saturday poem

sunday tune

friday cartoon

The Power of Empathy from Gobblynne on Vimeo.

In the stampede to defend and extol western values – whatever they are – against the onslaught of barbarism, it should be recognised that the principles of freedom and equality have never applied to all in the west except in the most formal sense. The criminalisation of communities of colour (and the Irish in Britain) long preceded the war on terror and will, unfortunately, survive it.

Fascism is once again a mainstream ideology in Europe, and Muslims are among its principal targets. Knowing what the odds are for black and Muslim people to be stopped and searched, the ramifications of a “don’t stop, just shoot” policy do not bear thinking about. “Terror,” explains the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, in Fear of Small Numbers, “opens the possibility that anyone may be a soldier in disguise, a sleeper among us, waiting to strike at the heart of our social slumber.” If such an atmosphere prevails, every brown skin will be just a “cleanskin” (an undercover terrorist not known to the police) waiting to happen – and the #blacklivesmatter slogan will shift from an issue pitching civil rights advocates against local and federal US law enforcement to one of global, geopolitical inequalities.


Those who might insist that racial sensitivity is a luxury we cannot afford at such critical times should realise that it is precisely the trust of black and Asian communities that is most needed to combat this particular fundamentalist scourge. Moreover, if unity against terror is genuinely what we are aiming for, it cannot be achieved by forcing some to live in terror of the state so that others can enjoy the illusion of security – we’re either all in this together or we’re not. Finally, the murder and humiliation of innocent people abroad at the hands of western forces is partly what has brought us to this point, helping to mobilise large numbers of disaffected Muslim youth. Being as callous and careless at home as we have been abroad will hurt, not help.

--Gary Younge for The Guardian. Read the article in full here.

LOVE

Rather, it is what she calls a "micro-moment of positivity resonance." She means that love is a connection, characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person—any other person—whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day. You can experience these micro-moments with your romantic partner, child, or close friend. But you can also fall in love, however momentarily, with less likely candidates, like a stranger on the street, a colleague at work, or an attendant at a grocery store. Louis Armstrong put it best in "It's a Wonderful World" when he sang, "I see friends shaking hands, sayin 'how do you do?' / They're really sayin', 'I love you.'"

Emily Esfahani Smith, The Atlantic 1/24/2013. Full text here.

Wishing you many micro-moments of positivity resonance today.

(found here)

Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer

you will not have my hatred

“Vous n’aurez pas ma haine”
Vendredi soir vous avez volé la vie d’un être d’exception, l’amour de ma vie, la mère de mon fils mais vous n’aurez pas ma haine. Je ne sais pas qui vous êtes et je ne veux pas le savoir, vous êtes des âmes mortes. Si ce Dieu pour lequel vous tuez aveuglément nous a fait à son image, chaque balle dans le corps de ma femme aura été une blessure dans son coeur.
Alors non je ne vous ferai pas ce cadeau de vous haïr. Vous l’avez bien cherché pourtant mais répondre à la haine par la colère ce serait céder à la même ignorance qui a fait de vous ce que vous êtes. Vous voulez que j’ai peur, que je regarde mes concitoyens avec un oeil méfiant, que je sacrifie ma liberté pour la sécurité. Perdu. Même joueur joue encore.
Je l’ai vue ce matin. Enfin, après des nuits et des jours d’attente. Elle était aussi belle que lorsqu’elle est partie ce vendredi soir, aussi belle que lorsque j’en suis tombé éperdument amoureux il y a plus de 12 ans. Bien sûr je suis dévasté par le chagrin, je vous concède cette petite victoire, mais elle sera de courte durée. Je sais qu’elle nous accompagnera chaque jour et que nous nous retrouverons dans ce paradis des âmes libres auquel vous n’aurez jamais accès.
Nous sommes deux, mon fils et moi, mais nous sommes plus fort que toutes les armées du monde. Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas plus de temps à vous consacrer, je dois rejoindre Melvil qui se réveille de sa sieste. Il a 17 mois à peine, il va manger son goûter comme tous les jours, puis nous allons jouer comme tous les jours et toute sa vie ce petit garçon vous fera l’affront d’être heureux et libre. Car non, vous n’aurez pas sa haine non plus."

