assimilation politics

i had the fortune to see gloria anzaldua lecture once. it was at the queer studies conference in iowa city. she was one of the keynote speakers. she gave a lecture i shared often when i was asked to guest lecture on identity.

anzaldua spoke on identity, of knowing who you are. she used an analogy of thinking of yourself as a tree. your identity as the roots that hold you firmly in place. you must know all these parts of you, and own them, accept them. otherwise, when those mighty cultural winds come, and they will come, you will get blown away.

i go back to this lecture frequently. especially as i change and grow as this culture continues to try and box people in and tell us who we are… it’s a marketing strategy. i especially think about it when i try to sort out identity politics. i’ve never been a fan of identity politics.

do my politics influence my idenity, or does my identity influence my politics?

should they even be connected?

for me knowing who i am and what i stand for is key to simply moving in this world.

but should this be a factor in politics?

i should be voting for someone because they are going to guide our community in a good way. in a way that helps our community be a healthy and thriving community with good roads and schools. that makes sure that we have clean air and clean water. to find ways for all who want shelter to have a safe place to find rest.

is this possible in capitalist culture?

my idenity of being queer, or female, or the color of my skin should never have become a part of our politics, and it saddens me that these are the issues that have become our rallying cries every couple of years.

every couple of years the issues shift and change, distracting us from what could really build stronger healthier communities. they make us fight for our right to exist instead of why we have allowed fracking and other extractive industries that are polluting our groundwater and poisoning all it comes in contact with.

don’t get me wrong, we need to fight these anti-trans bills, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, well anything that is anti-some human beings trying to live. but these issues should never have gotten into the political ring.

so i’ve been thinking about anzaldua’s lecture on identity, trees, and roots.

in a healthy intact forest, those roots of individual trees are tangled in with other roots of other trees, and bushes, and plants, and rocks and mycelium, of micro-organisms. all these roots are forms of communication and interaction. they help other trees they aren’t even near. they can send nourishment when another tree is ailing, or warn them of an incoming threat.

this is community

this is community organizing. those roots don’t care what kind of plant they are sharing information and nourishment with. they simply do it to keep a healthy thriving forest.

maybe this is one reason i feel safer in an intact ecosystem then i do in a city.

it is also why i feel that voting in our current system is a “what’s the point” kind of practice.

voting is another way of assimilation. in fact, if one follows the suffragist movements in this country, it is only after a particular group has assimulated enough that they get to vote. or we let them vote as long as they pay taxes, and stay in line.

a two-party system whose purpose is to keep power concentrated is never going to have a system that will bring about its own demise. it is rigged to ensure there is some small measure of pavlovian treats handed out while they continue to beat us for not playing the game correctly.

what’s more, is that it feels to me that this need to keep narrowing down identities keeps us fighting and diverting OUR personal and collective resources fighting one another so we don’t pay attention to those empowered committing genocide with our votes and tax dollars. it is a political divide and conquer/conquer and divide strategy that has never ended.

i’m not saying don’t vote.

also not saying do vote.

do what you need to do.

but when we have a government calling citizens who are fighting fascists in this country, domestic terrorists, we have a deep-seeded problem that is not going to go away at the ballot box.

this is a battle that is going to have to go deep into our roots, to what connects us to one another, and all other living beings. not as a democren or republicrate, but as a living being in community.

it starts with ourselves, knowing who we are, what nourishes us. what do we, as individuals and collectively need to say no to, in order to say yes to another world?

hammock therapy

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i have started to consider this past summer as my season of hammock therapy. i spent a fair amount of time in my hammock reading…lots and lots of reading, but mostly i listened.

i heard the early morning birds, the late night birds, the coyotes, i listened for the lobos that are returning. i heard animals walking through the dry grass. the wind through the trees and the ropes holding me aloft. i heard rivers and streams, and the ground soaking in the rain.

and i heard my breath.

i heard my heart pumping.

i got quiet and still

i searched inward.

