amanda goes to prison. (Patreon)

hallo comrades.

yes, you read that right. i am going to prison. and i am taking all of you with me.

sorry if it's clickbaity, but i really don't mind. i want you guys to read and respond to this one, because it feels big and important. 

i'm also a few days behind.... i've been trying very hard to find the time to finish up a huge piece i'm working on about the trip to ireland & the abortion referendum. life keeps moving in realtime and being at a wedding was more important than being behind my computer for a few days, and i'm doing what i can.....there's just too much life. never a bad thing, really. but i'll catch up - writing about the referendum and my experience there is a huge priority. i don't want it to slip away. stay tuned.

meanwhile, next up:

i am going spend this whole upcoming weekend at the massachusetts correctional institution at norfolk - a gigantic med-to-max-security prison about 55 minutes from where i grew up in the bucolic suburb of lexington, mass. 

i am keeping this news off public social media for now not only because i have to (and i have to, rules), but also because i'd like to keep the experience tighter and within the patreon. it's also a really nice use of the private nature of the patreon: i'm going to slow down, learn what i learn, and then go back to the world with whatever-that-is in one thought-out song/art/piece. 

this is what i am coming to love about the patreon: a place i can share what i'm doing without being out in the public street in the blazing sun all the time. more like in the kitchen, it feels like. 

hi, the kitchen. let's please talk about this if you have a second for a conversation. and please don't mention any of this on social media, not yet, because i've promised to keep any writing about this "off the media".

i don't usually paste whole articles, but i'm going to paste a chunk here, because this NPR journalist is going to paint you a better picture than i can.

In a cavernous auditorium in the state’s largest prison, a group of about a dozen men serving life or lengthy sentences for homicide or other violent crimes take their seats in a circle with a mother who has suffered the loss of two murdered sons. Some of the inmates seem nervous, shifting in their seats, staring down at the floor.

Forgiveness is the topic they have been given to discuss at this, the first small group session at a two-day retreat at Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) — Norfolk on a concept called restorative justice. Based on indigenous traditions, it brings victims and offenders of crimes together in mediated dialogue.

Isaura Mendes, the bereaved mother, urges the men in her circle to fully face their culpability, but not to let their worst acts define them.

Several of the inmates say the shame they feel has made the notion of seeking forgiveness feel almost impossible.

“I’m in for murder, and I’ve been in for 23 years," said Richie Hazard. "My two brothers were killed six months apart and I know what my mother went through. Later on down the line I ended up murdering, or being part of a murder, where I saw the mother on TV and she was crying and she fell down between two cops and had her head on a bumper. And whenever I think of forgiveness I always think of that image. And I think how could I forgive myself for that knowing what my mother went through."

Sitting in circles like this one and opening up about their crimes and their own often traumatic backstories that preceded the violent, often deadly acts that sent them to prison is one of the centerpieces the Restorative Justice and Responsibility Retreat, now in its fourth year. It brings “inside men,” as the incarcerated call themselves, face to face with judges, pastors and relatives of murder victims. It is one of the only encounters of its kind in the United States.

The criminal justice system focuses on determining who committed a crime and then determining the punishment. Restorative justice focuses on accountability and making amends. Ideally, proponents say, that comes from a mediated encounter between victim and offender. Victims can ask questions they never get to ask in a courtroom. Questions like: “Why did you murder my loved one?” and “Who are you today?” The process can bring healing for victims and rehabilitation for offenders, say its proponents.

Mendes and the other victims at the retreat did not meet with the men directly responsible for the homicide of their loved one. But they met with perpetrators of other violent crimes.

Another centerpoint of the weekend is a series of public apologies.

An anxious silence fell over the prison auditorium when a row of incarcerated men filed in and stood before them. One of them was a 46-year-old mountain of a man, named Jefferson Hudson. His eyes were closed. His body trembled as he began his public apology.

“Today I would like to say to Mr. Richie and Mr. Edward that I’m sorry. Not only to Mr. Richie and Mr. Edward, but their families, friends, that I have held hostage with my brutal and careless act,” he began.

“When I found Mr. Richie and Mr. Edward I laid both of them down and shot them in the head,” Hudson said. “I take full responsibility for every choice I made.”

On the walls of the prison posters hang with restorative justice-related sayings. One reads: “Hurt people hurt people. Healed people heal people.”

