VI.
fam-fam through thick and thin and make this place what it is…one of many homes.
third world country with a gucci belt on,” as an IG post so deliciously reminded me last week.
whisper to myself that I’m non-binary, Two-Spirit, yet again what words, sounds did my peoples use for these expressions? What words, sounds, movements do I wish to create? So what do binaries allow for? What is important to acknowledge about dichotomous thinking and how easy it is to trip into divided ways of thinking? What I recognize and define as the color blue was taught to me so now the work becomes seeing that color for the first time over and over again until it defines itself to me without any external imposition. This is what I want for myself. A fresh start. A new point of departure. An inherent part of being in a human body means wres- tling with limitations, boundaries, and imposed defini- tions. Yes, our Spirit is infinite, but our body needs food, rest, touch, companionship, motivation. These energies, like the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine, are con- stantly in an improvisatory dance where through our choices we get to gift ourselves what we need moment to moment. And sometimes we slip beyond our edges. And this is often necessary too so that we understand what our limits are. The skin becomes a direct expres- sion of this, both sheltering us from the external world yet soft and porous, allowing what we need to feel fully nourished in, inside out / outside in, in. Yet even the skin cracks and tears. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the flesh on these bones will. The flesh will ultimately return and feed the Earth in an
I LOVE Beyoncé, Rihanna, Shakira, Lady Gaga, RuPaul, Selena, and other American icons.
I can’t stand the waiting in line, waiting in line, wait- ing in line at the DMV, at the doctor’s office, at the post office, at the restaurant. I don’t like shopping malls (especially Walmart where they sell guns like candy). I don’t like the fact that wealth that belongs to the people is being hoarded, that there isn’t a robust healthcare sys- tem or a robust basic living income for ALL. I’m ques- tioning the efficacy of cancel culture. I’m over the ethos of professionalism and having to be nice to white peo- ple who aren’t doing their work (especially those folks
On an application I was writing one of the questions asked me, “When have you felt the most free?”
And let’s be real again: I don’t know if I would have survived attending a public high school like the one in Mean Girls or in the neighborhood I was born in back in NJ. I ended up at a boarding school where luckily if anyone was verbally homophobic and/or physically attacked me in any way due to my queer- ness they would have been expelled. The boarding
I replied:
• The House party I stumbled upon on a pier in Jer- sey City that was happening along the Hudson River, a celebration of multi-generational Black life; • Spending time with loved ones where the conversa- tion flows and the energy around us becomes light and sweet like honey; • Where there is space to dance, feast, make love, move and become bodies of waters, becoming mountainous bodies; • The sensation of performing and communing with my Cosmic Self, with all of me, a site where I am able to create a new positionality, where I get to shift my perspective, which is a gift because it means I am training myself to see the world differ- ently. And from this place of softened awareness, I become more available to receive unconditional love and compassion. This doesn’t always feel like a walk in the park though. There is also space for grief, rage, sadness, and disorientation too. Of sifting through the mud and doing my best to discern what is my own, what is collective, what is ancestral, what is not my own. There is no right or wrong here, Queridx. There are just expe- riences and emotions that yearn to channel through us, through you. Experiences and emotions that yearn to be acknowledged by our own presence. Through this witnessing, they are granted permis- sion to pass through our vessels and into the Earth. We must give ourselves permission to move on; • The spaces and places where I don’t have to com- partmentalize or hide any part of me, especially the parts of me that are spiritual, that have experi- enced harm, that are weird, witchy, ritualistic, into erotic excavation; spaces and places where ALL of me is welcome exactly the way that I am. Nothing to fix, nothing to do, no need to perform here. This is the space I am busy cultivating. Simply being and basking in the presence of others who are committed to doing the same;
An inherent part of being in a human body means wrestling with limitations, boundaries, and imposed definitions.
school saga is an entirely different story for another day, but what I will say is that those Berkshire moun- tains became a nest, home, resting ground where I started dancing. 2003 - 2006: I was selected to be the morning announcements, birthday roll-call person and this involved reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, every day, for three years. I was always late and subconsciously, prob- ably on purpose because I hated doing this. The begin- ning of healing my relationship to my own voice. TURN-OFFS: small talk especially the kind during intro- ductions where people really just care about the insti- tutions you’ve attended and the networks you’re a part of and then ask, “No, but where are you really from?... If you’re from Africa, why are you white? OMG Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white!” I have a strong distaste of the holidays as faux rea- sons for gathering and expressing love, the Electoral College, the Gregorian Calendar, Newton’s Laws of Motion / white men in general creating rubrics and standards and systems that only acknowledge their privileged ontology (and hey…I LOVE me some sci- entific method and mathematical equations, however nothing is devoid of Spirit / Spirit will probably never reveal itself through data and statistics because Spirit is unquantifiable), the genocide/militarization of Cen- tral America that was (and probably still is) funded by the U.S. and then the labeling of an entire people and their land as third world, when in fact the U.S. is “a
who are in the spiritual / healing world and bypassing hella hard). I’m over the gatekeepers. I’m over the white picket fence and the cis-het-monogamous couple with their three kids, their dog, their cat, and the respective homes for each of their pets. Don’t get me wrong: I definitely yearn to have a series of homes, to live a life that centers my pleasure and desires, but NOT at the expense or exploitation of another being’s life and NOT without disregarding the Earth as a primary collaborator and living being-system. What is possible when wealth is circulating and moving through conscious minds, hearts, hands? V. Since high school, I’ve been blessed with the opportu- nity to study abroad through varying dance and cho- reographic contexts. What I’ve loved about my journeys is that each place brings out hidden energies within my genetic code; a zodiacal alchemy is allowed to come for- ward and express itself in ways that aren’t always pos- sible within the United States. Something I’ve noticed is that the older I get, the more protective, sensitive, and tender I become with respect to my gender expression. I genuinely feel so weighed down by conditioning that my next area of compassionate examination is unpack- ing this thread by thread. In undergrad, I definitely felt more connected to my femininity and now my mas- culinity feels more present like an amulet, a protective mechanism. I know there are no rules here, but I silently
infinite cycle, spiral, and loop. Fractals on fractals on fractals.
So what is a boundary? An invocation? A prayer? A request for space and time to discern what one’s true needs and desires are?
A boundary allows me to fill up the well of my capac- ity first and foremost, and from this place of abundance
extend my energy out into the world. A boundary can also change with time.
How much time?
As much time as you need, Queridx, Dear One.
There are no timelines or due dates for your healing process.
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
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