i’ve never really gone to formal therapy, for various reasons. and it is only recently that i have thought of hammock time as therapy time, and since i have, it makes me wonder how do people go to therapy for an hour once a week or once a month and heal what they are working on? no judgement, just wonder. for me, spending a coupe hours out hiking or biking or running for my “therapy” i feel great for the rest of the day, maybe two or three. then i can see myself sliding back into the behaviors and habits.

i guess some professions call this extended time away from work as a sabbatical. i saved up money so i wouldn’t have to “work” for a period of time, and this time i had a project to work on, and that project was me. i knew i couldn’t keep doing what i’ve been doing, but didn’t know what other options i had.

spending this time out of social bounds, i felt more connected to place than i have in maybe ever. unlike the other adventures i’ve gone on, this one had no itinerary no agenda or theme, so if i fell into the silver city vortex, no one was waiting for me to come up and out. i opened and allowed specific places to totally captured my heart. places i will return to again and again in some way. places i want to build relationships with.

what broke apart in me in my hammock sessions are the walls i’ve spent decades building as a buffer to a world that i do not understand. it seemed easier and easier to put up another brick then realize that the systems in place will never address the issues of violence and injustice i have spent a lifetime fighting.

swinging, suspended in the air, i no longer felt separate from but a belonging to. my identity larger then the labels i claimed or the ones slapped on me. i was beginning to get a glimpse of what liberation could feel like. out here i always feel safer. nature never bullied or beat me for being queer.

what i feel and believe is that i thought i wanted to decolonize myself: my mind, my automatic thoughts and ideas about the world and the beings in it. and i guess that is part of it. but i don’t want to de-anything. i want to re. i want to reconnect. relearn. release the unnecessary…re-member and the only way i can do that is by paying attention to what is out there that truly matters like the birds that greet me at times of day. the sun and moon and planets as they move in their cycles. how my cycles and moods and energy levels switch in rhythm with them. these are the things they didn’t teach me in school. i am learning them from beautiful beings that have been on this journey for along time and are sharing their knowledge. i am learning that these are now the keys for me to unlock something that got lost and hidden in me before i was even born.

in the opening of the essay“no spiritual surrender”, klee benally writes “For Diné there is no dichotomy between spirit and nature, we are of this Earth, and so where there is an environmental crisis there is also a social crisis.” he goes on to explain that there can be no justice on stolen land. where the land/water/air is being violated via resource extraction, there is also exploitation of humans and other lives. it is no wonder we have an epidemic of disconnection. we see it in the numbers addicted to so many substances and behaviors, as well as extensive levels of depression, anxiety, isolation, suicide…

so back to the hammock mind. back to the places i feel whole. my feet on dry land or river beds and ocean shorelines. back to my breath. back to knowing where the sun, moon, and planets are in their cyclical dances. back to my heart. how do i take this feeling into everyday life and language? how do i keep from sliding back into contributing to a capitalist mindset? how do i live in this culture engaged in an abusive relationship. how do we keep this revolution from being commodified like che t-shirts sold at the GAP and rainbow capitalism? can we use this connection to subvert capitalism and the separation and violence it brings with it?

i want to explore how we can break down language and words to get to the stories that got us so fucked up and hating, justified though “science” and language, nationalism, pride, glorified violence. can we tell a different story thank reconnects us?

what is your hammock moment?

un-wrap this

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it should come as no surprise that i struggle with the holidaze

this year is an exception in that i just can’t…couldn’t

the apocalypse is just too much this year

and let me explain the part of apocalypse that i mean…the part that is about the unveiling the revealing what is being hidden, covered up.

i kinda felt, as many others around the world, that we should just all cancel christmas, or totally change it up this year. recognize what it truly means deep down for each of us, once bethlehem canceled all their activities, events, celebrations… i mean if the birthplace of christ is cancelling the birthday party should the rest of us show up? and santa’s north pole has melted so….

