moving the needle
At 4:44a this morning, the birds started singing their dawn song outside my open window. I imagine this an anthem of “I’m still here” in that haha death, i’ve lived to see another day kinda way. I recently read that birdsong activates a part of your brain’s reward system, evolved from ancestors seeking viable land by attuning to the birds as an evidence. I’ve been spending my days in birdsong, wrestling with the trees in our back woods. An invasive species, along with thick vines, has strangled many of the flowering trees. I’ve got scratches on sunkissed arms. Managed to recover three trees and a bit of my childhood in the woods.
It makes me think about the destruction within deconstruction. History repeats itself in our world and in our own lives. Each loop revealing a new part of the pattern that only today’s eyes can see. So that we might shift it, move the needle just a little more in the right direction. Progress not perfection. Perfection is the enemy of progress (churchill). To be perfect is to be unflawed and frankly, uninteresting. It avoids vulnerability and responsibility and growth. Perfection is a characteristic of the delusional thinking of white body supremacy, used by capitalism and puritanical religion in a composition of comparison to manipulate our attention and our spending. Perfection is rigidly adhering to old stories and binary systems that are harming those that don’t fit within them, as well as those who do because we are not free until all of us are free. and freedom withheld from one is freedom that can be withheld from all.
Paying attention is what Mary Oliver calls the beginning of devotion. Some hard fucking work to endure in the devotion to such necessary r/evolution. The coping strategies for this new world we are creating can only be developed in the destruction—the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired— of the self-eating old one. These kinds of deaths, revealing the shoddy framework of our lives, I suspect are necessary in uncovering and constructing our devotions, our causes, our loyalties— so we may best use our time and energy in ways that are sustainable. What we value is what we live for.
My days are devoted to my sensitive child and to my aging mother and to my wild self. We’ve just hit warmer weather. Our garden is unfolding slowly. So s l o w l y, asking for listening more than manipulating. Everything is a metaphor. The fruitful darkness and it’s uncontrollable timeline is moving the needle forward, unhurried in its gestation and uninterested in perfection. Nature knows all things are perfect and absolute in their own time. The flow of love yields a generous harvest. So be it.
FIELD NOTES //
We watched the series Dickinson on apple tv and learned so much about the eccentric, queer poet & her family as well as some civil war era history. (the above poem is from @poetryisnotaluxury)
PORTLAND PARENTS LOOKING FOR CAMPS, the reframe collective is offering both a maker and drama camps for your kids this summer. Mae has previously been a part of their programming and I cannot stress enough how unique and special what they’re doing is.
this quilted piece out of old prison uniforms made by hank willis thomas
this quilted piece made by lou gardiner
nancy dwyer’s ego
yayoi kusama’s narcissus garden
this bullshit. a ban on abortion does not mean abortions wont happen, it means unsafe abortions are more likely to happen. i can’t imagine a world where a woman who miscarries will be subject to criminal investigation. white rights are being threatened to remind us what black women have been already enduring and hopefully push comfortable white women AND MEN alike to rage against this injustice against our sovereignty. I would say they will be going after queer people’s rights next but the truth is, they already are.
Wasps are one of the most effective pest eaters and having a bird bath in your garden discourages fruit pecking and encourages insect eating.
this issue of ALICE is dedicated to human rights activist, educator, and theologian Ruby Sales. (Hear my favorite interview of her/ever WHERE DOES IT HURT here) In 1965, Ruby was one of thirty demonstrators arrested in alabama protesting the unfair treatment of some share croppers. (share cropping was a way white people still profited off of black people & kept black people impoverished) When released from six days in jail, the county deputy saw some of the protestors getting drinks from a nearby store. He shot at Ruby, killing instead white seminary student Jonathan Daniels who pushed Ruby out of the way. (the murderer would go on to be acquitted by a jury of 12 white men and later recorded on public television a year later having no regrets and declaring if he had to do it again, he would have shot them both) Ruby went on to attend seminary herself and start Spirit House Project in Daniels’ honor. (In 2007, they documented over 2000 state sanctioned deaths against black people, finding 98% of the deaths were of unarmed men.)
this project makes the web of connection more apparent in my life and let’s me practice using my voice. so thank you for creating this space between us, for reading and sharing what reaches you. i love you all. let’s keep going. c