How do you get out with your soul intact, away from your family who maybe loves you but wants something different for you, away from friends who want to sit still, away from mindsets that want to hold you close, close you off, defend shallow thinking, defensiveness.
you can let life happen to you, or you make it your own. please make it your own.
i remember when every sentance I said, I wanted to apologize for. when I thought I was so stupid, and half my struggle was unlearning that. Learning things helped. learning physical things that I could feel confident in - like how to fix broken radiator hoses, how to use a chainsaw. learning history helped, understanding that it was not just me, but a world based on keeping us stupid feeling, keeping us wrapped in a silence of competitiveness and gossip and feeling never enough.
When I was too shy to talk, I used to copy articles I liked, political essays and poetry, and put them into little pamplets with beautiful covers and set up tables at anarchist gatherings, selling pamplets for donation. Sometimes it seemed like there was so much talking and not enough poetry, and no one reading black women's words, and I wanted to change that.
As much as there was too much talk and not enough poetry, I remember how amazing it felt to be around lots of people wanting to change things, lots of people who thought along the same lines as me, and it gave me strength to go back to where ever I was from, where I couldn't find the right people. It gave me hope that I would find them someday.
I remember when I started to take more responsibility for my life - when I saw how my self-hate protected me, kept me from challenging myself in fundamental ways. And I knew I had to take these chances - to learn to say what I thought, to learn to say what I felt, to learn what it was that I thought and felt outside of what I thought I should feel and think because I thought that's what someone else wanted me to feel and think.
if that sounds convoluted, that's because it was. that's how my mind was. how a lot of our minds are.
to take responsibility for yourself. deep self-reflection. deep self-forgiveness. taking on a daily practice of become human and strong and fragile. stop hanging out with people who don't want to go beyond shallowness. start risking real conversations. learn. teach.
Showing posts with label becoming human. Show all posts
Showing posts with label becoming human. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
quotes
"I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."
- Audre Lorde
read Poetry is Not a Luxury. read it.
- Audre Lorde
read Poetry is Not a Luxury. read it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
old and young punks and activists
My old punk friends complain about feeling alientated at shows, and not knowing how to relate to the fire in young people who are struggling with things we've already come to conclusions about, and complaining about bad tactics of young punks at our small little protests in our small little town. Like there was a Critical Mass bikeride recently, and at the end of it, someone locked themselves to the doors of an abandon Bank of America, and they were shouting out the ways the Bank of America was actively killing the world. My old punk friend left. I mean, I probably would have too. He said there were parents with kids there, there were lots of people who didn't want to get arrested, and it just seemed like how many times do we have to repeat the same tactical mistakes, alienating people, getting arrested.
Yesterday I was talking to Finn and he was saying that the generations in activist circles are so small. Like a couple years brings a whole new generation, and a lot of the people who two years ago were active, now have disapeared, and there's no one to pass down the lessons learned from experience.
I see a lot of my older friends giving up. Losing passion. I hear them say things like "I used to read a lot and now I almost never do." And I think it is so essential that we figure out ways to support eachother in growing older and staying committed. I think it is so important that we continue to challenge ourselves and eachother. I think it is so important that we try and figure out how to pass down our experiences and the lessons we've learned without being condescending, and without telling young people that they shouldn't try things anyway, even if when we did the same things we failed. Sometimes you have to learn things for yourself.
And we need to make more of an effort to talk to talk to young people, like when I heard about that Critical Mass, I was thinking I would have left too, but I probably would have tried to find the people who organized it later, talked with them later in the week, asking them what were their goals with that action, and talking about the importance of letting people who come to a protest know if they're going to do something in an effort to get arrested. Talk about the ideas of symbolic action, media, buliding mass movement, building visability, or small, cohesive groups. Talk with them, instead of saying "this isn't for me anymore".
And I think young people should know that for the most part we are a bunch of babies, scared of their fire and scared of their judgement, and unsure of our place in things anymore. Some of us may be bitter and jaded, but most of us are little fraidy cats and would probably really love to be asked questions about what we experienced, what we learned.
Yesterday I was talking to Finn and he was saying that the generations in activist circles are so small. Like a couple years brings a whole new generation, and a lot of the people who two years ago were active, now have disapeared, and there's no one to pass down the lessons learned from experience.
I see a lot of my older friends giving up. Losing passion. I hear them say things like "I used to read a lot and now I almost never do." And I think it is so essential that we figure out ways to support eachother in growing older and staying committed. I think it is so important that we continue to challenge ourselves and eachother. I think it is so important that we try and figure out how to pass down our experiences and the lessons we've learned without being condescending, and without telling young people that they shouldn't try things anyway, even if when we did the same things we failed. Sometimes you have to learn things for yourself.
