experiment/ando @experiment-ando - Tumblr Blog

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There’s a softness to autumn sunsets that I truly appreciate. Like things toning down, preparing us to fall, into the dark side of the year.

#otoño #montréal #softness #darkness

bananapeppers

I think the major difference between a social justice and a white/colonial lens on trauma is the assumption that trauma recovery is the reclamation of safety—that safety is a resource that is simply “out there” for the taking and all we need to do is work hard enough at therapy

I was once at a training seminar in Toronto led by a famous (among therapists) & beloved somatic psychologist. She spoke brilliantly. I asked her how healing from trauma was possible for ppl for whom violence & danger are part of everyday life. She said it was not.

Colonial psychology & psychiatry reveal their allegiance to the status quo in their approach to trauma: That resourcing must come from within oneself rather than from the collective. That trauma recovery is feeling safe in society, when in fact society is the source of trauma

Colonial somatics & psychotherapies teach that the body must relearn to perceive safety. But the bodies of the oppressed are rightly interpreting danger. Our triggers & explosive rage, our dissociation & perfect submission are in fact skills that have kept us alive

the somatics of social justice cannot (i believe) be a somatics rooted in the colonial frameworks of psychology, psychiatry, or other models linked to the dominance of the nation-state (psychology was not always this way, but has become increasingly so over time)

the somatics of social justice cannot be aimed at restoring the body to a state of homeostasis/neutrality. we must be careful of popular languaging such as the “regulation” of nervous system & emotion, which implies the control and domination of mind over emotion & sensation

bc we are not, in the end, preparing the body to “return” to the general safety of society (this would be gaslighting). we are preparing the body, essentially for struggle—training for better survival & the ability to experience joy in the midst of great danger

in the cauldron of social justice healing praxis, we must aim for relationality that has the potential to generate social change, to generate insurrection. we must be prepared to challenge norms. acknowledge danger. embrace struggle. take risks.

& above all, we must not overemphasize the importance of individual work (which is important indeed) to the detriment of a somatics that also prepares us, essentially, for war. somatics that allow us to organize together. fight together. live together. love each other.

Kai Cheng Thom (August 7, 2019)

experiment-ando

ALL of this, but this in particular: “we are not, in the end, preparing the body to “return” to the general safety of society (this would be gaslighting). we are preparing the body, essentially for struggle—training for better survival & the ability to experience joy in the midst of great danger”

#socialjustice traumaembodiment healingpractices socialchange

#warmdaysofspring #laundry #dehors #printemps #domesticity #dosmildieciséis

#domesticity #laundry #dehors #warmdaysofspring #printemps #dosmildieciséis

#mijardindeflores bajo las #nieves de #abril

#nieves #mijardindeflores #abril

istmos

Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, from “Light of Other Days” (photo book)

http://tonk.ch/light-of-other-days/

#nighttime #nofilter #theothernight #threeofthree #series

#theothernight #threeofthree #nofilter #nighttime #series

yearningforunity

Perryclear Plantation, Port Royal Island, SC

……..this view of plantation slave cabins would have been typical for St. Helena as well. Slave cabins were lined up in straight rows, in the midst of a cotton field. There is a small amount of corn growing on the field margin, likely for the use of this village. People gathered in front of the cabins while this photo was being taken.

Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

#racism in america #slavery #know your history

christinefriar

What happened in a Charleston church on Wednesday night is a lot of things, but one thing it’s not is “unspeakable.” We should speak of it often. We should speak of it loudly. We should speak of it as terrorism, which is what it was. We should speak of it as racial violence, which is what it was. We should speak of it as an attack on history, which it was. This was the church founded by Denmark Vesey, who planned a slave revolt in 1822. Vesey was convicted in a secret trial in which many of the witnesses testified after being tortured. After they hung him, a mob burned down the church he built. His sons rebuilt it. On Wednesday night, someone turned it into a slaughter pen.

Charleston Shooting: Speaking the Unspeakable, Thinking the Unthinkable | Charles Pierce for Esquire (via christinefriar)

#infinita tristeza #racism #america #usa

flores secas by florecita viajera Via Flickr:

Ya no hay nada que se pueda mirar. Ya no hay nadie para poder hablar Cargando luces en el mar. Flores secas oxidando tu amor. Flores secas olvidando el dolor. Cargando luces en el mar. Viví la masacre sin saber por qué... Alguien esta matando y no puede dejar. Alguien está matando y no puede dejar de pensar, escuchar sobre un martes, era un martes de horror sobre un martes, era un martes de horror era un martes... (letra de la canción flores secas del grupo chileno Los Tres).