--Antoine Leiris

for every action there is a reaction

"My heart is hurting for Paris. And I am feeling so small in the face of Hollande's words, that he will send out more bombs and bullets in response. I want to shout, this is the mistake we made, stop, stop. I am feeling so small reading the hate speech on Twitter, especially coming from a presidential candidate, towards immigrants. Because how can we heal the world with more violence and more hate? And I'm hurting for the 46 killed in Beirut the same night, but there's no Facebook app to update me on the safety of my friends there. There's a Warsan Shire poem going around "show me where it hurts/it hurts everywhere" but she also wrote "you have to understand,/ that no one puts their children in a boat/ unless the water is safer than the land." All of this is connected, I cannot just react to this incident alone...That doesn't honor the dead. There's a link between climate change and ISIS, there's a link between the Gulf war and the Iraq war and ISIS. I think it honors the dead to recognize that the people leading our countries are sick. Why can't they see for every action there is a reaction? There was a slogan used by climate protestors at a die in for the 300,000 climate change victims we lost last year, “somos semillas”—we are seeds. It means the people who have died can be more than tragedies. If we can acknowledge them, grieve them, they have the power to help us build a better world. My heart is hurting because people are being gunned down and our leaders aren't talking about why."

-- Cameron Russell

Cartoon by Jacky Fleming

there's room for everyone

to be hopeful

sunday tune

saturday poem

Revolutionary Petunias

The Nature of this flower is to bloom.
Rebellious. Living.
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color.
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes. 
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self.

Alice Walker

friday cartoon

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Richard Long

1)  Richard Long. A Thousand Stones Added To The Footpath Cairn England 1979
2)  Richard Long. Whirlwind Spiral. The Sahara 1988
3)  Richard Long. A Line In Japan. Mount Fuji 1979.

Art made by walking in landscapes.
All works by Richard long. See more on his website here

«Milky Way» (1989-1990) by Peter Doig, found via Mari Valen Hoihjelle (i LOVE this womans blog)

up and down are relative

Here is an 'Upside-Down' world map and The Peters Projection (an equal area projection of the world) and a Red Hair Map of Europe, just because I wish I had Auburn locks. At first glance nothing what-so-ever to do with the world of human movement and my art practice musings that is the main reason for this blog, but consider this....

The earth is round. The challenge of any world map is to represent a round earth on a flat surface. There are literally thousands of map projections. Each has certain strengths and corresponding weaknesses. Choosing among them is an exercise in values clarification: you have to decide what's important to you. That is generally determined by the way you intend to use the map.

The implications of any projection are enormous. Images we see shape our perceptions of the world. It's enriching to see a variety of points-of-view. Like the 'Upside-Down' map, whoever said that North must be "up"? We are literally on a moving ball in space and, as my hero Katy Bowman suggests, "UP and DOWN are relative and the maps we've come to memorize have shaped our brain to one particular perspective. This "south is up" map is just a reminder that what we've come to understand as right and wrong often depends on how you've set up the problem."

Now bare with me if I'm stating the obvious, but this was of looking at the world can be used with the small universe that is your own body too. Maps/diets/exercise routines/fitness fads/ancient movement practices/meditations techniques are based on a variety of assumptions, most of which are subliminal and below our threshold of consciousness. We can all benefit from challenging implicit assumptions and deciding for ourselves what 'maps of the world' are valid and useful for us.
In short, keep researching, try different things, gain different perspectives, challenge what you think to be 'true', include lots of variation and KEEP MOVING.

Amen.

I can't remember where I found this image, but I love her and she's been sitting on my desktop for sometime...

the impulse to understand the immense

A large square is marked with black paint on the gallery floor. The edge pointing true north is curved, and acts as the horizon. Placed on this surface are small limestone and quartz rocks collected from the Keewinaw Peninsula in Upper Michigan, in an arrangement that reflects the stars above San Francisco at first visibility on the night of the reception. This reflecting pool serves as a record of one moment in our trajectory through the universe.

