aprilgrayrobin

[aprilgrayrobin]

Judgment XX

Part 1

When I was sixteen, I came home from school one day and my mother gathered my little sister and I in the living room with an enormous sense of urgency.  Her face was full of fear and sorrow as she presented us each with a backpack, and told us that everything we would need to hopefully survive could be found inside. A change of clothes, running shoes, thermal blanket, protein bars, tablets to disinfect drinking water, basic first aid supplies, iodine tablets to prevent the body from absorbing radiation, and a bundle of cash in small bills.

She informed us that the very next day, according to the prediction of an evangelical pastor, the rapture would take place. In Christian theology, this is the second coming of Christ to Earth and the event that signals what is commonly conceptualized as “the end of the world.”  As a Christian, my mother believed that she would ascend to heaven. As “non-believers,” my sister and I would be left in the rubble… which is to say some vague, resource-scarce dystopian landscape of smoky skies and fights to the death in abandoned grocery stores aisles.

My mom was ready to go. She was ready to leave this world, and move on prematurely to the afterlife. But this was not a new thing. She had been ready, with barely one foot on the ground, for as long as I can remember.

As a young child, I recall tornado warnings that would send us running to the basement with sleeping bags, ready for the worst. The world ending wasn’t always about Christ’s return, see. More broadly, for my mom, I think it was about retreating from reality. It was any excuse to hole up and defend her nuclear family from threats semi-real to fully imagined.  She hoarded (and still, I believe, hoards) supplies as a regular practice--cleaning products, canned goods, bulk grains, batteries--and invariably most of it would expire before it was ever put to use. But it soothes her, my mother, and abates the anxieties stoked by Fox News, InfoWars and fire-and-brimstone preachers delivering end times prophecies to the day.

It is hard to share this. Despite the harm she caused me, and the fact that we do not speak, I have love for my mother. I see her paranoia and her attempts to feel safe in a world that is fundamentally not safe.  I feel sad that she can only conceptualize safety as being more prepared than her neighbors, and keeping it all to herself. I want to share this, though, because in being raised by someone perpetually readying herself for the apocalypse, I developed a readiness of my own.

I am thinking about the Dean Spade lecture on mutual aid, “Solidarity Not Charity,” that I attended this past fall. There was a moment when he was speaking about the idea of safe spaces as being not only an impossibility, but a concept that actually detracts from effective organizing. I want to quote him as saying, “If I get my safety from making you wrong, that’s authoritarian.” He described being at a meeting where people were planning for a common goal, and someone saying something hurtful and offensive. Rather than immediately kicking the person out, he said, what could come of recognizing that you had a common enemy (capitalism, the police, etc) and educating them. The “safety” that would allow him to respond to that situation in the latter way was generated by “having enough, and being held in community so that we can tolerate discomfort.” it is this definition of safety that I have been orienting towards.

Part 2

Recently someone asked me what kind of witch I am, and I told them “a political one.”  I say this because the witch hunts of early modern Europe are one of the main origin points for our current conception of what a witch is. Although the Wicca of second wave feminism claimed those executed as “witches” to be ancestors of a Pagan religious tradition, in reality many if not most of them understood themselves as Christian. According to Silvia Federici’s extensively researched thesis, the people executed as witches were killed for the threat they posed to the newly enforced order of economic and social relations— early capitalism. In medieval Europe, most people practiced some form of what we would call magic. Charms for love, money and protection were run of the mill. It was only the magic of those who existed in opposition to the patriarchal capitalist order--the unmarried, disabled, unhoused, and destitute--that was labeled diabolical. Those Christians became heretics, and heretics became witches. The practice of magic alone did not, and perhaps does not, make someone a witch.

I am a witch in part because I was baptized in the Presbyterian church. I am a witch because I am a dyke who loves God (in a polytheistic kinda way). I am a witch because I survived an upbringing that nearly killed me, and I have committed my life to fight to destroy the societal structures which give rise to the interpersonal violence that I endured. I am a witch because of the non-hierarchical way I strive to relate to life in all its forms— plant, animal, human and non-human, living and dead. I am a witch because I believe that what we can imagine, we can bring into being.

