the balance has spoken

bathing in libra libra eclipse clarity

this is a mix of resonant sounds heard in communication with time, my friend hameedha khan, silence, our ancestors, and our many many teachers. all italicized portions were uttered by hameedha in conversation rather than myself.

“Respect our communication with the unseen and attend ourselves to following their precious wisdom.”

“Open a portal to those that gave us life (what the Chinese tradition calls 'ancestors') and reminisce on the quality of our current material, emotional and spiritual harvest. How have we reaped what we have sown?”

“Our appetite for the simple joys of life has its precedent in our beneficent ancestors and is the greatest gift we could share with others.” —Scott Zook

part 01:

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

everyone in your lineage is telling you ENJOY IT, PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO ENJOY IT

even after the most piercing betrayals, they cry out: enjoy it

generation after generation of lovingfeeling people have only wanted to enjoy it

and enjoy it together

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

zombification resistance front¹
a love letter to romantics²
& nomadic kindness
something delicious
a lunar banquet club
after the bitter, the sweet³
we are each other’s shelter
in this world of rain

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

enjoying our lives continues to be the most disruptive stance of all time

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

unfeeling choices are like a dam⁴ 
cruel choices are like a dam
persistent apathy is like a dam 
it blocks the river’s natural flow 

this always hurts
downriver, the separation grows

there’s beauty in labor, there is beauty in washing your own dishes, doing your own laundry, cleaning your own place.

there’s beauty in agriculture, growing food, in teaching, in caretaking, in planting, in cooking. there is dignity in contributing to society, to taking care. i know who i am.

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

libra as in “yes, beauty is enough of a reason”⁵

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

you can reset any time, like a child 

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“a feeling now that she was a song, a wind”

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

life is founded upon inheritance 
and reacting to what we’ve inherited 

reaction is our inheritance  
we react to our inheritance 

we all inherit something to react to 

i care how i react
i want to respect my inheritance
i am hungry to play with my inheritance 
10,000 betrayals and 10,000 reconciliations 

i am a romantic 
lovesick for the earth and time
i want to react beautifully
inexplicably, they affect me—fascinate me
i try to look my best for them 
i thank heavens for the things that they do⁶

they accept me in any form
but, still, i try—i want to react beautifully 
i’m devoted to reacting beautifully; 
creatively lovingly compassionately 
nakedly wildly truthfully 

i feel like i disappoint them when i resist
i feel like i betray them when i’m scared
but they accept me as i am
they forgive
they remind
even when i resist 
i resist nakedly wildly truthfully beautifully 

i be like earth 
i be like time

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

what to do in a world of nation-states and false borders and false separation?

there are human laws that go against natural laws and natural laws that go against human laws

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

i often think of birds, they represent something that borders could never contain. trees whose roots span walls and borders, butterflies who glide over barbed wire fences, insects who can come and go from prison cells

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

there’s so little value and respect for the dignity of life, for the miracle of life

the desires of the few to control, to kill, to become gods of their realms, to enact unspeakable violence—their desires affect all of us whether we agreed to the systems or not

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

what is keeping us here if not love? when we want to live and love but cannot…

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“to keep emulating the harmony we seek and do it until we can’t”

starting the morning off heavy, i just wanted to share what’s been on my mind as we enter this eclipse. thinking about ideas of sun and moon, the moon is only bright because it reflects the light of the sun. but it is just as luminous and beautiful. the moon is a mirror, it shows who the sun truly is and capable of. what is the poetry of the moon, the mirror, finally being able to make dark the entity that it is always reflecting? when the moon is able to obscure that which is most bright, despite its smallness, its earthiness, its lack of innate light?

the moon’s darkness blocks the sun itself, leaving only a ring of fire, a ring of heat, a 0, so clearly the moon reminds us that the original heartbreak will always be separation.⁷ who consented to such separation as you say? you may remember the history of heresy fascinates me. because it is the history of power plays based entirely on destroying that which you don’t like the sound of.⁸

it makes me think of how right now is a time when the voices of our ancestors—ALL OF OUR ANCESTORS—are loud. loudly, loudly they keep reminding us of this heartbreak, this 1000s of years long heartbreak. we are feeling people. that is what the moon reminds. that the warmth of the sun matters because we feel.

and as feeling people, why would we ever choose separation?