so i was all prepared to go inward. do my work. lay low (usually my goal), but i woke to the news that israel bombed bethlehem. fucking bombed bethlehem on christmas day! paid for and sponsored by the u.s.

my personal theme for this year has been “when someone shows you who they are believe them” well world…here is israel. and the u.s. and great britain. and europe

i wish i could say i was surprised, but i unfortunately was not.

i’ve read too much.

i learned about zionism vs judaism by reading books and talking to former Israeli soldiers. i’ve gone to talks featuring palestinians who have found some kind of refuge in the u.s. where they have talked about all the palestinian homes they have been to having these little wooden boxes holding keys to the homes they hope to one day get to return to. stories of settlers, colonizers showing up at these home to claim them as their own with warm food still on the table, fire in the oven, in the hearth, that is how much time they had to escape their homes. the advantage of traveling the way i do (on foot, by bike, moving slow, talking to strangers) i get to hear stories. i get to hear music that tells stories. the land tells stories. things unfold and open up to be studied and unlearned. something in my life i am without a doubt grateful for, even for the things i did not want to know.

so ya, you can color me many different colors, but surprised is not one of them.

nothing has changed since 1948 for the palestinians. escalations for sure, but constant violence from the zionist, that has not.

so, anyway, i got curious as to how far away bethlehem is from the gaza strip and just kind went down a google-map rabbit hole of the area. at first i got a little confused because palestine is not listed on the map at fucking all! nowhere! gaza is. and the 1950 line, but palestine is not named anywhere. so i looked it up…google maps has never had it ever. even with public outcry….nope has not changed it. could be one way google got on the boycott, divest, sanction movement list?

what i did find? a hotel by banksy! yup! a pro-palestinian art hotel! (it is called the walled off hotel if you want to check it out) looks freaking rad. probably not there any more. in fact when you click on a place you want to visit in the area (like all the national parks and such) you get this little note that says “information about this place may be outdated. always pay attention to real-world conditions, which may be rapidly changing”. geez!

so ya, Bethlehem was bombed on christmas day. should have made the spirit of the palestinian born and raised christ very at home.

so what do we do when hand ringing and sending hope and prayers fail us?

what do we do when our “leaders” show us who they are? when we realize they have all done this? when we see that our tax dollars bought and paid for it while we have our own crisis going on here?

these question usually lead me to what am i covering up in myself? where am i complacent? what do i need to get honest about to myself?

is it any wonder we are a heavily medicated society?

if it helps…

for most cultures throughout time, time like the rest of all things, is not linear but cyclical. it may indeed feel like the end of the world, but it is not. the cycles keep moving, the season do change but things will not look familiar except of course when they do.

what we take forward with us with what we leave behind (process digest assimilate release) maybe that is what we take with us as we cycle through this moment.

to me the exciting thing about an apocalypse is the opportunity to do the uncovering. to see the fallacies as to see that there have always been those who see though the smoke and mirrors. they tend to be our storytellers, our healers, and the persecuted. but without seeing and feeling what it is in us that needs healed, well we just keep repeating the same bullshit each cycle.

its work

its the work of lifetimes

so might as well get to it

pitter-patter

just a moment in time

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yemen

who would have thought it

i’ve been looking for who is doing what needs to be done in this moment

honestly

i’ve been deeply pissed off and i can’t say disappointed because none of it is surprising, but i just

it never cieses to amaze me how wacked the industrial world is

for 75 day…for 75 years, israel has been inflicting genocidal violence on the palestinian people. now bombing the shit out of gaza, with no concern even for their own people caught in the crossfire

on top of it cop28 was held in dubie… one of if not the most oil rich state in the world, with the most fossil fuel lobbyist ever in attendance for a global conference on the climate crisis? seriously?

then

then the person of the year is announced by time magazine, and it is taylor swift…again?

and the word of the year is rizz so i guess that does go together, but really?

the world is coming together in support of palestine in so many ways. taking to the streets. calling for global general strikes. mass demonstrations all over the world. major boycotts that are having major impacts.