Many of the prisoners grew up surrounded by violence. In the circles the inmates, many of them lifers, share brutal memories. Some open up, sometimes for the first time publicly, about being sexually abused as children. Others recount beatings and seeing friends shot or stabbed. A recurring theme is the pain of growing up without fathers...

continue reading the article (it's really good) at: http://www.wbur.org/morningedition/2016/02/16/restorative-justice-norfolk-prison

here's another article in the huffington post about one journalists transformative experience at the retreat: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/pierre-r-berastain/restorative-justice_b_3577242.html 

.....

so....through some of my connections at TED (particularly adam foss, who did an incredible talk about US justice system reform on the TED main stage that you should watch), i was honored with an invitation to be a part of this retreat. it's the sort of thing you don't say no to.

and it made me think about what i've been doing-fast-and-deep and what i've been writing lately, and the patreon, and how i could maybe tie it all together.

so i am going to go into a prison for two days and i don't know what i'm going to come out with, but i'd like to come out with (at the very least) a blog and (at the very most) a song. 

there are a lot of rules before you enter the prison. what you can wear, what you can bring, what you can eat. you get screened and go through heavy-duty security. 

i've had long talks with the people who run the retreat.

i know that i am going to be doing a lot of sitting and listening.

i know that the inmates are going to be making music.

and....i don't really know what to expect, but i expect it'll be pretty fucking powerful.

and i want to say a thing about the patreon at this moment:

saying yes to an opportunity like this is something i don't know that i would have done before the patreon. with the travel, it means almost four days away from home, off work, not "getting paid", not "running the business". 

but this is the business. it's the business of life, and if i can make/create/urge some profound art out of this as a result, this is the best way to live, i think. 

saying "yes" to life so i can work instead of "no" to life so i can work. if you know what i mean.

the patreon makes it possible. i am so grateful to have you all here supporting me.

and now i'm going to throw it over to you all.

restorative justice is not my wheelhouse. i may know a few things about a few things, but i don't feel like this is remotely my experience of expertise, and i'm always the first to put my hand up and say "i don't know fuck-all about this". you guys: i don't know fuck-all about this. i know what your average lefty-new-york-times-and-guardian-reading-and TED-talk-watching person knows about the american prison system. mostly: that it's pretty fucked. antiquated. overcrowded. underfunded. not. working.

but....i am trained in the ways of buddhism and radical compassion. and i do know a thing or two about people and emotions, having encountered a lot of them. and i know that healing is a complicated process, and that compassion and connection are the main keys, and that hate, anger, resentment, and fear can start to get chipped away at once you can make the hugely transformative dive into the waters of empathy for all beings.

and now i'm getting a bit teary, because i miss my best friend anthony. he taught me the fundamentals of this sort of stuff and he would have really good advice and a lot to say about this topic, having spent his own life as a therapist treating criminals and people with severe addiction. 

he's not here anymore. 

but i have....you all.

you all are wise, you are kind, you've been out there in the world. 

if you have any thoughts about prison, crime, restorative justice, what it means to be a victim, survivor, perpetrator, prison worker...hit me. i want all your stories. i am going to read them all and carry them in my heart as i walk into that prison and meditate with these folks for two days on what it means to try to change our fucked-up society through true connection.

they don't have to be personal stories, you can also send me links to prison things you've read or things you think i might want to read or see before heading in. 

don't forget: this is a patron-only post. it's not open to the public, this is just us, talking.

favor: please don't send me links to books unless they're available as ebooks, since i won't have much time to order and read.

please try to leave your comments before tomorrow (friday) night at around 5 pm, because that's when i'll be delving in to read most of them. i'll keep reading, of course. and i plan to write (at my piano in boston) on saturday and sunday night. i'll let you know what happens. 

okay.

i am open.

i am wide, wide open.

ready to be schooled.

ready to be broken.

xx

AFP

p.s. we have about 60 lozzy bones nouveau posters that i joyously scrawled "REPEALED" on at the dublin show .... they're now for sale on the UK website and ALL OF THE PROFITS are going to the charity ALLIANCE  FOR CHOICE, which is an ireland-wide pro-choice activist group aiming their efforts at getting progress happening in northern ireland. there are only a few dozen, grab them while you can and know you're giving to a great cause.

https://ukshop.amandapalmer.net/products/hand-customised-repealed-art-nouveau-print  

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

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