And we need to make more of an effort to talk to talk to young people, like when I heard about that Critical Mass, I was thinking I would have left too, but I probably would have tried to find the people who organized it later, talked with them later in the week, asking them what were their goals with that action, and talking about the importance of letting people who come to a protest know if they're going to do something in an effort to get arrested. Talk about the ideas of symbolic action, media, buliding mass movement, building visability, or small, cohesive groups. Talk with them, instead of saying "this isn't for me anymore".
And I think young people should know that for the most part we are a bunch of babies, scared of their fire and scared of their judgement, and unsure of our place in things anymore. Some of us may be bitter and jaded, but most of us are little fraidy cats and would probably really love to be asked questions about what we experienced, what we learned.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
imagine the impossible
"One must have faith of a kind that our history has made nearly inaccessible."
-Ursula Le Guin
"...a whole bunch of us were talking about how we imagine recreating ourselves and our society, and so many said they just couldn't imagine any other way to live..." - excerpt from letter.
Imagine the impossible.
they want us to believe there is no other way to live, that things have always been this way, that there is no way out and no reason to try, no reason to resist. I rememember learning about Paris, 68, when the students took over the university and the workers had a general strike, and the city was shut down, and people talked about what they would want in a post-revolutionary society. On the walls were slogans. It was a time of great slogans. Imagine the Impossible, Make Your Dreams Reality -- Slogans that are these days used for car commercials. But in those days, my parents days (even though my parents were in office buildings and schools and had no involvement in any of this, aside from that my mom read Anis Nin, and my dad loved a history that said white people weren't the first and smartest people on this earth), in those days the slogans meant that plain Marxism wasn't enough anymore. There was something more that movements for social change were going to have to incorporate.
When I was growing up into politics, there was a whole debate about lifestyle anarchism vs social anarchism. (I can't even remember the titles now. Social?? I don't know.) Whatever we were, we hated lifestyle anarchists. We thought focusing on how you lived was a real waste of time and very self-indulgent. I remember one debate we had about Food Not Bombs when that was just starting, and we decided it was more or less just charity, despite it's pretentions of revolutionaryness. We did not live in collective houses because in the 60's people lived in collectives and it turned into such drama and sucked the life out of real social action and organizing. I lived in a little apartment with my dog. I was very lonely.
But there is a thing that is real. My friend Dave said to me the other day -- I know what I want because I have felt it in moments. -- Moments of communication, moments of protest or parade when we move like one being, times of collective decision making when decisions are made with respect and without fighting, moments of creation when true connection is real and present. Living together outside of nuclear family. Building houses together, feeding eachother, dancing. Times when you can see that another world could exist - this is what I ended up liking about lifestyle - trying to figure out a way to live with integrity, how to live in a way that would feed me and ground me and give me inspiration to keep fighting, keep figuring out how to do more outward struggles for social change.
I have a clear utopian vision. Not clear in the details, but clearly I believe that we could have a world without hierarchy and domination. And for me it becomes embodied in the vision of a world without sexual abuse. For someone else maybe it becomes embodied in a world without the torture of animals, or a world without pesticide use, or a world without schools that turn us into robots. A world without racism. A world where culture can flourish without being turned into commodity. A new world. A world we are told we can't imagine -- but we can. Imagine it. Fight for it.
-Ursula Le Guin
"...a whole bunch of us were talking about how we imagine recreating ourselves and our society, and so many said they just couldn't imagine any other way to live..." - excerpt from letter.
Imagine the impossible.
they want us to believe there is no other way to live, that things have always been this way, that there is no way out and no reason to try, no reason to resist. I rememember learning about Paris, 68, when the students took over the university and the workers had a general strike, and the city was shut down, and people talked about what they would want in a post-revolutionary society. On the walls were slogans. It was a time of great slogans. Imagine the Impossible, Make Your Dreams Reality -- Slogans that are these days used for car commercials. But in those days, my parents days (even though my parents were in office buildings and schools and had no involvement in any of this, aside from that my mom read Anis Nin, and my dad loved a history that said white people weren't the first and smartest people on this earth), in those days the slogans meant that plain Marxism wasn't enough anymore. There was something more that movements for social change were going to have to incorporate.