///

flores secas is a photo essay that started taking shape while I was living in Santa Cruz, on the north tip of the Monterrey Bay, in central California.

#Flickr #photography #photo essay #ethnomusicology #autoetnografiademuchascosas

#corteza #musgo #parasite #species #coexistance #ecosystem #forêt #neige #caminata #otoño #lavieamontreal

A photo posted by florecita_nomada (@florecita_nomada) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:51pm PST

theforce

I feel so useless sitting here. What can I do to help Ferguson??

there’s a bail and legal fund that’s been set up for those who’ve been arrested

this person is trying to organize a food drive for school kids in ferguson.

national moment of silence 2014 (for victims of police brutality)

share the following:

videos of what has happened

links to articles

how to make a tear gas mask

livestream link to the peaceful protests

Ferguson Police DepartmentEmail (taken off the site)

222 S. Florissant RoadFerguson, MO 63135

Ph: 314-522-3100Fx: 314-524-5290

theforce

updated 11/24

this campaign started on october 19th and will close december 18th only raised about $18,000 out of the $25,000 goal

change.com petition to protect people from police misconduct and brutality, still needs over 700,000 signatures to reach the goal of 1 million.

donate directly to the family of mike brown

support for NGL (national lawyer’s guild) which has provided legal support for those arrested during the protests

#solidaritywithferguson

“Black lives don't matter, black lives don’t matter…” repeats a young and frustrated protestor onto Amy Goodman’s microphone after hearing the news of Mike Brown’s death going unpunished. Wounds hurting, boots marching, things on fire. Obama calls for a peaceful state of disagreement. Military gear, smoke, bombs, gas, rage, bullets, tears, pain, rage, fear, gear, tears, so, much, suffering. "These young people have been betrayed by every level of government" says a reverend standing on the street in Clayton, the morning after Mike Brown's death goes unpunished.

#blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatter I read over and over on my Facebook and Instagram feeds, the night and morning after hearing the news of Mike Brown’s death going unpunished.

I wish I had something else to offer right now, but all I can feel this morning, reading, watching, and feeling the news, in the face of yet another forgiven injustice, is a deep rooted sadness and a sense of anger that seats at the top of my stomach like a knot or a stone that’s just way too big to swallow.

#blacklivesmatter #solidaritywithferguson #nomoreimpunity #policestate #yabastaderacismo yabastadeviolencia

“I no longer believe that people can shake themselves out of depression with merely a determined fist. I think that’s bullshit. To be alive in this world at all: indeed to be queer, a person of color, a person with a disability, trans, a woman or poor, is to have self-hatred non-consensually woven into your education in personhood before you’re even aware the air you are breathing. I believe sometimes depression is the natural effect of attempting to cough some of the toxic waste of self-hatred out of one’s lungs that can’t be out run.

Our fall harvest days on the farm are spent collecting root crops from the field, shaking the dirt off, and placing them in sacks in the root cellar from which they will feed us all winter. Root crops may be stored because they’re biennials, meaning they reproduce every two years. As long as you trick them into thinking they’re still in the ground, they’ll maintain their crunch and color all through the winter, because it is in their nature to produce seed their second spring alive.

Farming is a manic will to live, but it’s also this: a steady stationary non-lucrative fight, a dark and determined outlasting.

And if there is a lesson in strength to be learned from vegetables, I think it’s that being alive in this world necessitates duality: both the green seedlings rapt in thirsty desire, and the weathered, scarred carrot holding tight to her properties in the bottom of a dark bag through winter, unsure of what’s to come.

Mary Oliver finishes her poem for the heron this way,

Now the woods are empty, the ponds shine like blind eyes, the wind is shouldering against the black, wet bones of the trees.

In a house down the road, as though I had never seen these things — leaves, the loose tons of water, a bird with an eye like a full moon deciding not to die, after all — I sit out the long afternoons drinking and talking; I gather wood, kindling, paper; I make fire after fire after fire.”

Excerpt from "Some Things Are Impossible: How A Rural Queer Lives With Depression" an article written by Lila.

#writing #depression #life #farming #literature