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

months ago in may, a 30-year-old Haitian man, Karl Udson, self-immolated on the steps of the Heroes of Vertières monument to express the heart of the very sentiment Palestinians are expressing. a writer named Muriel Vieux wrote a poem about this that goes:

Sakrifis la pou nou tout

Sou mach Vètyé
Li plase drapo li
Li wete chemiz li
Li wete bôt li
Li poze chapo li

Nan pye zansèt yo
Li sakrifye tèt li
Li imole tèt li
Li ofri nanm li
Li bay soufrans li

Anba je tout moun
Li met jenou li a tè
Yon dènye priye
Ki fèt ak tout kè
Pou kwape lamizè

Sou plas libète
Li pa mande
Li pa rele
Li pa kriye
Li pa rekile

San li pa di yon mo
Nou tout konprann jès la
Nou tout tande mesai la
Nou tout pran sakrifis la
Ki sa n ap fè kouni a?

RIP Karl-Udson

/// 

The sacrifice is for all of us

On the Virtuous step
He places his flag
He takes off his shirt
He takes off his boots
He places his hat 

At the feet of the ancestors
He sacrifices himself
He immolates himself
He offers his soul
He gives his suffering

Under the eyes of us all 
He puts his knees on the ground
One last prayer
Made with all the heart
To curb laziness

On the place of freedom
He does not ask
He does not call
He does not cry
He does not recoil

Without saying a word
We all understand the gesture
We have all heard the message
We all take the sacrifice
What are we doing now?

RIP Karl-Udson

i am thinking about this

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

we have 1000s of years of supremacy to overcome in the human realm. i often say it is the oldest battle of humankind

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“the original heartbreak will always be separation”

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“he offered his soul / he gives his suffering / under eyes of us all”

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“on the place of freedom, he does not call, he does not ask, he does not cry, he does not recoil”

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“made with all the heart / to curb laziness”

true “laziness” always speaks to a laziness of the heart.

the work is to move with all y(our) heart. there is a vigor that begets love. vigor as the small divine, love as the grand.⁹

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

revolution… revolution… thinking about language, the earth revolves around the sun, the sun revolves around the galactic center. revolution represents a cycle, the completion of a karmic cycle. one made in an effort to right wrongs, to stand up in the face of mass injustice…

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“to be pushed toward your death for wanting to live” 

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

the joy of knowing people are free

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

“And for ourselves, the intrinsic “Purpose” is to reach, and to remember, and to declare our commitment to all the living, without deceit, and without fear, and without reservation. We do what we can. And by doing it we keep ourselves trusting, which is to say, vulnerable, and more than that, what can anyone ask?” — June Jordan in a personal letter to Alice Walker

there will always be people who feel [and trust and believe—who have faith] and there will always be heretics and there will always be punks and there will always be revolutionaries. the same way that nothing stops the flow of time, nothing can stop this flow of revolution.

nothing can stop this flow of revolution,
there will always be people who seek balance

there will always be humans who find separation to be grotesque
there will always be humans who be like earth, who be like time

𓆟࿐ೃ˙𖦹 ⋆꙳ ໑ ᮫࣭ ꩜ ｡⋆༄

BOULE BOULE W¹⁰

Revolisyon an boule

        Li boule

        Li boule

Chak pyebwa l kontre

        Li kite I tou kale

        Li pa janmen poze

Se fè wout ba l pase

Tout kè se motè l

Wè pa wè lap anime w

///

LET IT BURN

The revolution burns

          And burns

          And burns 

Everything it touches 

           It transforms

           It doesn’t stop

Make way for it 

Your heart is its motor

It will animate you 

part 02:

how do we react to being socialized to happily accept the crumbs of supremacy?

how do we react to being socialized to enjoy the suffering of others? 

what do you do with the fear and grief of your ancestors?

“We publicly accuse them of being revolutionaries for nothing more than salaries and social services. Their bellies full of waste, the workers in industrialized countries have become wise adults, drunk on their paid vacations, their leisure activities, their beer and their wine. With their insurance policies and social security, they can hold out for a few more centuries. There's no urgency for them anymore. That's why they're biding their time; they stay blind and deaf to our misery. They aren't threatened.”

