All reaction is limited by, and dependant on, what it is reacting against.

But I'm more scared of not writing.

Books saved my sanity, knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.

These my two hands / quick to slap my face / before others could slap it.

All reaction is limited by, and dependant on, what it is reacting against.

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.

We are taught that the body is an ignorant animal intelligence dwells only in the head. But the body is smart. It does not discern between external stimuli and stimuli from the imagination. It reacts equally viscerally to events from the imagination as it does to real events.