a new year and the discipline of hope
friends, comrades ~
i haven’t written to y’all on here in almost exactly a year, and if i shared all of the inner struggles and workings i’ve undergone and muddled through since then, it would simply feel like an over-share. my return on here is probably undergirded by a slow build of clarity, affirmation, and six months of deep, serious healing work that is just getting started. and by the fact that i do indeed enjoy writing, i love words and the way language births life, hello i’m a gemini sun.
it’s important to say: this is the closest i have felt to god ever, and i mean god as in the inextricable, inexplainable divine connection between all living things and the irrefutable kinship between humans, animals, plants, and stars. the way we all feel so safe under a tree, how the beauty of a blossoming flower makes us feel that living is worthwhile after all, or how the networks of mycelium remind us that we are never alone.
honestly, historically, i have felt so personally annoyed by people who constantly talk about “healing” and after deep reflection, i know this is a product of suppression and not facing my own shit for a long time. (leaning on escapism - be it overworking, obsessively processing information and media, alcohol, and whatever felt accessible and familiar in the numbing department) PLUS the fact that the discourse of wellness, healing, and associated practices (somatics, therapy, acupuncture, movement therapy, breathwork, herbalism, etc.) have all been white-washed and stolen from Black, Indigenous, and communities of the Global South. i was in a yin yoga class last week, and the moment when this room of almost all white people started chanting Om - my gut literally contracted. it’s so obviously abhorrent. all of this in the context of a country that treats health like a commodity to profit off of in the market, even more inexcusably so during a global pandemic. with this as a backdrop, i can say the past six months have transformed my understanding of care and wellness, and i’ve learned so much from the healing justice movement in this time. this season i am prioritizing presence over prep, deepening my access to the wisdom my body holds, learning about plant kin and their medicinal ways, and embodying bell hooks’ words that “healing cannot happen in isolation.”
in the words of mariame kaba, “it’s work to be hopeful. it’s not like a fuzzy feeling. like, you have to actually put in energy, time, and you have to be clear-eyed, and you have to hold fast to having a vision. It’s a hard thing to maintain. but it matters to have it, to believe that it’s possible, to change the world.” these words bring me such profound assurance. when i say aloud what my commitment in the world is, it goes: “i am a commitment to making revolutionary processes, those that make us more human, more possible.”
and as i’m settling back into the pace of organizing, writing curriculum to teach youth on topics of oppression/state-sanctioned violence/systems of domination, thinking through the local implications of another chaotic, unpromising electoral year in florida, and trying to manage all the physical/emotional/spiritual demands of self, partnership, friendship, family - the words of mariama kaba resonate like a calming murmur. last week, during my first somatics session of the year, my coach reminded me: “change takes practice” - an obvious reminder that so many of us forget. one that brings me back to bell hooks’ teaching: “in a culture of domination, we tend to only think of power as something external (power over), and forget to think of power within us.” i’m thanking my guides for allowing me to be in awe and in study of the militancy of the everyday people - how workers all over this city and country are resisting the alienation of exploitation and asserting their dignity. may we all find more strength within us to see us ourselves more capable of what these times require, and may we extend the care and solidarity to others fighting, and exert less energy entertaining the fantasies produced by self-doubt.
thank you for supporting me in all the iterations of myself.
i value each of you so much.
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Listen to my latest podcast episode: Indigenous Resistance as An Antidote to Climate Crisis, with Nick Estes (co-founder of The Red Nation)
Listen: Isla Del Encanto by John Franco (yes, like my lover and partner)
Listen: Fire in the Hole by Earl Sweatshirt
Listen: Slow Hot Wind by Penny Goodwin