talking my walk

“They told me that i could do anything, so i decided to do everything. Since then it has merely been a scheduling issue.” - Murray

[changist-blog]

New year, who dis?

I return to my annual existential calibration wherein i release from my identity the age/number associated with the previous year and return to the primordial essence of being which exists regardless of age gender or species... in a couple weeks i complete another lap around the Sun and step into having form and features with an incremented number.

[changist-blog]

https://youtu.be/okc6COsgzoE?t=19m16s

“If you are not angry you are either a stone or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. Now mind you there is a difference, you must not be bitter. Let me show you why: Bitterness is like cancer, it eats upon the host, it doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it, you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you vote it, you do everything about it, you talk it, never stop talking it.” - Maya Angelou

[toobusytoread]

[changist-blog]

music in monochrome

Today it seems like playing percussion is the artistic equivalent of working in black and white. Everything is texture, contrast, framing, pace, scale, focus, subject, arrangement, pattern. When i create i tend to ignore chord structure, and i tend to ignore color. I leave them up to you

Yet when i take in the world those are the elements i am most attentive to. My ears consistently notice the pitch of windblown leaf-hiss and when burbles in water find their way to a diminishied third. My eyes are always drinking in the subtle greens which ooze out of a sunset somewhere in the transition from ruddy peach to velvet grape, without a cloud to intersect or dry this blending expression of sky.

Perhaps it is on purpose. This distinction may be the way in which i maintain separation between voice and observation as i muddle through creation. Yet i wonder on occasion what the world might sound like if i drew in harmony, what would be visible if i spoke in color.

[vox]

The Supreme Court just legalized same-sex marriage across the US.

[changist-blog]

It got better.

[changist-blog]

firefly afterglow 02015

I'm still dreaming about last weekend. or "why transformational festivals work"

At the gathering we pulled some animal medicine cards. I integrated the medicine of snake and whale into my entire festival experience and got a clearer handle on what my own medicine feels like. 

From Snake medicine I gathered the rhythm of transformation, which is transmutation and also transmission. The wriggling pattern which carries you perfectly into the future when you move your entire form to it. 

From Whale medicine i gathered the long song, the infinite story which contains all of history, and all of connection. The music is inescapable, there is nothing to do but sing it, and whichever note you are singing has a place in the composition.

Human medicine has to do with Humor, we contain every other medicine simultaneously, and we experience the conflicts and dissonance between the different medicines and messages of the world, until we flip over inside and balance the conflict, resolve into harmony.

My medicine has to do with experiential joy. The sacred mundane. My message is of the exquisitely ordinary now and an invitation to join in.  My medicine has to do with with the little universe. The one-on-one connection with one person or one group or one planet or whatever one happens to be in view, right now it’s you, the one who reads this. Everything else besides us was required to bring you and i together to share this word. Wherever we go from here is unknowably magnificent, and for the space of this word, we are together, we are unified. 

It takes a community to raise a community, at the gathering we took turns and different levels of dedication to lift each other up the hierarchy of needs. I know that i shot up through to self-actualization many times. I witnessed the ascent of others as well. And my favorite thing to notice was that the very moment in which a human had received everything they needed was the moment when they began feeding the needs of others. And they fed it from a place of understanding their own generosity and power.

True wealth is infectious. And surplus is a joy to spread.

Sometimes people give before they are ready, sometimes those gifts mean survival for the receivers, sometimes they means death for the giver. Some systems do not receive enough to sustain themselves, some systems do not understand their own existence, but the ones who do? Those systems who are alive and self-relevant and spilling surplus? I like them. I want to be one of those. Like, all the time, not just for a weekend. And whenever i am one, i will want you to be one too. ‘Til then I’ma find some more food.

[changist-blog]

“If [gender] is real when trans folk do it, maybe it’s even real when cis folk do it” - Vi Hart

[mikaeled]

[toobusytoread]

KUNG FURY

Simultaneously the best and worst short film I’ve ever seen.

[changist-blog]

I think they successfully made a film which is campy on purpose.

[changist-blog]

Identity. Maybe you've heard of it? You should know that i intend to break it, and that i would appreciate your help in reassembling the pieces.