In March of 2017 I was preparing for a spring equinox ritual with a group of witches as part of a Wheel of the Year class offered by my teacher, Miel Rose. On the seasonal theme, we wanted to cast a spell for moving back into embodiment after a time of being numb... For embracing the movement of spring after the dormancy of winter.  In the week between our planning meeting and the day of our ritual, I found out the man my sister was dating, Rafael, an undocumented man from Guatemala, was detained by ICE in Pennsylvania.  I remember feeling utterly powerless to free him from the jaws of the evil machine that is our immigration system. I went into ritual thinking about our intention for greater embodiment and movement. It wasn’t complete, I realized, as a spell to support our own transformation. We needed to cast a spell for freedom of movement for all people, all beings.  And so we did.

On the bike path in Northampton, under the South Street overpass, we chalked in huge letters

A WORLD WITHOUT CAGES IS POSSIBLE.

And we chanted and hummed and visioned and sent the truth of that world we could feel in our bodies out to be picked up and passed on by others.

After ritual, I wrote these words in my journal:

"I WILL FEED MYSELF BECAUSE I LOVE THIS WORLD AND I AM OF THIS WORLD AND I DESERVE TO BE FED

Let it all come up into the (sun)light

Learning to be vulnerable, slowly Learning I won’t be punished for it Learning it’s ok to make mistakes, to be wrong, to fuck up That I can and will be held

Real change is slow and sometimes it hurts but sometimes it’s a steady drip till the water flows in full."

We were unsuccessful in our legal efforts to free Rafael from detention and prevent him from being deported. Witnessing his journey struggling against the system--attending his asylum trial inside the prison where he was being held--further radicalized me and moved me to political engagement in a new way. Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve been blessed to organize as part of the Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network to get transgender and genderqueer asylum seekers across the U.S./Mexico border, out of ICE detention, and set up with sponsors and support in western Massachusetts. This work has drawn me into a web of community I had previously only dreamed of (and cast spells for). We believe it is possible and necessary to abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish capitalism. As a collective, we treat each other with kindness and encourage honesty in everything we do. We recognize that we need each other, and we act like it. What an immense gift to be surrounded by people who believe that a world without cages is possible, and to be fighting for it together. The more I connect and build with radical left activists, the more I realize we could have an entirely different world.

Part 3

And that is what I am sitting with in this moment. Everyone is calling it the apocalypse, and I don’t think that’s heavy handed. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein meaning ‘uncover, reveal.’ The whole world is seeing what was behind the curtain that is the mythology of capitalism.  There are extreme losses occurring in this process. Death abounds. This is heavy. And. In the shadow of death there is preciousness. On this, I think, my mother and I agree. Everything is cast in a softer light. The finiteness of life becomes more real. There is possibility for deep change, because the ultimate change looms so large. We feel the urgency of how totally unsustainable the current order of economic and social relations is. The working class is fed up, and recognizing that they have power.

I re-read the Revelation to John (aka the Book of Revelation) recently for the first time in years. I believe that the end of the world described there cannot be separated from the description of the downfall of the Roman empire. I choose to read it slant. I choose to queer it. I choose to cultivate a relationship with this apocalypse moment that centers weaving webs of care alongside on the ground organizing to bring about the downfall of our current empire. For me, it is the only way through.

[aprilgrayrobin]

Worthy, and then some

I love to write. I am “good” at writing. I continue to hone my skills. I write mostly for myself in the confines of my journal--always have. But when I’ve had opportunities to share my writing, my heart swells and I find there is real power and growth and value in having my words read by others. There is a connection, an exchange, a relationship.  All things that scare the crap out of me, if I am being perfectly honest.  I wonder if all writers go through this dramatic mind game with themselves about wanting to share their work with the public. Is it ______ enough? Will it resonate with people or am I just perpetually whining about my life? Does this make me egotistical-- to believe there is anything original left to say, that /I/ have something worthwhile to put out into the world?

And I know I cannot separate these questions from my trauma. I know I cannot separate my writing from my trauma. My writing is my lifeline, my accounting for experience internal and external. From the earliest memories I have of writing, I know I wrote to try to make sense of a violent world. I wrote to have a record of what happened to me, coded as it may have been, so that later when abusers tried to convince me I was over-reacting or mis-remembering I could look back and try to assure myself that what I was feeling was real. Way before I even knew that what I was experiencing was actively harmful to me.

At this moment in my life--a third of the way through my twenties, just having graduated college and feeling utterly burnt out on academia, organizing, and service work--I am in a place of slowly coming to awareness about the various traumas of my childhood. I desperately want it to be a rip-the-bandaid-off type of situation, and I know how completely /not/ like that this process must be. We cannot excavate our traumas, perform surgeries on our psyches, recover on emotional painkillers for a few weeks and be good as new. This is not the nature of trauma, nor of healing. It is slow. It requires immense tenderness towards one’s self and patience for the unfolding. It is hard fucking work, and it cannot be done in a vacuum. 

