life's work

My body is accustomed to compromise.

I learned at a very young age how to 

negotiate space.

How to apologies for the way that my 

body fills all the places that it

occupies and all the places that it 

doesn't.

Teaching my body to grow free, 

and wild, 

and to not be afraid to exist, 

has become my life's work.

-- Key Ballah
Preparing My Daughter For Rain

"In the cathedral of the wild, we get to see the best parts of ourselves reflected back to us." Boyd Varty, a wildlife activist, shares stories of animals, humans and their interrelatedness, or "ubuntu" — defined as, "I am, because of you." And he dedicates the talk to South African leader Nelson Mandela, the human embodiment of that same great-hearted, generous spirit.

opal bones

"Skeletons are a sort of "living story" you are continuously writing. bone robusticity is a result not only of genetic data, but of data created via behavior. It is through your choices of movement and the cellular loads these choices create that your body becomes your autobiography."

 -- Katy Bowman: Move your DNA.

stories have shapes

 

“The fundamental idea is that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper, and that the shape of a given society’s stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads.” Kurt Vonnegut on the shape of stories.

(via The Paris Review Tumblr)

stories

"There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories" 

-- Ursula K. Le Guin

sunday tune

saturday poem

heart break

I am an immigrant, indefinitely so, with no future plans to one day return 'home' and yesterdays decision has left me feeling cut a drift, ashamed and heartbroken.

I love England, I do. I carry it with me, my heart is forever claimed by that mystical, damp, witty, cramped, eccentric, eruptive Isle and I don't find it hard to muster energy and emotion for my British heritage. But I don't give a flying fuck for the kind of isolationist, selfish, racist borders we will now frantically try and erect. Its painful to watch.

I know our history and our mythologies. I've read the books and listened to past witnesses. History can repeat itself and when we break with relations to Europe, we also break with our own mythology, our own history and understandings of the past. This is incredibly dangerous territory.
I can't speak to the immediate ephemeral stuff, thats what tv 'experts' and the internet is for, but i do know two things:

1. There’s no point blaming those who wished to leave; they are us too and they had their own intelligence and convictions. I understand the corruptive elements at play in both positions and can't help but wonder about the conversations long denied between us that have caused todays raw, calamitous bellow to fill the air. If you feel profoundly unwitnessed then the move to voice will almost always become desperate.

2. Now we are where we are know this; it is the fault of the likes of Farage, Boris and Cameron. Their lies are seductive. But In the name of all those you love, all those that have come before us and anyone who gives to the society and communities we all share please don’t be taken for a fool. Try and get past the statistics of this situation into the soul of what is happening. Your books matter. Your activism matters. The things that claim purchase on your heart matter. They absolutely do. They are not a whimsy. If we have been wandering in an enchantment then here is an awakening. You are absolutely needed and we need to come together to face those that would have us make decisions out of fear. Now is the time to start bearing witness to each other and stand up and fight for a fairer society.

Be the love that you want to see in this world.

friday cartoon

wisdom, compassion, vigilance, fearlessness

movements with meanings.

Japanese brass paperweights from Magpie & Rye: wisdom, compassion, vigilance and fearlessness.

never play to the gallery

i'm back...and married!