Part of what i do is push past the limits. i am edge seeking behavior. The moment you get comfortable with a new reality i can be found scratching at the walls and pointing out the windows to someplace new. I am not meaning to invalidate the space you have, or the way you think. I don't think that i know any better, or that i've found someplace more beautiful that yours. I've never been to where i am reaching for, I've never experienced what I am trying to get you to see. This is merely what i do. I find a route to beyond, and i give you the clearest invitation i can, the option to explore further is always yours to choose.

[changist-blog]

on subtractive art ~

Sculpture is the process of looking past the surface of a thing to find the form which is longing to emerge. It is the process of coming to understand tools and techniques which can remove the other stuff. It is the process of finding not only the perfect tool, but the perfect direction, momentum, and timing of use to cast a seam into the formless. It is occasionally offering a place for the emergence to part from all that came before it. Sculpture is subtlety, patience, and undeniable pressure all guided by vision. It may be the most clever destruction, it is the antithesis and partner to an unconditional creation.

Sculpture is using words like sculpture and process to define new seams in language. It is using art as a tool to separate emerging culture from the ideas which came before. By sculpture i mean less the perfect form which hides within a shroud of material, and more the attempt to reveal that form to others. I am saying ‘sculpture’ but i am talking about permaculture, I am sketching out my own definition of masculinity, I am attempting to convey they way in which I interact with all the systems of this world. And i am not saying that as a sculptor, so much as i am saying this as a sculpture.

[changist-blog]

"Dude, I gotta lay. Let me in."

[the1janitor]

This is gonna be a broad ass question, but what do you think is more important? The intentions behind an action? Or the action itself and the consequences that comes with it?

stop trying to think of the world in terms of “rules” and what is and isn’t always true, context matters

[changist-blog]

These moments are why i keep coming back to the1janitor ^^ I recently heard a linguist suggest “[...]approaches that see language as the result of competing, ranked, violable constraints, rather than inviolable rules” and it made me all squiggly inside. Maybe the way to stop thinking in rules is to rewrite them as squishier constraints, then start trying to think of the world in terms of situations, and ways to make your situations more awesome. It’s one way at least. Here’s the video i’m quoting from https://youtu.be/xsMea6QhLoA?list=PLD44AB23FFAF3647B I’m suggesting that since language is the way we describe our lives, the ways we handle language can also be applied to how we handle life. Maybe they’ll even help. Background: I really value having structure and regularity in my thoughts and actions, it makes it easier to understand and navigate the world. And I also value having thoughts and actions which are free to explore a multiverse of possibility. These values compete constantly, and it’s a wonderful ride when i choose to enjoy it.

[babyionian-deactivated20200611]

before today, i hadn’t heard of “rough rides,” and there’s a good chance you haven’t either. basically, a “rough ride” is a horrifying process in which ‘a handcuffed man or woman is put into the back of a police van or paddy wagon, without being buckled in or secured. The vehicle then drives recklessly, making sharp, dangerous turns and sudden movements in ways that throw the passenger violently around the vehicle.’

as of today, we now know that this is exactly what happened to Freddie Gray before he died. 

here’s the evidence: rather than take Freddie Gray the short 2 minute drive from the arrest site to the police station (see left), he was deliberately driven recklessly for over 40 minutes (see right) around Baltimore, handcuffed and in the back of a police van, with no seatbelt, until his spine broke.

the terrifying thing is that this seems to happen a lot. earlier today, two more people came forward to testify that they were put through rough rides at the hands of the Baltimore PD. a 43-year-old man was charged with ‘public urination’ and given a rough ride that resulted in a spine fracture that rendered him quadriplegic for the rest of his life. five years ago, a former Baltimore police officer admitted that rough rides are an “unsanctioned technique” in which police vans are driven to cause “injury or pain” to unbuckled, handcuffed detainees. rough rides are very much a Real Thing.

in case it needs repeating: Baltimore police deliberately drove recklessly with a cuffed, injured Freddie Gray in the back of a van with no belt – a 40 minute ride for a destination 2 minutes away. his spine was severed, and it killed him.

