it's happening
happy jupiter in cancer
if the last four and a half months have felt like a hunched shoulder, hunker down, freeze up, withstand the blow, watchful waiting, oh shit that just happened, shall I do anything or is that just sticking your neck out to get shot down? endurance, also everyone is half dead/ very tired/ stunned.
these last few days felt like, ok, it’s here now. it’s happening. the battle.
everything is connected. the L.A. climate fires were when? two-three months ago. do you remember those? March, they just happened in March. abandonment, toxicity, the only people helping, each other, and firefighters. the suspension of business as usual for what’s real. no one there has forgotten this, I reckon.
sunday night my neighbor helping me move a facebook marketplace table says, the next hours and days are going to be huge. that afternoon, the National Guard opens fire with tear gas and “less lethal ammunition” into the peaceful march filled with kids and parents one friend is at. a few hours later, across the globe, the Madleen boat of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla loses contact and then is taken by the Israeli military. the people within it release prerecorded videos stating if you see this, we have been intercenpted. they can’t speak yet apart from that, but people in LA on social media say, we are indigenous here and fighting for land, we see Palestine being indigenous and fighting for land there.
“the world will remember us as cowards or heroes,” said Ras Baraka. yep. sometimes often we are terrified, tired heroes.
Jupiter goes into Cancer for a year today. the basic b astro I still get in my email says, “This week brings massive blessings. In a world on fire, we now have a once-in-12-year protective force gifted to us.” care, intuition, a fierce expansion and defense of home.
Trump has Marines in Camp Pendleton on alert and says LA is just the beginning of bringing in military domestiscally to quell what he and his henchmen call “an insurrection.” Gov Newsom is not our ally but invokes states rights. Posse Comatatus law activation hovers. I listen to Gochez talk about community defense patrols happening all over L.A. which a lot of people including TJ/CA folks have been building for 20-30 years and before.
Mortality has been on my mind a lot, mine and others. which sometimes feels ridiculous or on the edge of pompous because my daily is, I made another pie, I did the laundry, I hit my deadlines or I don’t, I sleep well or I don’t. But I’ll say this: I would rather die fighting than live frozen in fear. the courage to change the things I can and all that. and it does take courage.
I don’t know if we’ll make it but we might as well try.
Chiara’s art is right. Life is on our side. That’s not always enough but it’s not nothing.
upcoming things I’m doing:
New Disabled South “Care Webs: exploring the networks of care that sustain and support diabled lives” lecture/ training June 17, 6- 7 PM ET free, ASL and CART, open to all.
Labs for Liberation Summer Institute on Disability and Design, lecture, “The Power of the Wild Disabled Idea: Disabled Creativity Chaos Factor in Building Disabled Collectively Accessible Performance Spaces (with a focus on ritual and grief space in same).” June 30, 11 AM ET, link to register here.
Description: ”ADA spaces posit "access" as a dry checklist where if you do everything right, everything goes according to plan. Disabled minds, bodies and lives are wild, messy and break every barrier, and know that no matter how nice you plan it there's always the crip X factor. Do we see this as ruin, or opportunity?
In this lecture/ workshop, LLPS will discuss the power of the wild disabled idea- the batshit, genius disabled creativity mode they have participated in and witnessed in many DJ/ disabled/ art and life spaces. Drawing on performance design lineages from Sharon Bridgforth, Mangos With Chili, Sins Invalid, PDA (Performance/Disability/Art) weird art spaces in abandoned buildings and I wanna be with you everywhere, they will share about the conception and process of building their Disabled Grief Portal Altar installation, a collaborative ritual/ performance installation holding space for collective mourning of disabled BIPOC losses during the pandemipocene, including what happened when someone died as they were driving to do the install, as well as their Stories of Three Ramps in performance spaces. Participants will have interactive time to journal and dream/ world build about their own wild disabled creativity/ design practices as they build performance spaces.”
The first Stacey Park Milbern Liberation Arts Residency kicks off July 7 (the day Uranus enters Gemini with all its “radical ideas that will reshape communication and society for years to come,”) at the LOVE Building in Detroit, suported by Allied Media Projects. Thanks for bringing us home, sited where Stacey and I first met in person and where so much work she did as a disabled young rebel happened around 09-10.
A throwback for your pleasure to us 15 years ago in Detroit in that time. I had autistic stank face then too. (Also the title is still fucked up, we were fighting for the opposite.)
let’s see what happens next. what we make happen next.
Leah
thank you writing about all the things I didn't have words for.
the other day I randomly thought about how I need to do a dive into sun ra. Now I'm diving thank you !