shaping complexity

the brainspacetimematter of erika akire

[shapingcomplexity]

i can no longer let fear keep me from reaching for closeness & connection

[shapingcomplexity]

[shapingcomplexity]

comotion | commotion

https://www.instagram.com/p/CECcp5uhKmq/

i want to try something. a call for collaboration, for co-exploration, for curious endeavoring. i'm feeling the end of summer starting to creep up and feeling urgent(?) about dancing outside while the weather supports it. being mindful of the urgency not for rash decisionmaking but to notice the preciousness of time and space and warmth. i'm still percolating on the emergent strategy principle "that there is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. find it." what is conversation only we can have? what does it look like to notice in motion? what is closeness in distance? i mostly have these conversations with space and time by myself, and/but perhaps there's something to find and shape with you. so the idea is this. we meet up, masked, and have a movement conversation with the space we're in, and with one another. like this dome. or like with some trees. or tunnels. or bodies of water. we document it, play with angles and all that, and share it on the webs. maybe we move in small groups, maybe we dance 1:1. you in?

[shapingcomplexity]

mixedmixedmixedmixed

mixed, baby mixed baby. mixed baby, mixed. baby, mixed, baby mixed baby mixed, baby

26 jul 2019

[shapingcomplexity]

never(k)now

if you don't do this, you'll never know if you don't do this, i'll never know if you don't do this, we'll never know if we don't do this, you'll never know if we don't do this, i'll never know if we don't do this, we'll never know if i don't do this, i'll never know if i don't do this, you'll never know if i don't do this, we'll never know

14 april 2020

[shapingcomplexity]

dreamwork

i am the queerfemme japanese demon oni of yr dreams except maybe my biggest demon is myself i am my mother's fiercest dreams and because so i am my father's biggest nightmare when he called me a dragon in her belly did he know that i would be coming after everything he embodies? that she would birth one that would come after his kind monster/burn

[shapingcomplexity]

movement meditation x firework

what is the shape of freedom on stolen land in an empire built on slave labor & blood & on genocide what is the shape of freedom in a carceral state what is the shape of freedom without abolition what is the shape of freedom freedom within settler colonialism is unsettling freedom within capitalism isn't free freedom within white supremacy is supreme toxicity there is no freedom in amerikkka so we fight & breathe & move & rise the people's revolution is here. & within that, there's freedom & liberation & joy & power & resilience i move in it. with it. because of it.

4 jul 2020

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radical honesty

sitting here in a metal box with my heart between my legs melting, cramping, thinking about the nervous system and nervous systems and courage and balance and disorder and resistance and blooming and how i want to be in radically honest relationship with you, yes, you, because there isn't time for anything else 

14 jul 2020

[shapingcomplexity]

august is bittersweet

there's something about the beginning of the end of summer, the early autumnal signs — the goldening-reddening of the leaves, the 紅葉, the shifting of the sunset — that is so incredibly sweet and so profoundly sad. bittersweet. maybe they call it fall for a reason it's not wholly bitter. not bitter like mad, not bitter like a grudge. bitter like - difficult. good difficult. necessary difficult. a sweet difficulty that invites, carves, makes space for the magic that is the sweet complexity of transition, shift, change, release. of the unfolding, the emergence, the flowing. things feel rly bittersweet rn && growing pains have never felt so good 14 aug 2020

