Water, Rage, & Prayer
On Learning to Sing Like Waves
As a little girl, my mother told me not to leave my brush lying around. She said to be careful who had access to my hair. But when the moon is new, when the moon is full, when the solstice comes and the sun shines down, how can I not give of myself? I go to the ocean and rip out my hair. I go to the ocean and give my blood.
“Praying is not like wishing—you must have something to offer.” —Ariana Brown
For most of our time in Canada, I’ve walked nearly every other day to greet the water. For the last two or three months, my bodymind has convinced me to stay home. Making it to a beach more than once a week has been rare. God had to start telling me in dreams how much I need to smell salt spray to be ok. The water I keep in jars is a reminder of music, but not the song of the deep.
We are each other’s reminders. Each of us is a song.
Three days ago, where I live people were decked out in red and white to celebrate Canada Day. Today, while I consider July 4th as Rebekah Day in honor of a friend’s birthday, the country where I was born fills air with perfume of dead animals to celebrate patriotism. What is patriotism right after the Supreme Court made it official presidents are kings who can kill without consequence, or decided unhoused people can be kidnapped and jailed, or made the Environmental Protection Agency into a figurehead unable to protect anything? The US military is the biggest polluter on the planet, most deadly entity to all living beings—be they trees, seas, or people—and the House passed a bill to automatically register young men for the selective services: automatically registered to be a murderer of anyone outside our borders men in suits choose to dislike. The government hasn’t made moves to automatically register anyone to vote. The US State Department decided to hide the death toll of the genocide in Gaza, and we watched a bickering contest so obscenely incoherent I swung between cracking up in disbelief and rolling my eyes from lack of surprise. Witnessing all this would be hard on any day. But being in this world and not looking away, not looking away while downloading a soul, downloading a soul and stitching cosmos into bone while we all undergo so much collapse—no map exists for this weariness.
I want to sing about joy but there’s so much to be mad about. I pick my thumbs and hum Solange. I take the baby growing inside me to the ocean and we bask in the glory of waves unconcerned with who is frightened by their power. I try to write about green beings in the garden but all that comes out is blood.
Planting Seeds
“And they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.”
—Kimberly Latrice Jones
Pregnant again people tell me not to read the news so I watch not CNN or MSNBC or videos from the New York War Crimes I open my phone and fall into genocide Corpses fall away replaced by rows of kale beets garlic scapes A catalog of atrocities plays inside my head while my daughter asks to be pushed higher on the swing She laughs suspended beneath regal cedar while I stand behind hands pushing plastic seat our view of the garden a peace while I contemplate visions of vengeance I see whites of the eyes of Kimberly Latrice Jones speaking about Black people I wish every white person in the world could see her rage our rage our grace A gathering of ravens is called an unkindness A gathering of colonized peoples is called a fury My genetic memory gathers skulls My daughter kisses my belly and says I love you I’m a big sister! she says She is a star sparkling I am a mother watching death peck at children How I dread Broomhill Park & Village Foods endless improv to make my mood more tolerable I want to slice the soft palm of my hand and caress faces of all those who ask how I’m doing
Uplifting beloveds, art crushes, & luminaries
Some wisdoms currently grounding me:
Essay: the role of the artist is to load the gun by ismatu gwendolyn: O—the power of art to shape new worlds. O—the responsibility of artists to leverage our power in service to the collective. Just read everything they write:
Podcast episode | How to Survive the End of the World featuring Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Sangodare: A testimony on love-crafting and what it means to honor deep love as a gift from our ancestors:
“The intentionality with which we relate to each other comes out of the idea that we understand our relationship to be something that our ancestors gifted us with towards achieving our highest destiny for our whole community in our lifetimes. That’s different than just like, You cute or I just want to be around someone, or I just want partnership for all the things I do in life. All those things are great as well, but in those moments where it’s like, how do I choose how I’m going to relate to this person?—it is spiritual practice—because this is an ancestrally gifted miracle of my life. I relate to our relationship as spiritual practice, and we both do that. It’s a huge gift because I feel like even just talking to Sangodare is a form of prayer.”
Podcast Episode | Socialism Conference—The Poetics of Social Movements with Aja Monet: I am trying to dream more and mourn less, and this was a beautiful reminder:
“I think sometimes when we think about solidarity, we lean into the tropes around our oppression and our struggle, and the things that we’re fighting against. We need to lean more into what are we for, where do our imaginations meet, how do we want to collaborate, what do we want to create together, what’s the world we want to see, what dreams do you have that you have yet to experience and imagine and manifest—and how can I be a part of facilitating that dream? What ways can I help facilitate that dream for you? And then we can be in that real demonstration of solidarity.”
Book | Heirloom by Ashia Ajani
More and more I release the need for improv. May we be insufferable to apathy. Say the word genocide in the grocery store and keep eye contact through the silence of all those who ask how you’re doing. And when you feel most broken, consider what or who is your ocean? Go there.
We are each other’s reminders. Each of us is a song. I want us to sing as loud as waves when the tide rolls in.