while there is life, there is hope

postgrad, psych msc, she/hers, queer

[cinemaspam]

Oh, young hearts run free Never be hung up Hung up like my man and me My man and me Ooh, young hearts, to yourself be true Don’t be no fool when love really don’t love you

Romeo + Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann

[elliebartlets]

THE BEST 

[zanopticon]

A story that the Jews tell each other is that when the slaves were fleeing Egypt they came to the edge of the Red Sea and thought: well, fuck, this is it. Water in front of them and enemies behind. They had escaped, sure, but all this meant was that they were going to die free instead of in chains. A meaningful distinction in an abstract sense, but the Jews are a practical people, and mostly what they were concerned with in that moment was: they would be equally dead either way.

A man stepped out from the group. He stepped into the water. He said: mi chamocha ba’eilim adonai? Who is like you Adonai, among the gods who are worshipped? He sang that verse over and over again. He sang it as he waded into the sea. He gave his body over to his faith as he walked. There was nowhere to go but forward. If he was going to die, he figured, and be equally dead either way, he was not going to die in slavery and he was not going to die at the hands of the Egyptians, either. He was going to die walking and singing, believing, trying to find progress in the chaos, in the waves. 

In the story, the water laps first at his feet, then his knees, his thighs, his ribs, his neck, finally flowing into his mouth as he sings and sings and sings. The words get choked, mispronounced: the hard cha of mi chamocha becomes mi kamoka, strangled but still certain. 

In the story, this man is why the people get their miracle, the waters parting to let them cross through on dry land. It is an act of divine intervention, but it only comes because someone is willing to put his life on the line to make it happen. I keep thinking about him this week, that apocryphal man and how it is a story we make sure to keep telling each other: when there is water in front of you and enemies behind, you do not wait for your god, or a sign. You trust in something larger than yourself and open your mouth to sing about it. You put your feet on the ground and walk forward. 

[awanderinggnome]

His name was Nahshon ben Aminadav. Descended directly from Judah, he fathered a line of kings. We tell his story to remind ourselves that God does not act in isolation. Humans are not just participants in holy work - we are vital to its success.

[a-quiet-green-agreement]

Someday we’ll live in the sky. Meanwhile, the house of our lives is this green world. The fields, the ponds, the birds. The thick black oaks—surely they are the invention of something wonderful. And the tiger lilies. And the runaway honeysuckle that no one will ever trim again.

Mary Oliver, from “Boundaries” (via a-quiet-green-agreement)

[midnight-summerx]

The grasshopper (detail) - Jules Lefebvre

[noahsegans]

so i’m watching the first Silent Hill and noticed my cat was too

here he is digging it

and here he is not digging it anymore

[screeencap]

[itsthesinbin]

I have a VERY hot take for you all:

Straight people should never be regarded as LGBT icons.

Beyonce, Ariana, Taylor Swift, ect…. They’re not gay icons. They’re not gay. They shouldn’t be regarded as gay/lesbian/bi icons.

If their music resonates with you and you’re lgbt- cool idrc. But I hate that, like… they’re regarded as The Best Gay Icons when they’re not gay.

Lady Gaga? Actually a gay/bi icon. Janelle Monae, Freddie Mercury, ect. They’re LGBT icons.

Shut the fuck up about Ariana and Taylor Swift being gay icons.

[aww-so-pretty]

omg so cute

[khazads]

Whisper of the Heart (1995) + clutter

[janployshompoos]

[hexthesystem]

“Leslie [Feinberg] was a tremendous organizer. We were so small, and we saw that something had to be done. But how could we get the people of Boston to oppose the racists? So Leslie tried something: Leslie went to the lesbian bars. There was a famous bar called The Saints. Everybody knew The Saints; it had been raided a number of times. Leslie went and started making speeches, started making contacts, started doing this, started doing that. One night, Leslie got the whole Saints bar and a sister bar to do a car caravan at midnight. They went to South Boston, which was the stronghold of the racist movement, and put up posters all night long, so when they woke up in the morning South Boston was full of antiracist posters. And the lesbian community had really taken it to heart that they were an integral part of this movement. Only Leslie could have done that. The movements at that time — gay, lesbian, and trans — were kind of isolated. And Leslie brought the lesbian and gay community to an antiracist march that was led by the black community. It was a tremendous step forward in the civil rights movement as a whole, both for the black community and for bringing gay, lesbian, and trans people into the movement. You just felt it. The movement felt it. The March Against Racism itself was fantastic. Many thousands showed up. The city opposed it, and had the police attack it. We literally pushed the police back and marched to Boston Common. It was one of the best marches Boston had ever seen. And Leslie was a huge part of it, and the gay and lesbian community was a part of it for the first time. That’s what Leslie’s life was: not just staying in the community that Leslie was part of, but making sure the working class as a whole, that we all moved together.”

—

Ed Childs, “Remember Me as a Revolutionary Communist”: Reflections on the life of Leslie Feinberg, the late radical activist and author of Stone Butch Blues. (via endwealth)

I really recommend reading the entire article, it includes lots of great stories about Feinberg’s life that I never knew. 

(via endwealth)

[bering-strait-deactivated202005]

being gay has changed almost all of my/my friends interactions with the rest of society so PLEASE stop saying it “makes you no different” and “it doesn’t affect you” and “everyone is the same”. this is a childish, ineffective way to address internalized homophobia.

your intentions are good, but you’re erasing years of trauma, abuse and isolation within gay populations caused by homophobic violence. 

closeted or not, every gay person has had their interactions with others shaped by fear of homophobic retaliation. it’s not as simple as “they like the same sex”. it’s cultural. it’s beaten into us from reading age to reject “gayness” and femininity. 

gay people do act differently from straight people, not because they are gay, but because they are raised in a society that rejects them, even before they know they’re different.

[flowisaconstruct-deactivated202]

I think people who say “racism is over” and “being gay doesn’t matter” are engaging in revisionist history. It mattered a great deal for a very long time, and it still matters to a great many people who are trying to keep the bad outcomes alive. And now they want you to forget about it very quickly so they don’t have to feel bad about it. How conveeeeenient.

[lesbiantenets]

“I wonder if the ways that we weaponize social justice language against each other is related to the experiences of profound powerlessness that we’ve had to endure. Many of us have never been able to heal from the deprivations of our childhoods. Being able to rationalize why someone is bad and deserves to be punished is a way to reclaim power in a world that actively disempowers us. I’m not suggesting, as some alt-right folks have done, that the work of naming or critiquing systems of oppression is wrong nor am I suggesting that we need to be more civil. I believe strongly in resistance to state violence and oppression as a necessary condition of our survival. I am interested in expanding our collective emotional awareness about how our traumas, ongoing and past, inform the ways that we engage in the work of advocacy and justice. What does it mean to acknowledge that many of us never had safe spaces to learn how to process complex emotions or manage intense conflict without relying on our fight or flight responses? How can we love ourselves and others while still holding everyone accountable to the values of liberation?”

— “Repair” by Gwen Benaway (x)

[milklotus]

[millennial-review-deactivated20]

[protect-and-love-animals]