The last thing I will probably think about is money. I must learn to earn money now. Using my skills. I want to cut myself off from the slavery that has become every black artist’s birthright in the first quarter of the 21st century. I have been an artist for the first quarter of the 21st century. Last week I talked about being part of the 1970s black counterculture. But I was also part of 1970s equity counterculture. And, personally, it has done me no good at all. Well, it’s done me some good. But it’s fucked up one aspect. Money!

Let the Sun Shine

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars… This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius… 

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation, Aquarius
Aquarius… 

When the moon (when the moon) is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter (Jupiter) aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars… This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius… 

Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in
The sun shine in
Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in
The sun shine in
Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in

The fuckers who were consumed with The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius have consumed the world. The fucking irony. The MAN! Bhagavad Gita. Krishna. The Prophet. Be Here Now. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. Kahlil Gibral. The Bible. The Bible told with new eyes. The burning bush is weed. Spirituality, led by the plants God gave to creation. Mescaline. Why would he give them to creation if they weren’t meant to be used? Peyote. The night sky turning bright. A walk in the park becomes the footsteps of a World War One veteran. I am his woman in a pressed A-line skirt and boxed-toe shoes. I am glad to see him return. What does it mean? The age of Pisces is postcards on my bedsit wall. Fish. Fish. Everywhere. Scales. Brains. The reptilian brain. Still in our body. Our body has been through all the phases of the things that were millennia making us, forming us, creating the family tree. All is related. The amoeba. We come from the amoeba. Who me? It is evidenced in your 9 month gestation.

My first walk into a second-hand shop. The repulsive smell of bodies that wore these clothes before me. Their sweat acrid. Combined. To create this new way of life. Where we care about the planet before we know it is truly in danger. Drag a purple carpet from a skip. 1980 does the only true global pulling together. Bans PCP. Aerosols. Saves the ozone. I watch water dance to gentle music and make symmetrical patterns; and the same water made erratic by a harsh voice; in a tower block flat where I’m buying weed before I pay my rent. It is more important to stay relevant. More relevant than those who go before us and never make a mix-tape of a Sunday radio’s Top of the Pops.

It has stained me. It has made me unable to earn money. Last week my guru, I also met him in 1978. In the Manchester Town Hall. Not in person. On a cassette tape. 1977. ‘We keep pushing our wants up a hill. Our hopes. Our fears. And they keep rolling back down again.’ I don’t remember his precise phrase, in the first satsang I ever hear, that catches me. That makes me his. It is something like that.  Me and Tom walk home. Satiated. At peace for once in our lives. Tom who reads the Bible every night getting me to understand where Mesopotamia is in the politics of it all. Tom who knows. Believes. Knows. Has faith. We have found the one. But even he, Prem Rawat, known as Maharaji then, lives in a house in Malibu. Flies a plane. It makes sense to an 18-year-old boy. A year older than me. It makes sense that he can fly a plane so he can reach every area of the planet. ‘I have a message for you. I can show you peace. It is inside of you.’ https://www.premrawat.com/

I, Linda, have found peace inside of myself. For 36 years I have been unearthing the peace Prem Rawat promised me by meditating every single morning for 1 hour, 15 minutes on 4 techniques.

Last week Prem Rawat says in his satsang — ‘What will you think of on your deathbed?’ He follows with Krishna saying whatever you have been thinking all of your life will be what you think of on your deathbed.

Bonnets

I constantly think about money: I am always afraid I haven’t got enough. I am always reluctant to treat myself. It practically causes me a seizure to get a taxi. This must stop. I must monetise my skills. First, I have to understand what my skills are. MY MUM IS WHITE: Exorcising Half-Caste Ghosts did not work how I thought it would. I now have to exorcize my fear of money. Half of that is cos my dad comes from the rural Jamaican slave masters abandoned a few generations before he was born. 1974. There is no water, electric, gas, cookers. No cash. They barter if they have anything to give. I have no fucking idea what they do if they have nothing to give. Mr Country has the sugar, saddle, bread, chicken-back, white rum shop. He is The MAN in St Elizabeth. They jump to his bidding. In St Elizabeth terms back then I am middle class. My aunt Adelyn who I stay with is the seamstress. She has shit to barter. Her husband Ma John is the carpenter. Their 2-shoebox-bedroom is varnished. The only shack in the area not silvering. The surrounding neighbourhood treat me with the same respect I would get in the same position in Little House on the Prairie. I wear a bonnet. The 1970s tell me to rip off my bonnet and jump on it. But, obviously, those ushering in The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius only put their bonnet in the closet. Beside their husband’s closeted top hats. I have been busy destroying my bonnet. They have been stitching new ribbons on theirs. Reweaving the straw. Fashioning new bonnets. They and their descendants parade in front of each other. On Instagram. At first, I didn’t recognise them in their new bonnet. Their clothes smelling of expensive perfume.

Money

Money

Get away

You get a good job with more pay and you′re okay

Money

It's a gas

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

New car, caviar, four star, daydream

Think I′ll buy me a football team

Money

Get back

I'm alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack

Money

It's a hit

Don′t give me that do goody good bullshit

I′m in the high-fidelity first-class traveling section

And I think I need a Lear jet

Sometimes I just wish I had done the job route. My constant fear is money. Without a regular income coming in I will always feel this way. Even on my death bed. That can’t happen. I have to monetize what I have learned so far. Excavating the RENO with Salford University Archaeology; using my white mum’s status to declare myself the mistress of my dad’s plantation in Factory International’s IN THE RUINS OF THE BIG HOUSE; bringing my 23-year mind-map practice to life in HOME as MY MUM IS WHITE have given me emotional freedom. Now, I need financial freedom. I must be financially free. I must change my relationship to money. I must do it now. I am at retirement age. I have to reach Siddhartha’s river. I have to watch it ebb and flow, at peace.

 Money is MY Friend

On Burriana Beach, setting the stage for my new life, I proudly pay £4.50 for my pomegranate juice; £3.80 for a blueberry croissant; £3.10 for oat latte extra hot. £11.40 on myself. My heart did not skip its usual beat; because for one month I have been buying us the MY MUM IS WHITE participants lunch at the Art’s Council’s expense. It has reduced my fear of spending money. I must allow myself to believe I am worth this money. I have earned this money. I can earn this money. I have skills that can generate this money. Money! I have to stop feeling afraid of money. Money is my friend.

 Money is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Mondey is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Money is my friend.

Beginning tomorrow I must pull together the expenses. I feel fearful of this. But I know I will feel less fearful when I get my expenses on a spreadsheet. Then when I have settled my world, I am gonna write to the Museum of Modern Art. The letter is only the same as writing to Clarissa in HOME. Basically, I want to grow my mind-map forest inside their walls. Thanks to Sol's photos, I'll be able to show them exactly what I mean.