March 13, 2021 The Master Imbues His Speciality Whatever knowledge the Master is known to have, with it the souls of his pupils are imbued: The theologian imbues with theology; the master of law with jurisprudence. The master who is absorbed in the Way will help the seeker become absorbed in God. Of all the things to know, the best preparation and provision on the day of death is the knowledge of spiritual poverty. -Rumi, Mathnawi, 2829-34
“What if school, as we used it on a daily basis, signaled not the name of a process or institution through which we could be indoctrinated, not a structure through which social capital was grasped and policed, but something more organic, like a scale of care. What if school was the scale at which we could care for each other and move together. In my view, at this moment in history, that is really what we need to learn most urgently…what would it mean to go deep with each other? What are the scales of intimacy and the actual practices that would teach us how to care for each other beyond obligation or imaginary duties.” – Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, 55-56 “Intersectional scholarship reflects an ongoing intellectual and social justice mission that seeks to: 1) reformulate the world of ideas so that it incorporates the many contradictory and overlapping ways that human life is experienced; 2) convey this knowledge by rethinking curricular and promoting institutional change in higher education institutions; 3)apply the knowledge in an effort to create a society in which all voices are heard; and 4)advocate for public policies that are responsive to multiple voices…” (Bonnie Thorton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, 177, Feminist Theory Reader) Intersectional Feminism are two words that mean the same thing. Carrying an intersectional perspective is to hold a feminist perspective, what bell hooks calls “feminist epistemology”. To be a “feminist” is to care, and when I say care, I mean really care – about the wellbeing of women and all things that come from Her – her babies, her children, her water, her health, her safety, her access to resources, her happiness, her joy, her peace, her smile, her heart – to be a feminist – during this time, extends beyond “believing in the equality of women” – or that “women should be equal to men” – we are not the same (pardon the pause here while I delve into those of us who are still tied to our gender this holds space for inter-sex, gender non-binary, and trans folk and those who lament with: “I do not care about your stupid labels of who you think I should be just because I have an extra chromosome or if my pleasure organ is external or not) – women and men are not equal – they should be treated as equals – as with all living beings – but they are not – and I don’t mean this in a “they should be” way, I mean this in a “we just aren’t” way. “There are hundreds of many variables in every day life that make it difficult for us to say this caused that.” How we derive pleasure, how we are valued, socialized, prioritized, celebrated and disavowed are unequal. \ “men are from the sky, women are from the sea.” This morning I woke up to Micah calling for my attention. “Wake up, you have things to do. Like feed me, and then your life.” She was relentless. I finally got up at 9:20am and fed her, made coffee, washed the dishes from the night before, and moved into morning pages. Morning pages is a practice I’ve done since 2015 when my friend Jane Kennery recommended that I read The Artists Way by Julia Cameron – the article referenced in the link is written by a woman – Penelope Green – who writes as a features reporter for The New York Times. Preferences arise. My opinion, a reflection of my subconscious. “Let’s take the politics out of this” I recall in a music meeting a few weeks ago. As if we could ever truly separate the binds that hold our reality, fabric and thorns of lived experiences. We have been socialized though a construct of binaries. Race becomes a gesture. While it holds such density within our world, it can also be complexitized, neutralized, and abolished altogether in the instant someone says “I don’t see race” as if they were truly blind, as if one could turn off one’s unconscious bias to re-situate themselves from the vantage point that who we are isn’t tied to what we have access to and how we’re treated, that our multifaceted identities could be momentarily “paused” for the sake of conversational commerce? There is no easy way round any of this. This is why I cook food and listen to dolphin sounds. Perhaps this voice is the voice of reason and rationality, or of Mother Earth herself, as a reminder, an aspect of her that reminds me to continue. While I have the tools and resources, the ability to see, hear, feel, taste, laugh, move my body, sing, connect, to not waste a moment in hesitation and doubt, to relish every single mistake without harsh over-thinking, to balance delicately on the blade of immortality, as we have all been given the choice to partake in the divine. We have all been placed her to unlock and access certain codes of living. This is why I run outside when the wind calls and howl, literally at the full moon. Speaking to my father on the phone was healing as much as it was disruptive to my understanding of him. In his voice I hear exhaustion and the gentle movement towards ease. I called him in the middle of his nap and woke him up. We spoke for a while about the family until he had to put the phone down and go back to sleep. “Thank you for calling. I love you.” My brother is in youth prison for robbery and driving without a license and my sister in the hospital for “a weak heart”. My other brother is serving the mandatory military service in Singapore and my older sister is almost a year out of prison for a suicide attempt and for assaulting a police officer. My father is in Hawaii growing vegetables and my mother-mother is running the business back home and dealing with the onslaught of circumstance. My biological mother is mentally ill and on welfare and in by the same definition of welfare, so am I, as I collect the unemployment checks every week from the government. I am here, in New York City, writing this. In everyone’s own way, we are living, breathing, being, creating, resisting, finding and growing community. This is why I yoga and meditate. When manifesting, don’t let the inner critique weigh you down or come in and set the direction of where you want to go to in the opposite place of where you are manifesting – it is very tricky and knows you very well – all it wants is for you to consider the other side of something, that’s all – it’s still up to you to choose who you want to listen to – that is the extent of free will – but I believe that we’re all playing out some story or narrative that was pre-destined – we simply choose how we get to frame our experiences and interact with the the illusion – everyone else is an “extra” in everyone else’s story – to give you persecutive on the roles that we play – so we’re both significant and insignificant – the paradox is inescapable – the ego is tricky – god is ego backwards with 1 space between E and D. “This is why instances of synchronicity are so perplexing, for it is as if the cosmos knows what we are thinking and feeling, that the cosmos itself is aware of our personal situation and seems through a symbolic line of communication, to convey a message to us about our life. (Keirone Le Grice, The Archetypal Cosmos, 126) Pause here for quick a surrender. Shall return with more next week. For now, here is something yummy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, Feminist Theory Reader, Critical Thinking About Inequality: An Emerging Lens Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Keirone Le Grice, The Archetypal Cosmos