Beseeching Light

Commits from the Author D. Jean Collins:

I have been called an "Eccentric Anachronism."

When people find out I live a simple, low-tech life, they ask why I would choose: no television (since 2006), minimal online/internet contact; no use of social media; no use of digital/phone texts; use of email when necessary; no internet-connected appliances, (except my landline, which I am told is the only access for telephone services). Some look down on me, judging me like I'm afraid of change, afraid of technology, afraid of progress.

Not true, I worked with computers when they took up entire rooms. I was one of those using a language called Fortran; we punched code into cards in fastidious order (and many times screamed when we dropped the trays of carefully punched cards). I helped several community businesses, schools, and offices go from manual to computerized.

I was part of the teams in the portables that provided data entry for the entire Student Services Department at Oakland Unified School District in its glory days, before privatization, before state takeovers, when there had been no school closures (to sell off the valuable land), no massive firings and lay-offs of personnel. I was there when it became office etiquette to email the co-worker in the next cubicle instead of walking over and saying hello. I have ridden the tide of tech changes. After I am asked why, the next questions are usually, "What do you do all day?" "What do you do with all that time?" "How do you do it?" "Why do you do that to yourself?" One of the reasons I write this book is to answer these questions. And to ask and answer a few of my own.

Another reason I write this book -- every time a beloved one dies; every time I have an attack of pain that lasts longer than usual, I say to myself, "Self, it's time to finish what you started." In BESEECHING LIGHT, a phrase I borrowed from dear Hafiz, I've written memories of how and why I began beseeching light. I write of the awakening to the Spiritual Quest that called a black girl born in Mississippi, transplanted to Iowa. Born, raised, and trained in the Sanctified Church and Black Gnostic Studies.

I tell some of the experiences that shaped and molded me into a Revolutionary. One of the most notable was meeting, working for, and with Dr. Alfred and Mrs. Bernice Ligon. Which led to my total immersion into their Black Gnostic Studies program, based on the Ancient African Egyptian Mystery Teachings.