When days feel dark and heavy, I run towards love.
I find it in the people I love and who love me. In small daily rituals and ceremonies. In the moments where I allow myself to pray. In acts of caring for my loved ones, my cat, my neighborhood.
Talking about my loved ones and my cat…
My cat, Rio, turned 1 maybe a month ago. When I got him last July from his foster mama, she didn’t know his exact birthday, but when she told me how many weeks she thought he was, I remembering thinking, “okay, so he’s an Aries/Taurus cusp.” I know Taurus season is coming to an end, so I’m definitely late to party, but I still wanted to shout out my lil Rio brioche sun rat, and his brother, Niko. My best friend, Kay, and I got them together from the same liter, and they’ve been able to hang out often and continue to grow up together. I’ve never had a pet before Rio, and I’ve enjoyed allowing him to teach me how to be a more patient, more playful, better listener and caregiver.
Another even more exciting milestone in addition to my cat’s first birthday— my younger (and only) sister, Kendall, just graduated college! Last weekend, I attended her graduation from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she graduated as a Posse scholar, Zeta woman, certified doula, and history and legal studies double major with a minor in women and gender studies! She’s moving to Brooklyn in a couple weeks to start her first job in sexual & reproductive public health. If you work/have knowledge in this space and would be down to connect with her, let me know!
Something I wrote in her card, that I’ve also personally been meditating on is:
Universities are going to tell you to go out and change the world. Don’t worry about changing the world. Just focus on creating the world you want to see with the people you love and the change will come.
Other things I’m meditating on, pondering, thinking about:
I was exchanging voice memos with a friend and we got to sharing our definitions of prayer and higher power. I appreciated her definition of prayer: any act that makes her give thanks. For her, that lies in music and movement. For me, I think long walks through the park are a form of prayer.
We also talked about the presence of “higher powers” and I posed the question: “what if the collective “we” is the higher power?”
I’ve been forming this belief over the past couple years that this “higher power” many of us feel and acknowledge isn’t an “other God” but the collective energy generated from all living things (people, animals, nature, etc.) being in relationship (or, as another friend put it, in interdependence) with one another.
This is may be a silly analogy, so bear with me, but I told her, similar to how humans figured out a way to channel energy (particles & atoms) into electricity and light, what if some of us can tap into and channel our collective energy (after all, we are, too, just a bunch of bouncing particles & atoms) into light, guidance, clairvoyance, healing, etc.? And maybe my rituals of prayer, manifestation, tarot, etc. are all channeling acts that allow me to harness and move with the power of our collective energy that we generate.
I like thinking about higher power as the collective energy of all living things in interdependence with one another, because it instils a sense of responsibility to each other and to the land. I think it can feel easy to disregard each other and nature when our higher power is viewed as “other” or “over/up there”. But when it’s viewed as a direct amalgamation of all of us, completely generated by all of us… caring for each other and the land becomes the root and the anchor.
Being raised Catholic, I’m sure there are parallels to this belief system that can be found in Christianity/Catholicism (e.g. technically there is language around taking care of God’s land and God is all of us/we’re a reflection of God) but it all still feels so rooted in viewing man and mankind as superior, moving from a place of fear, policing of gender and sexuality, etc. etc.
Anyways, wrapping up this vulnerable spiral, but if anyone knows of any spiritualities/spiritual practices/communities that sound similar to what I was describing AND are rooted in the work, writing, rituals, teachings of Black and/or indigenous people, please share!
What I’m reading/listening to:
Duval Timothy. The best thing about Kendrick’s new album is the fact that my favorite minimalist, avant-garde pianist/producer got his shine with four producer credits on it. Listening back to his 2020 album, Help. Here’s a paragraph from an August 2020 Pitchfork review, that I really resonate with in relation to my own music production practice:
Timothy’s collaborative sensibility comes from a distinct sense of rootedness; the people who made him and the artists he’s listened to are the links that make up his music. He finds liberation in this inescapability and makes himself too expansive to be owned.
Hannah Black’s speculative fiction novella, Tuesday or September or The End, while listening to Sam Gendel & Antonia Cytrynowicz’s latest album, LIVE A LITTLE.
Harmony Holiday’s newsletter on Charles Mingus, while listening to Mingus’ 1972 album, Let My Children Hear Music.
A project/person I’m supporting this week:
Pre-ordering We Get Through: A Pandemy Cookbook, edited and published by my friend, Raquel Hazell of Saalt Press.
A block that was added to the community Are.na board:
*Note: please, it’s an open board, so anyone can add to it! If anything in this newsletter made you think of something you want to say or share, feel free to add it! As Gloria texted me, it feels like receiving a surprise mini-love note.
Gloria added a block to the site/project, Alt Text as Poetry. I’m obsessed with the piece of music by JJJJJerome Ellis that was commissioned to accompanied the piece. I’m not sure if I’ve ever read a sound description for a song before, which I think expanded my understanding of communicating about music and thinking about the intersection of music and accessibility.
It’s making me think about how when we used to buy CDs and you could pull out the cover and unfold it to read all the credits and lyrics (similar to how one would pull out a record sleeve for liner notes). As I think about releasing my own music in the future, could be a cool to release an accompanying poster and/or website that has a sound description, in addition to credits, for each track.
That’s all I’ve got for now!
As per usual, this email is an invitation to deeper connection and community. If anything I’ve written struck you, don’t hesitate to comment, email me, or add to the Are.na board.
With ease,
Van
Thanks for the intro to so many new (to me) and interesting artists. Also, I never understood what alt text was or how it worked and I learned so much on Alt-text as Poetry. I found your newsletter by way of Annika is Dreaming. Thank you!