[changist-blog]

My daw jropped when i read this. I’ve been tuning out any riot-labeled news because sensational misrepresentation is painful. I had no idea that this was a thing. My gut reaction was to immediately disable every police vehicle until the community can gather and get clear about this. Days later i’m still processing this, and the world looks dark while doing so. How was this not the only story?

[changist-blog]

That time Plato's cave got invaded by unicorns.

[changist-blog]

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is about creating or modifying words to fit something which is part of our common experience, but not found in the common tongue. This particular video reminded me of years ago when i would joke "no I don't suffer from depression, I enjoy every minute of it!" The link between sadness and satisfaction is clear and grounded in my experience. To find happiness is an astonishing flash of light, a terrifying weightlessness, an open field where anything could happen, an ephemeral flame in stark contrast to the substance and reliability of sorrow. On some level sadness is my happy place. It’s the somewhere i go to relax, the field beyond rightness and wrongness. The kind of peace i could rest in. Sadness brings a smile to my face. It gives me a comfortable home to leave, a place to plant my feet, and the confidence to leap once more into the fray.  I’ve got a piece to write about ‘the other broken heart.’ The one which keeps on spilling over with pleasure and affection. The heart whose doors may never seal again. The kind of heart which seems to be caught in a feedback loop, endlessly sharing self-worth and inner beauty with the universe until the plants get extra sparkles in their eyes, and all manner of animal find their way to share the day with me. My heart has become a fountain, flowing warmth over my brows like a chocolate cascade inviting all to dip their spoons and fruit to catch my excess. And i’m afraid it will never stop, that i will never be able to cork this fountain. That i will never find time to raise my shields again.

Be cool, they tell me on the street. Be cool and let your flow congeal and flake around the edges. Let some people make an offer for those flakes. Not everyone is ready for your abundance. They like exchange. I think that’s not my problem.  Along with Obscure Sorrows, my problem is in upgrading the language and the culture that i use, until it feels like there is room enough for my story, and technology enough to articulate it. To make room inside of language for infinity again.

[changist-blog]

02015

 I’ve decided that it is time to become a delightful musician.  Because it is one route to favorably disappear in public, or because it is the clearest route to me effecting the music scene in my town.  I want music to sound better than it does right now, I want every band and DJ in the land to claim their role to lead us into their favorite world.  I like to hear instruments blend together, i like to hear voices without feedback.  I like to dance as meditation, with dancers who are there to dance, and who are willing to forgive all evidence of my humanity. 

 I’ve been learning from animal medicine, learning the symbolism of totems and such.  In this study the question came up, what is the medicine of man?  The answer i have received thus far is that we are every animal, all the animals.  We are a nexus in which all medicine is present and available.  And while we may resonate especially with one creature-type for a moment, the rest are always there within us. 

 Or maybe that is merely my human medicine.  

 It’s January and i’m just not feeling Capricorn these days.  I would like to diverge my identity from the sea-goat for a time, and try on a different pattern.  Henceforth I am a Generator, a 6/2 Generator with a defined thought-mind-voice riding a cloud of open self-center above a defined sacral-spleen-solar-root-ego.  I identify as a mind and body, independently fueled yet co-creating reality and knowing each other through the playground of identity.  This chart might as well be my ID: 

I love rich information because i digest rich information, high density info kicks my tires, spins my props.  Part of my reality is the gift of seeing relevance through the density.  I don’t have to read and comprehend every word to know where the story leads, sometimes i don’t even need to open the book.  Yet I love the experience of unfolding the information, to find how each little segment aligns with the flow that i already know.  I find it even more fun when there are bits which sit completely perpendicular to the truth.  Because the energy pings off these obstacles like sonar, illuminating everything around me.  It’s beautiful.  And hidden within these glimpses is the polarity specific to the obstacle.  From the flash-map of the counter-aligned, guidance is simple, aim for the open spaces.

Of course it is more complex than that, ask me more about edge-seeking-behavior. 

[gaywrites]

In honor of Leelah Alcorn, a trans girl who committed suicide a few days ago, the hashtag #RealLiveTransAdult has taken over Twitter. Trans adults everywhere are sharing their stories of identity, survival, acceptance, community and love. If you need your faith in the world restored, these folks will help you.