— Frankétienne¹¹

how do i react to my family accepting crumbs? when my family came from the 3rd world? how do i hold both realities? their journey to try to survive and enjoy their lives birthed a 1st world citizen. their journey to survive and help their families survive have birthed a 1st world citizen. now i am here, with this lineage of the 3rd world, this socialization of the 1st world, this life in the 1st world and call to transform my inheritance. a call to untangle my relationship with those 1st world crumbs. 

“happily accept” is so haunting. the imperative here is, “i should rather STARVE than accept the crumbs from the bountiful tables of my bosses.”

do i starve? is this why i resonated when i read about living austere and clear? austere and poor? as bashō writes? what is the pathway forward?

on some level—yes we starve. or at least it will appear as such to bellies conditioned towards gluttony. if your baseline is a shein haul and a 401(k), connecting with the simple joys of our ancestors may feel as though you are being starved. releasing attachment to the excess of the supremacist worldview will feel as though you are starving. even though your attachment to shein hauls is a clear example that you are very very hungry and that shein hauls aren’t filling that void. 

it’s not just about starving, in the end. frankétienne is also pointing out what you are filling your bellies with!! 

are you filling your belly, happily (and to fill your belly thoughtlessly/apathetically = happily too, ignorance is bliss after all) with the suffering of others? there are ways in which you can begin to fast from supremacy, to go on hunger strike from what supremacy says you must be hungry for and you must go on that strike for the entirety of your life!! you will feel as though you are starving at first. but the earth and time are all of our homes. there is enough nourishment for us all when we live beyond supremacist excess. 

there is no filling your belly happily in the 1st world. period. there are other joys we can connect with. friendship. the sunlight. bird songs. the wind. laughter. we are not being asked to be depressed and disheartened. there is no change coming from the citizens of the 1st world if we lose heart anyway. this all depends on our hearts. but there is no filling your belly happily. and, to me, i’m ok with that being a condition of my present that i carry.

i have learned to carry it
the way a poor man learns
to carry everything.

— lucille clifton

no longer filling your belly happily leads to something like degrowth, for example. why? if the language of america is economics then let’s be so fr about what economics are. economics = management of the house and how we get our needs met. obviously, we live in an abusive household that does not actually care about meeting the needs of anyone in the house. the american economy reflects excess and disconnection from our own humanity. so it meets the needs of excess and disconnection from our own humanity. 

when your vigor of heart / discipline grows, the simple joys of our ancestors will fill you up more than a shein haul or a 401(k) ever could. period!! you cannot buy being alive. your awake heart will always feel a pain called “love” that begs you to do whatever you can to subvert supremacy. you will feel called to reject evil. period. even if you don’t know how yet, you will have an attitude for it. and that attitude is a form of focus. whatever you are focused on grows. as Julius K. Nyerere says: we’re going nowhere if you don’t change your attitude first.¹²

this clarity is required to understand what needs actually need to be met. this is something every 1st world citizen needs to know. our connection to our needs is entirely manipulated by supremacist interests. they want us to be cruel mini-gluttons like them. glutton-zombies. this is why supremacy does not want you connected to your emotions or ancestors or intuition or direct experience or your ability to be your own north star. this is why it needs dogma which creates heretics to be silenced and eliminated. this is why it needs you to be overworked which creates fatigue (and there is no rest for the wicked). supremacy wants you numb, tired, disconnected, scared, distrustful of others, yourself—life itself & just happy to get some crumbs. is this really a life? even if relatively & on the surface it seems great to live for shein hauls and the far-off promised land of your retirement? 

“...They built up their material riches, their art, their science, and their technology at the expense of four continents. And today they dare speak to us about their ‘civilization?!’ Can they already have forgotten that it would suffice to scratch ever so lightly at any stone of their buildings, any slab of their streets, any sheet of metal in their machines to uncover the blood of the oppressed?”¹³ — Frankétienne