and then there is yemen

yemen. an impoverished arab state with a humanitarian crisis of its own, and what do they do? they perhaps take the biggest stand/risk of any nation-state. they block all ships wanting to move supplies through the red sea, forcing them to reroute around the continent of africa! this has huge corporation like bp to stop shipping in the area. bp who has held huge fossil fuel contracts with israel (as does the eu, great britain, and the u.s.

if yemen can do this

if the journalists of palestine can risk their lives every moment of every day so we can be informed

if the palastinian artists can still find ways to sing and create moments of joy

if the sun still rises

and the seasons still turn

what can i do

what do i risk

what i want to say here is, there are so many things going on in the world right now and so many capitalist distractions to keep us from taking action but making sure we go holiday shopping. so many feelings that make me freeze in my steps to the point i feel like i just can’t move

and then

yemen

yemen found their point of power in the situation, the thing they could do.

i want to be like yemen

i don’t have much to offer, but i do have a vision

and in this vision i can see who i want to support and how i can do that isn’t always evident, but i am learning about where i want to put my money (not that i have much) how i want to get my food, what i want to read, listen to (silence, birds, rain), the pace i want to move my life…these things we each have when we strip away the distractions and reveal our own true and deep values not attached to should’s or suppose to’s, but to that inner knowing. i hope in these times, as in all times, you are finding that stillness in yourself that gives space to go out in the world and be your unique you.

p.s. my person of the year would be courtney dewalter, or sally mcrae, or maybe alok, or the whole crew of reservation dogs, or maybe it is all my good pals that inspire me to get up each day. but really, why do we want to put one person at the top of a list every fucking year? none of them got there on their own. it takes all of us so lets celebrate the coming light of a new season.

p.p.s. i also don’t know why we need a word of the year. go out there and use all of them. make some up. be your own dictionary

me and black friday

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“Anyway I don’t think we can rely on governments, regardless of who is in power, to do the work that only mass movements can do.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle

does anyone else find it odd that we kick off a massive buying season the day after “thanksgiving”? i know “black friday” sales start way before, and christmas decorations might as well not even come down anymore. or that the truce between hamas and israel is during the biggest buying frenzy of the year when corporations (and therefore politicians) need people in shops, not the streets?

this holiday season, i thought, was for bracing for the coming winter months of rest, going inward away from the cold, to embrace time with the people close to you, celebrating a good harvest, and put food away for a season of limited resources.

yet, somehow we have decided to go full force and buy all the things, spend all the money, buy all the affection, and get gobsmacked somewhere mid-january with credit card debt or inability to pay rent or keep the heat on in the depths of winter.

i can remember the first thanksgivings when suddenly some members of my family started spending part of the day, going through the newspaper for the best sales and making lists and creating some kind of strategy for the next day devoted to shopping. i was very confused. it used to be the day that me and my cousins went with grandma to get our own new ornament to put on our christmas trees. it was a nice outing. we’d come back and eat leftovers and watch some football or go out and play our own games or ride bikes, go find our friends, and enjoy a day.

it was about this time i stopped going “home” for this and subsequent holidays.

i’ve always struggled especially with thanksgiving. i once heard ben franklin proposed that this federal holiday be a fasting holiday. but i guess there is just no money to be made on a fasting holiday. this also makes us the only culture that does not have a fasting holiday.

i have had several nice 4th thursdays of november where groups of friends had pot lucks or we went camping, or just got away together to enjoy the rare mutual day off. and i want to have a time and a place to gather to celebrate a good harvest, a beautiful growing season, i time of reflection to make the moment when we should go inward, to repair, to rest, to plan, and prepare for the next growing time a deep celebration, but capitalism has other plans. and those plans have seeped deep into a colonized mindset and patterns of unhealthy behavior.

then i learned about buy nothing day!

what?!