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petaling

just when i think i am starting to understand something, the universe shows me otherwise it's been a season of transitions. a long season of transitions. the leaves are yellowing. there is something that makes me cry. the leaves are goldening, reddening, marking for me another transition. the beginning of the end of summer. a shift. it makes me cry, it makes me laugh. i've laughed a lot harder than i have in a while, this summer. esp in the last few weeks. i've also cried a lot. released a lot. sat with it. a lot of crying from a place of possibility, a place of knowing that i am meeting myself more in each decision i make in alignment w how this universe is shaping me i've been finding home in new places, new spaces. i met elders, people one or two generations older than me, who look like me - mixed in the same way - for the first time in my life. my body is growing, i am growing, i am petaling dance has saved my life, shaped my life, and shifted my life. & it continues to do so. it teaches me so much about change, about alignment, about balance, about adaptability, about healing, about rest i believe so much in dance because i believe that dance is fractal -- how we move as unique beings shapes how we move as worlds, as a collective dance for me isn't about my single unit vessel-body in motion, it's a practice through which we co-shape how we exist and relate to ourselves and one another and this world we get to be a part of - this world we have a responsibility of being in with great love and care and tenderness and abundance   my relationship to dance is changing. hell, my relationship to everything is changing, they're becoming more honest & spacious & soft & true. i'm moving in ways that feel more honest & spacious & soft & true. uncensored. growing pains have never felt so good talked to myself in the mirror. rode my bike without handlebars so that i could use my upper body to dance. so grateful for the new connections, the blooming, the potentiality, the fierce undying belief we are willing to hold in each other as we swim. navigate. move. shift. sway.

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waves

that it's going to be okay doesn't need to negate (it) not being okay • they say it's okay to not be okay • make space to be okay & not okay at once • if i embody this i will believe it ? waves. it comes in waves.

[shapingcomplexity]

it's 11:11

now

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precipice | incubation

on this day, twenty nine years ago, i was incubating. in my mother's womb. one week past due date. contemplating the passage through the portal into this other dimension. maybe i was waiting for specific planetary alignment. maybe i was taking my time with growth. maybe i just really needed to go to the edge to see what was possible. it would be another week until my mother, and i would push through and breathe together, with ancestors and the stars watching, holding us. her firstborn. and so here we are. on the cusp of twenty nine complete solar cycles. on the precipice. moving, flowing, squirming, wiggling, shaking, shaping. it's precisely how i feel about how my life is taking shape right now. a precipice of profound change. shifting the core. another cycle of emerging, breaking open. return and renewal. this incubation period, this period in which others were waiting for my arrival, makes me think about timing. how it's okay to take the time you need to grow. that blooming happens on one's own timeline. that blooming, healing, growing is so very nonlinear. and that arrival is a process and a practice, not an outcome

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complexity theory, breaking open

there is the part of complexity theory where two beings create new possibilities that they wouldn't be able to create as two independent beings. and then there is (i suspect) a part of complexity theory where the uncoupling creates even more possibilities, those which couldn't exist if the two independent beings never came together or if they stayed together. i don't know if we broke up so much as we broke open so that we could see ourselves and one another as we needed to. that this was a relationship shift, a maturation, versus an ending, continues to feel true to me, perhaps moreso with each mooncycle. a shift that has invited in deep deep growth, joy, and a rooted, spacious closeness. it's also been fucking hard at times. won't pretend like it hasn't been. it's just that difficult and amazing co-exist really well together. and it's worth it. you're the one who taught me, viscerally, to do the hard things because those are the things that define us. so what a gift, this breaking. a wildest delight & honor to be able to witness us in this new way. beyond imagination. no longer as romantic partners but as a parallel co-conspirators in this complex journey towards more abundant && whole futures. as a new shape of beloved, working on excellence apart, but interdependently. to see us bloom & glow in new love, in our emergent connections, and in our boldest & brightest ways of being in our selves, in our bodies, & in our power and truth. thank you, t,  for your patience & co-facilitation & nurturance & wisdom & love & reflection over the years. thank you for reaching for us, for reaching for you, for reaching for me. for dreaming. for practicing with me. for believing. for shaping. for holding. for releasing.

[shapingcomplexity]

sometimes you need to get out of your own way

conscience

[shapingcomplexity]

movement exercises • issue one • retrograde

[shapingcomplexity]

twentynine seahorses

to travel, to adventure

to feeling

to sharing, to growing

to dancing

to celebration

to sunsets

to light

to pleasure

to solitude

to closeness

to life

to aliveness

to rest

to sparkle

to play

to birthing possibility from cute bellies

to stars

to certainty

to deep belly yeses

to deep breaths

to stretch breaks

to miracles

to dreaming

to delight

to movement

to renewal

to balance

to flow

to sight

to wanting

to connection

to watering yourself

to splendids

to change

to fall

to exploring & observing & unraveling & wiggling & blooming