For me, my primary wounds are around relationship and trust. My Self was formed in the toxic home of a narcissistic father and fundamentalist Christian mother who enabled my father’s abuse of my sister and me. (And oh how very long it’s taken me to be able to string those words together...) At twenty three I feel like I am basically a kindergartener learning for the first time about making friends and building connections in a healthy, mutual way. I’m like “oh wait what, I have needs? I’m allowed to tell people no? I can relate to others in a myriad of ways that aren’t just me trying to be of service to them in material and emotional ways? I have worth even if I don’t do everything people want me to do? whaaaaaa???” In a way it’s like being born again, like I have this unexpected opportunity to build a foundation /for my self/ that will serve me the rest of my life. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but it is the blessing amidst the grief.

Part of this healing process is about letting myself use my voice. I want to sing in ritual and worship. I want to be honest with the people in my life when I need something or have been hurt. I want to establish firm boundaries with strangers from the start and feel safe opening up to people as trust builds. All of this feels extremely challenging at the moment, however, and I think I need to flex my voice in the format of the written word first /and/ alongside the other parts of this process. I need my ideas to move beyond whirling around in my mind and on the pages of my journal in an infuriating loop that makes me feel cursed to wrestle with the same questions forever and never find a single answer. I am not saying this is the end-all be-all, my sharing my writing, but it is a tool that I have not really used much before and I would really like to see what new journeys it may present.

As I close out for today, I want to say thank you to anyone who has read any part of this post. Thank you for being a part of my spell to untangle myself from the traps laid by my past. Thank you for witnessing my dreams for more just ways of relating--for myself and all the creatures of this world.

[aprilgrayrobin]

I'm not ready but I'm doing it anyway

Content Note: discussion of struggling with mental health, nondescript mentions of trauma

Recently I've been feeling too caught up in my own shit to be participating in activism the way I aspire to do (and sometimes used to). There is a revolution happening across the United States right now, and I am in so much pain from old traumas that I just can't even begin to step in where I know I am needed. It is an accomplishment to feed myself properly. I wish I could do all the things I want to do, but I can't right now. This is a beginning, a healing gesture, so that maybe someday soon I am able to participate the way I know I must. Maybe that's a lot to ask of a blog post, but it feels huge to me.

I feel the call of the world all the time. Do something, do anything, now. For years it used to be that I couldn't sleep, because I was overwhelmed with a sense of duty coupled with a sense of helplessness. When I had the chance to go to college and take classes that interested me (feminist philosophy, critical race theory, queer studies), I developed a way to talk about the suffering--oppression in all forms--and started to think it was obvious what I needed to do. I threw myself into every outlet for radical thinking and effort for liberation I could possibly find on campus. I was full of rage all of the time. After a while, I stopped being shocked by news of injustice and just felt tired, hopeless, sad. I was overworked and under-supported and I was convinced that self-care was just an excuse to not to show up to meetings. And then some shit went down and I ended my third year of school completely drained and grieving. I realized you can't run on adrenaline alone. This is what they call "burning the candle at both ends" (and in my case, in the middle too). I felt my well utterly depleted.

So I've taken a year off (which is just work of another kind, really) in the name of mental health and figuring things out. Four months in, I haven't progressed very far on either, but at least I've crossed "make a tumblr" off my to-do list (that and "see a therapist," which I guess is kind of big).

I promised myself I would write. Well, more specifically I promised myself I would write in public. I write in private all the time, but that doesn't serve anyone except me. I wanted to join the blog-o-sphere (so very late to the game) to put my voice to use, to make connections, to possibly (hopefully) inspire someone. I don't know where this is going exactly. But as a beloved teacher told me repeatedly, creation must always be more about the process than the product. Writing makes it real.

I think a lot about feelings, relationships, and politics. Sometimes independently of one another. More often than not, however, I am thinking about how our emotional and spiritual well-being, our webs of connection and relationships of all kinds, are deeply political. I think about how movements for liberation require spiritual sustenance. I think about the small everyday ways change is made. I think about being an introvert who cares so much about community, but has been hurt too many times to jump back in. I think about consent and sexuality and trauma. I think about God and the Goddess, the universe, religion and ritual. I think about ways we can heal ourselves and one another. I spend too much time looking back, and not enough looking forward. I anticipate this blog to be mix of all of these things, and I am sure there will be things I cannot possibly anticipate.