a whole day where i don’t have to go out and buy anything. well, usually i end up buying coffee at the LOCAL coffee shop on my way to an animal rights rally (typically an anti-fur protest). i’ve participated in this event every year since i first learned about it, so probably about 25 years? usually, my purchases would only be coffee (as mentioned) and gas as i returned from my retreat from the insane world that was working in a produce department at a natural foods grocery store the wednesday before thanksgiving provides.

then i moved to new mexico where places are closed at some point during the week. some are closed on sunday. many are closed monday and/or tuesday. i’ve seen a few close on wednesday. and if you live in a ski town anywhere in this country, they will close or open late for a powder day! brilliant! it made me think of growing up in kansas with the blue laws where places had to be closed on sunday. sure it was for “christian” religious reasons. what i remember most was how quiet our little town was. i could ride my bike around with few cars to share the road with. there is a certain feeling that comes when we all have a day of rest at the same time. and there are many cultures and religions that have this weekly or specific times of the year, but not capitalist systems.

this summer i was talking to my buddy up in oregon whom i have participated in buy nothing day/animal rights protests. he had a brilliant idea to make buy nothing day a weekly or monthly gig instead of once a year.

yes! i am in!

and i am.

starting this monday, november 27th i will be celebrating buy nothing day every monday. the current global events have spurred me into this action. but what has really spurred me on to adopt this project is what is going on in the world from the wars to climate collapse and what they all have in common is capitalism. in the future i will break some of these down more, but the current issues that have come back up to the forefront of my consciousness is 2 things, the bdsm and war tax resistance.

i first learned about the boycott, divest, sanction movement (bdsm) years ago when i began to learn more about the palestinian liberation movement. with the escalated israeli genocidal occupation of palestine and gaza i’ve been reminded of this movement and the corporations to pay attention to have been updated (i have a link to this project below). the american and global corporations that support israel’s occupation and their attacks on the people of palestine need to be held accountable and this is one way to do it every day. it is how we can continue the work when we are not in the streets.

these war crimes are supported by these same people with names and addresses participating in other operations around the world, especially in the global south, and they have been for a very long time! but they can’t do it if they don’t have our money. and they get our money not just by us buying their crap, but also from the taxes we pay. these same taxes that could be paying for healthcare, education (college loan debts), investments in schools, teacher pay, social services, mental health care….instead of war, bailing out banks that have been stealing peoples’ money, industries that ran themselves into the ground because they pay executives ridiculous amounts of money…. so now people are getting interested in war tax resistance again.

we have more power than we think we do! women of color have been trying to remind us of that forever. audre lorde has some wonderful poems, speeches, and quotes on using our power to resist these systems that want to hold us down to keep us controlled and alexis pauline gumbs, phd has been reminding us of these amazing ancestors with her powerful and beautiful poems and words as well. many women, especially women of color and queer folks, once again, are leading the way.

and they lead the way, not only by their words, but their actions, their art, music, food, and but by how they live their lives. who they support, what and who they read HOW they read and think about the world around us all. and reminding us of the beauty that can come when we find our agency and our way to our good path one step at a time.

this is a long road. a work of many lifetimes. a dedication to a life that brings everyone along. that will look different than the american dream that we have been fed since we took our first breath in this world.

so i’d like to offer up to anyone who might be interested to pick a day each week or each month to buy nothing, not a thing (and i vow to not even go out for coffee or gas). it’ll take some planning and thinking to make sure you are prepared, but it’ll come along. see how you feel when you invite your pals over for a homecooked meal or a nice stroll around the neighborhood instead of going out for food or beers. it is strongly liberating to know that for today, i did not feed the wheel of capitalism. who knows maybe one day you’ll suddenly find yourself handing out free sandwiches to migrants who just crossed the border looking for a safer place for their families.

if you do choose to participate in a boycott, i do suggest an active boycott if you can. to let people know why you are not buying their stuff or services. and then also to those whom you do consciously choose to buy from. positive feedback goes a long way when one is setting course against a powerfully backed stream.

some links for the curious:

a litany for survival by audre lorde

boycott divestment sanctions movement

buy nothing day project