elementally ill
but restin' up
hues of purple and indigo
transcending borders
space
time
galactic integration
earthly protection
soul wants ether
feet demand dirt
wind affirms balance
Elements
my greatest teachers
Water taught me independence and surrender. How that wave dragged me under a deep, foreign ocean and my young body fought in panic over little jagged rocks but it was only when I surrendered to what my child brain thought was Death that Life chuckled and spat me onto shore. And in the hazy aftermath as I regained my vision I saw Life and mi tía next to me on the shore belly laughing at the wonderful absurdity of it all
Air where everything is alchemized with ease. Affirmations from Wind whistle things to me like, “yes, you’re doin’ it- Keep flowin’ it’s easy for a reason baby all breezy no need to sweat, I’ll carry you everywhere u need to go”
Fire continues to teach me passion. Exactly one year ago, while it burned my belongings, it honed my courage. I appreciate that fire respects me enough not to shelter me. It has confronted me with danger and loss. I’ve learned how to cleanse, how to let it all go. It could destroy me if I let it but that choice is up to me. It reminds me of my capabilities, my composure in crisis. I’ve learned to honor slash and burn, knowing that from this the nutrients will carry me through the upcoming seasons so that I may bear fruit for the future and as I attempt to define transmutation for a friend I’m reminded of the Phoenix and how it rose from ashes and how its spirit is said to bring forth harmony, peace, prosperity . . .
Earth, oh mama earth, always catching me when I fall. When gravity yanks me down to my roots, where I’m needed most, and warns me to stop ignoring my intuition. And like a spring or some burning hot coil we will meet here again and repeat the same lessons over and over until I learn to remember. She taught me the importance of nurture and connection while reminding me to always trust myself first.
I really can’t believe that plants let me watch them grow! How insane!! They serve as constant reminders of the value of patience and interdependence, generosity, healing abilities . . . we have much to learn from our ancestors— the plants.
I’m interested in the way things grow- plants and power , shame and strength. I’m interested in the way culture shapes beliefs. I’m interested in the ways we guide younger generations through life. I’m interested in learning from them and hopeful they will learn through me. I’m interested in both tradition and newness. I rejoice at the first sight of regeneration ! How gracious of the earth to give us the gift of renewal. I’m so thankful that nothing lasts forever !
This morning I awoke to the intense sound of a bird migration; noise like an organized chaos! Jovially, I rushed to the window to watch them do what I do best. Flying affords them a freedom necessary to their survival and as they migrate to it they soar across borders unharmed and I daydream of sewing big, feathered wings on the backs of all the humans trapped in cages at the borders of the lands that I happened to be born upon. Like many of us, I was only a generation or 2 away from those cages but how I long to enter them and delicately place butterfly wings on all of the children fleeing a violence they don’t understand. Violence caused by the same governments that continue to deny their humanity. I’d tell these children how sorry I am then I’d teach them of metamorphosis and how a caterpillar dissolves to mush before it completely transforms itself and flies away.
What does a border signify? What does a border signify on stolen land? What happens when it is not the native sentient human beings that are illegal but, in fact, the imaginary line drawn atop theft and genocide; eradicating cultures (life-ways) built upon harmony with the earth & each other?
We’re told to demand justice but I wanna know TO WHOM? You ever try asking an abuser to set you free? Audre Lorde already told us that the master’s tools ain’t dismantlin’ the master’s house. Besides, I’m sick of asking and apparently I don’t have to because I was born within the confines of the colonizers. I carry the weight of their nationality on my passport where inside the pages are printed with quotes like, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” then we lock “illegal aliens” in cages or throw them on planes to an early death or watch them drown in the Mediterranean Sea and I think of how crossing borders has been key to the development of my personhood and how no one has ever locked me in a cage for doing so and how people are chasing all types of survival but along the way someone decided that I am somehow more deserving of survival than “all other men that are created equal.” Or did they mean ‘crated’ ?
So what does restoration look like? To me, it looks like divestment and regeneration. it is us deciding what we want our lives to look like instead of wasting our powerful brains and potent energy to strain within systems and industries that are killing us. We use our focus to Create new ecosystems for ourselves. We hold that power. This is already happening. This has always been happening. See beyond the prison of your proximity, the confines of your mind. Western civilization quite literally capitalizes on your fears and what a powerful tool fear is. We built a “free” world on bloodshed and used the frameworks of fear-based religions to justify it. None of this is new information. Fear is used to control, power is wielded from this fear. So what happens when you take fear out of the equation? You remove a cornerstone from the foundation of industrialized society. Systems collapse when we no longer need them.
REALISTS OF A LARGER REALITY
When you’ve been trapped in old narratives for a while you start to forget they were constructed and/or forced upon you. One may start to believe they hold absolute truth and subsequently perpetuate their harm. But we are the co-creators of our reality and we know that what we focus on grows. It’s an algorithm, y’all! So miss me with Old World contracts… well, just miss me with contracts as a concept in general! I’m acutely aware that ownership is an illusion. I want to hear about what you’re doing DIFFERENTLY. I want to hear the new narratives you’re writing to heal us from the old ones. I want to hear about the transmutation of your trauma. I want birds and butterflies and clean water and art! I want community and plant medicine and dance and freedom. I want us to stop feeding the boring yet ravenous beasts. It doesn’t need to be a war. Enough with futile wars! Reject being in tandem with the tension. You can say No. You can take a different direction. Scream if you need, but you can always walk away. Everything is a choice. It begins with your mind.
Figure out what works for YOU! I use the word ‘figure’ here because if you’re anything like me then you’re not gonna find it out there. You’re gonna build it yourself, with your co-creators. Uniqueness is operative here because there isn’t anyone else like you and you have special tools and it would be cool to use those tools to figure out how to help yourself and those around you. It’s not evangelism, it’s a beautiful unfucking! Unfucking ourselves from bipartisanship, ideologies, developmental traumas, individualism, codependency. This is what I’m working on and to be honest I have no idea what will become of it and I’ll grow as I go and I hope we cross paths along the way.
Look, we’re already living an “apocalypse” so why not give it a try? I once heard someone say, “the scarier things look the more potent our power to do something else” and that really resonated with me. It felt like my entire adolescences under patriarchy was wrapped up and cradled within those words. I grew up in religiously based institutions in the southeastern united states, I know what fear-mongering looks like and I know what it does to people. I learned of my power at an age when I was too young to have the language for it. We have been bestowed the arduous task of breaking cycles of multi-generational trauma. Take a hard look at your lineage. What have your ancestors caused? What have they survived? Which cycles do you refuse to pass down to others? I’ve watched fear cripple and I’ve watched it kill enough times to declare aloud to myself, with all the reverence I could muster, that I refuse to pass down a life of fear. I refuse the myth that silence and submission will keep me safe any longer. Exhale the fear so we can inhale the expansion. This is the season of honoring death so that we may be born again. Winter is right around the corner. Refuse ! Divest ! Cocoon ! Dissolve !
🐛 Emulate the caterpillar 🐛
🦋 Prepare for the grand emergence 🦋