you can't just go halfway down
you have to go all the way.

"The actual human voices we hear form and fade like pond-ripples; that is their mystery. Often we misread them as solid objects, like stones or stars, because we're used to carved steel, printed text, digitalized recordings of the fluttering larynx and its small warm wet wind, the vibration which reaches out and shivers skin inside our ears and the watery electricity of our brains. One way of remembering that voices are not things is to recall that one of those voices is our own: a dark resonance in a solid tongue and bone, which is not tongue and body themselves. It is the breath of our bow across the larynx our violin. It is in fact our body, vibrating, as it grasps the world alternatively, a casting of our body upon the air."

of everything.

::quote of the day, brought to you by the OccupyOly listserv. it was funnier in context, and by that i mean my own.

---------------------------------------------------
A list of things I want to remember or think more about

People:
RC
Mom
Carolyn
Joan Jett
Joan Hitchens
David Hitchens
Tom Ward (helllo)

Things that are buzzing:
"Awkward Walks"
Sounds of Resistance
Occupy Writers
mapsss
flies (flies)
fleas (fuck)

Death:
dead whales
dead dogs
dead flies
dying flies
dying leaves
dying person

Words&concepts (of perplexity/complexity/someplexity):
"occupation"
"sustainability"
"empowerment"
"independence"
"peace"
"skookum"
(and a whole slew of others)

Food:
Chard
Eggplant
and lotsa green things
plus grapes

Dreams:
3 layers deep
discovery in my sleep

Updates:
walking without a boot
hell, walking without a brace even.
training for a marathon
competing in the climbing comp tomorrow!
not

there are a massive amount of sirens in the streets tonight.

-------------------------------------------------------

i will start writing again soon, probably.

Michelle knew Rachel.

Today I was walking from seminar to the Writing Center and this guy was singing and playing guitar at the edge of the grassy knoll on Red Square. Right when I passed him the lyrics to his song were something to the effect of "darling you're a blue whale in the deep sea."

I was just reminded of something else. This quote has been bouncing around in my head for weeks now, trying to apply itself to different parts of my life. It is something I synthesized from different things the pastor at Becca's church said:

"We live in a culture of entitlement. There is nothing wrong with desires, but when desires turn to demands, love is destroyed. Entitlement turns desires into demands causing the divisions in our relationships."

I suppose it is more applicable in a discussion of demands between individuals and not between people and government. But it came up for me at the end of the previous post when I asked "what are our demands for each other?"


geez. I'm overwhelmed now.
and its time to do homework.

Lately everyone has been talking about the Occupy Wall Street (Occupy everywhere) movement that's going on right now, and it's got me inspired to write about some things I've been thinking about for some time, specifically about the most effect and powerful ways to make change. So here we are in the middle of this incredible global movement that has been popping up all over in the form of the occupation of public space, as well as worker strikes and direct action. And while I am completely elated that this is happening, that people are waking up and standing up together, I am wondering where it will lead and how. My questions come from three sources of influence that I've encountered in the last month or so. These are: of one of Wendell Berry's essays, "Think Little," which I just read (and loved!), a difficult conversation with my father last month, and an strategic article on "Envisioning" written by Donella Meadows.

The conversation with my dad on 9/11 began as a discussion about who was involved in the events of that day ten years ago, and evolved into an argument about the causes of social injustice, environmental degradation, etc. I talked about how corporate interference in government has taken away the power of the people, and how our lives are contained in manufactured boxes of abundant distraction and conditioning. I said the response was to recognize this and respond through personal life choices (working toward self-sufficiency within local communities, avoiding putting money into corporate pockets by selective spending, and other actions). I also expressed anxiety that unfortunately many people have none of the means to access this perspective, or the energy or empowerment or know how to make such choices. In response to my concern that my voice--a single voice--is not enough to be heard in such an enormous system of influence and power, he simply told me not to be disheartened and not to "run away". In essence he encouraged me that I do have an influence and that being discouraged and removing myself completely was irresponsible. It's not that I totally disagree with that, but it got me thinking: there has got to be a balance that can be lived especially at this juncture in history when so much is happening--there's got to be a balance between living within "the system" in order to change it, and living without it.

If we are in collective transition between one way of living and another, perhaps we must straddle the line in order to be fully alive and active members of our race, of our communities, during this time in history. In Wendell Berry's essay "Think Little" he talks about this in a context that is very applicable to what has been going on these past few weeks in NY and across the country. He says:

It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement and the Peace Movement, as popular causes in the electronic age, have partaken far too much of the nature of fads. Not for all, certainly, but for too many they have been the fashionable politics of the moment. As causes they have been undertaken too much in ignorance; they have been too much simplified; they have been powered too much by impatience and guilt of conscience and short-term enthusiasm, and too little by an authentic social vision and long-term conviction and deliberation.

He goes on to say:

If this effort is carried on solely as a public cause, if millions of people cannot or will not undertake it as a private cause as well, then [this] is sure the happen. In five years the energy of our present concern will have petered out in a series of public gestures--and no doubt in a series of empty laws--and a great [...] human opportunity will have been lost."

In context he is referring specifically to the environmental movement, but what he says is applicable to recent events and to all movements. My point (and his, I assume) is not to say that we shouldn't revel in the energy and enthusiasm bubbling up at these times. Trust me, I am riled up and ready to hit the streets. The occupations of public space and gatherings of people are great because we suddenly we are not one voice trying to be heard over the roar of political slander and mass media's deluge of distraction, we are the vast majority of people screaming our demands under the slogan of "we are the 99%." And so, in the midst of this, Berry is asking us (the people, the majority), to really examine what are our demands, and who are we demanding them from? Are we demanding them from the 1%, or from the 99%? Or are we really asking for major changes from 100%, from everyone?

Berry says "A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the [...] movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways." If 99% of people made this thing their own personal private cause too, by asserting some autonomy from the present system by thinking up and creating alternatives, wouldn't that be revolutionary in itself?

Am I being idealistic? Or is this the way forward?

Possibly, both. In her article, Donella Meadows, a prominent systems thinker and a huge influence of mine, tells of her Envisioning Workshops in which she asks people to describe "not the world they thought they could achieve, or the world they were willing to settle for, but the world they truly wanted."

This exercise is totally idealistic. And it is idealistic to ask that the 99% to be the ones making the changes when the major destruction and oppression is happening seemingly so far out of our reach. It is idealistic because we are asking people--we are asking ourselves--to live up to our own ideals. But this is important, because it is our ideals that move us to the action of creating what we desire and believe in. As Meadows wrote: 

"Vision is the most vital step in the policy process. If we don’t know where we want to go,  it makes little difference that we make great progress. [...] Even if information, models, and implementation could be perfect in every way, how far can they guide us, if we know what direction we want to move away from but not what direction we want to go toward? There may be motivation in escaping doom, but there is even more in creating a better world."

So what are our ideal visions for this world? How can we begin creating them through the present movement? What desires and demands do we have for our government, and what desires and demands do we have for ourselves. How to keep that balance of living within a system that oppresses us in order to change it, and living without it in order to live up to our highest ideals.

darkness engulf me now and pull me down into me and cold seep through my clothes and skin and weather wither me into the leaves and hold me hold me mystery with your deep rich color of decay and grey my skin so i blend in with clouds or snow or the crashing waves and save me from the sun that bakes me into sleep and wakes me into dreams so i rise and rise and fall take it all underneath where spry spring blossoms and steady summer greens go when they are shed to die from this life for some time in the seasonal night

xx