a conqueror’. I’ve faced down more demons in my life to count. For me as you know the stronger character trait I possess is the vow to never lie to myself. It’s fantasy to think I would prevail in each trial I face just because I say so. The strongest character trait I possess is knowing when to ask for ‘HELP’.
Sarah W. Certainty: Know thyself.
Mother Sayer: Proverbs 18:10…’The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe’. I’m not delusional. Do I possess everything I need to walk without fear on this Earth? No I do not. So a reasonable person should conclude that others know things they do not. The trick is finding the ones that possess the knowledge you need for all facets of your life.
Sarah W. Certainty: That’s why you embrace your ‘Role’. However you are needed for yourself and others you will endeavor to accomplish it as it is required of you.
Mother Sayer: Experience has shown me don’t run from mental challenges if you know you must righteously face them. Run toward them. Closing the distance shortens the time needed to identify and solve the issue. Last thing I would say to anyone deep in mental battles. They don’t go away on their own.
A broken arm could heal itself, but there is no hiding the distortion effect.
Epilogue:
(Mother has had a day today. She knows the conversation she just had with Sarah she wanted to have with an adequate partner on her level. Sarah is good to her she thinks. I hope she knows when she calls me Mother she uplifts me. She is a good young woman. Tested in ways many women need to be as well. Women and men are steered away from conflict of the mind because there are not enough men and women willing to stand in the breach and learn tough knowledge.
Knowledge that can heal. Knowledge like that requires the student to be vulnerable. In no way am I saying it is possible for everyone that is looking to learn can learn at such levels. That’s why I am so thankful for my father and my friendship with Victor. Both of those men have suffered wrongfully and accepted those affronts and became stronger for them! Preachers. Ha, there should be a licensing course for that. No one should be allowed to spew crap from an altar and not be responsible for its’ effects.
Standing higher up and looking down gives an erroneous impression about their skills and abilities. I’m glad Victor doesn’t hold back with me. I can’t imagine living for decades with bad teachings. He has jokes for days though. The stuff he heard he said was coming out of both ends of his body and he still didn’t know to stop eating it. Vomiting and shitting at the same time I know I shouldn’t laugh but that couldn’t have been fun.
One other thing I took from his talks was that it’s not about respect for the person teaching. It is about respecting the lesson if it is a good one meant for making more good come from it. In Colossians 4:6…Let your speech alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
That is ‘My Role’ Mother says. That is my commitment to whatever role is required of me to assume in this world. I will become it no matter what it takes.)…