When I was growing up into politics, there was a whole debate about lifestyle anarchism vs social anarchism. (I can't even remember the titles now. Social?? I don't know.) Whatever we were, we hated lifestyle anarchists. We thought focusing on how you lived was a real waste of time and very self-indulgent. I remember one debate we had about Food Not Bombs when that was just starting, and we decided it was more or less just charity, despite it's pretentions of revolutionaryness. We did not live in collective houses because in the 60's people lived in collectives and it turned into such drama and sucked the life out of real social action and organizing. I lived in a little apartment with my dog. I was very lonely.
But there is a thing that is real. My friend Dave said to me the other day -- I know what I want because I have felt it in moments. -- Moments of communication, moments of protest or parade when we move like one being, times of collective decision making when decisions are made with respect and without fighting, moments of creation when true connection is real and present. Living together outside of nuclear family. Building houses together, feeding eachother, dancing. Times when you can see that another world could exist - this is what I ended up liking about lifestyle - trying to figure out a way to live with integrity, how to live in a way that would feed me and ground me and give me inspiration to keep fighting, keep figuring out how to do more outward struggles for social change.
I have a clear utopian vision. Not clear in the details, but clearly I believe that we could have a world without hierarchy and domination. And for me it becomes embodied in the vision of a world without sexual abuse. For someone else maybe it becomes embodied in a world without the torture of animals, or a world without pesticide use, or a world without schools that turn us into robots. A world without racism. A world where culture can flourish without being turned into commodity. A new world. A world we are told we can't imagine -- but we can. Imagine it. Fight for it.
Monday, May 14, 2007
remember your dreams
healing, dreams, becoming human, writing
try and remember your dreams.
If you can't remember your dreams, keep a little notebook under your pillow or by your bed and a little mini flashlight, and write down anything, fragments or feelings, don't try to make sense of anything, just write faster than your brain can go.
Why? there are things inside that are strength giving things, healing things, love yourself things, and sometimes they are working in your sleep. they are creating messages and ways of fixing, and I know for me sometimes all I can remember is the bad dreams, but past that is the good ones. Sometimes even the good is hidden in the bad.
The best part of the dreams for me is when the truelove visits me. Once upon a time I thought the true love was something outside myself. something I could find out in the real world, and maybe there is. but this is a different love, it is part split off from the wholeness of me, and i think a lot of us have that. To survive in this world we have hidden away parts. we are full of self-hate and self-blame and guilt, and there are resources inside ourselves waiting to be recognized, waiting to be let back in.
At night, when I remember, I say, "come visit me dearone." and sometime it does. It takes a little to recognize. It is when I wake up and feel happy and a feeling of wholeness, and I feel back through the images to where that happiness comes from. The truelove comes in different forms. It has come as a highschool boy, troubled. It has come as a part human part cougar. it has come as baby twins. It has come as billiejoe from green day. it has come as a shadow, as a revolutionary fighter. Whatever form it visits in, I try and recognize it. thank it. lay there in the morning re-remembering that feeling of happiness, wholeness, peace.
And rememebering these feelings. letting them in. and in the day when things are rough I try and call them back to me. I give the images names. I call them back to me.
try and remember your dreams.
If you can't remember your dreams, keep a little notebook under your pillow or by your bed and a little mini flashlight, and write down anything, fragments or feelings, don't try to make sense of anything, just write faster than your brain can go.
Why? there are things inside that are strength giving things, healing things, love yourself things, and sometimes they are working in your sleep. they are creating messages and ways of fixing, and I know for me sometimes all I can remember is the bad dreams, but past that is the good ones. Sometimes even the good is hidden in the bad.
The best part of the dreams for me is when the truelove visits me. Once upon a time I thought the true love was something outside myself. something I could find out in the real world, and maybe there is. but this is a different love, it is part split off from the wholeness of me, and i think a lot of us have that. To survive in this world we have hidden away parts. we are full of self-hate and self-blame and guilt, and there are resources inside ourselves waiting to be recognized, waiting to be let back in.
At night, when I remember, I say, "come visit me dearone." and sometime it does. It takes a little to recognize. It is when I wake up and feel happy and a feeling of wholeness, and I feel back through the images to where that happiness comes from. The truelove comes in different forms. It has come as a highschool boy, troubled. It has come as a part human part cougar. it has come as baby twins. It has come as billiejoe from green day. it has come as a shadow, as a revolutionary fighter. Whatever form it visits in, I try and recognize it. thank it. lay there in the morning re-remembering that feeling of happiness, wholeness, peace.
And rememebering these feelings. letting them in. and in the day when things are rough I try and call them back to me. I give the images names. I call them back to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