Claire Nereim, Reflection. As on view at PLAySPACE.
(found via evencleveland)

star swagger

I am shy. I also have a big ego. Practically speaking, that means everyone is looking at me, and it makes me uncomfortable. Actually, "big ego" has a negative connotation. I'll say "healthy ego." Which, sadly, for women, still has a negative connotation. We aren't supposed to have an ego. It's unseemly. It's arrogant. It's not ladylike. Serena Williams was called cocky when she said she wanted to be the best in the world. Well, what the hell is she training so relentlessly for, to be the 37th best in the world? (No disrespect to the 37th best in the world.) A poster of Serena in mid–epic scream should be required on every little girl's bedroom wall so they can be reminded daily how beautiful it is to be a badass....

Click HERE to read on and find out how Sports gave Director Gina Prince-Bythewood swagger...

(image and quote form Lenny Letters)

found here

stones and stars

"On his first day, Mr. Piailug took stones from the garden and made a map of the stars on the ground, Mr. Thompson said. Slowly, he learned to pay attention to ocean currents and read the weather from the color of the light at dawn."

Laura Parker, "A Hawaiian Canoe Crosses the Ocean, Guided by Sun and Stars."

sunday tune

saturday poem

Home

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

-- Warsan Shire

friday cartoon

far

"Leaving home and loving home don't have to be at odds with one another. Despite what our grandmothers' rib-cracking hugs lead us to believe, our families never intended to keep us-only to   make and teach us, and to love us enough to let us go...

...our secure base is our people, not a location. Those relationships can stand firm among the zigzagging, sling-shotting trajectory of our nomadic lives."

-- Kelsey Snell (for Kinfolk Magazine)

martha graham

feel things

The first person who saw your face was delighted by you. Isn’t that something? You managed to bring joy only by breathing.
Your mother will occasionally peek through the cracks of your door when you are sleeping, even now, to make sure that she can see the movements of your chest.
The boy who kissed you in the park last night isn’t in love with you, he won’t even stay, but he meant every second of those minutes.
You’ll walk a city street that your feet have never touched before and you’ll be terrified of getting lost and that feeling is what’ll help you find the way home.
You’ll give your money to a homeless man and he will hold your hand firmly between his and he will say ‘thank you so, so much’ and isn’t that something?
There’s a piece of music that makes your heart feel like it’s bleeding. Listen to it. Listen to it again.
When was the last time you paused to stare at night time?
Did you know that there is at least one person in your life who will jump in front of a hail of bullets for you, without your asking.
Your entire body is made of nerves. Feel things.
Take walks in places you’ve never been.
Take photographs of people not everyone considers beautiful. Find loveliness in them.
Let go of the things that are killing you from the inside out.
One day you’re going to be part of the sky, you’re going to be that beautiful and that necessary but not today. Not today.
--Azra

(Source: thirlie)

Zashiki-warashi

All images belong to Carolina Silva and you find more here and here.  

Carolina writes about these watercolours on here website...

'The appearance of this spirit is that of a 5 or 6 year child. Zashiki-warashi can be found in well-maintained and preferably large old houses. It is said that once a zashiki-warashi inhabits a house, it brings the residence great fortune; on the other hand, should a zashiki-warashi depart, the domain soon falls into a steep decline. As the zashiki-warashi is child-like in nature, it is prone to playing harmless pranks and occasionally causing mischief.'

Sarah and Joshua

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

lean on me

Photographs by Bertil Nilsson for Kinfolk Magazine

family

"A family is a network of people who care for each other. 

You can be born into one or build your own. It can contain hundreds or two. Real family values have nothing to do with where we live or how we know each other -  they're about how we treat each other. "

-- Nathan Williams and Georgia Frances King
Kinfolk, The Family Issue

sunday tune