“I think we really underestimate the psychic toll of this, to enjoy excess and convenience and peace at the price of someone else's despair. It has rotted our souls, to know that every gallon of gas we use steals a moment away from someone else's future, and to continue doing it.”¹⁴ — Tasbeeh Herwees 

and there is a toll. the material excess comes at a very very large price. not only does it promote vigor in being deluded that it’s ok to build dams that destroy people’s lives downriver as though we don’t live in an obviously and explicitly interconnected world. with lovingfeeling beings in it. all this can only take a psychic toll and rot the soul. the delusion of separation is much much much much much much much worse than death. are the crumbs really worth any of this? is material life so sweet to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?¹⁵ 

as Manbo Lanise Colon of Lakou Dantes said: “Many of my family haven't returned back home due to fear grief… this has also taught me a lesson that we will not continue to expand ourselves to appease the fear of others”¹⁶

we will not continue to expand ourselves to appease the fear of others. and if the material is not the meat of life but rather the spiritual is, then our ability to grow and evolve and roam this life and this planet safely and freely is a need. all humans need to grow and expand themselves. supremacy coerces you to constrict yourself in exchange for crumbs!! 

without more changes in attitude, without more commitments—lives staked on cultivating vigor of heart? there is no starting point. 1st world citizens owe everyone else a change of attitude and a change of heart. at the very least. and, more than that, we owe everyone our vigor. we owe a lifetime commitment to vigor of heart. 

࿐ೃ˙𖦹࿐ೃ˙𖦹
avèk tout kè m [with all my heart]
sienna

1. this is a poem from my narrative world, bon bon spirale. in the world of bon bon spirale, we are against the world government’s attempts to zombify lovingfeeling people!!

2. in the narrative world of bon bon spirale, romance is defined as:

romance is the natural law that beauty saves

romance resensitizes, resensualizes, and rehumanizes. romance, like magic like medicine, as magic as medicine, a healing salve, a kind of rest, a balancing reminder that earthly sorrows exist in as much abundance as earthly delights. romance reminds us that time offers us both sorrow and delight in abundance.

a romantic balances sorrow and delight. a romantic knows the vibratory and immediate effect their choices have on their environment. and in this knowing a romantic chooses to grow beauty.

3. “tasty buddhadharma!
after the bitter, the sweet.”

The Heart of the Pranja Paramita Sutra

4. language inspired by Alice Sparkly Kat’s zine on dragons in Chinese cosmology

5. a riff off of this tweet https://www.are.na/block/21265097

6. like candy…

7. wording inspired by so many teachers. the ones i can most clearly name are the Heart Sutra, Thich Nhat Hanh, and a recent essay by Ari Felix. the wisdom of humility/nonseparation is the origin point of this very newsletter!!

8. “I say this, although many, from Aristotle in Metaphysics to Hans Jonas in Phenomenon of Life, have said that sight is most noble. But sight is always directed at what is straight ahead And sight cannot turn a corner, at least without the aid of a mirror. On the other hand, sound comes to one, surrounds one for the time being with an acoustic space, full of timbre and nuances. It is more proximate and suggestive than sight. Sight is always the perception of the surface from a particular angle. But sound is that perception able to penetrate beneath the surface” from The Invention of Women by Oyeronke Oyewumi https://www.are.na/block/22336723

9. this references a wisdom my friend shared about the divinity of the small and the grand and the relationship between the two. think of the small as all you do to weave into the tapestry of time on a second-to-second basis, the daily devotion that makes life possible. think of the grand as the tapestry itself, the existential awe

kreyolizasyon

A post shared by @kreyolizasyon

10. https: //www.instagram.com/p/CyTUQZDrIvJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

11. Ready to Burst by Frankétienne, p 149-152

“...They built up their material riches, their art, their science, and their technology at the expense of four continents. And today they dare speak to us about their "civilization?! Can they already have forgotten that it would suffice to scratch ever so lightly at any stone of their buildings, any slab of their streets, any sheet of metal in their machines to uncover the blood of the oppressed? Citizens of the Third World, any time you pass through Europe or North America, when you visit the high places of so-called Western culture, speak loudly and march proudly, because you can feel right at home there where the strength of your muscles and the blood of your bodies have helped to make life blossom. Your blood converted in the mill of History into Shakespearean plays, Racinian tragedy, Haydn's symphonies, Rembrandt's paintings, and Puccini's operas; into romantic dramas, stone cathedrals, marble palaces, concrete and metal skyscrap-ers; into Hegelian dialectic, or Einstein's formulas, or launching pads. We must remind all those who have profited from our labor, those secular exploiters who disdain us today, that we have contributed to the progress and the beauty of their civilization, in the mines, on the plantations, in their factories, and often under the overseer's whip. Henceforth, we do not intend to be treated like poor relations and servants. We reject enslavement. And without denying what's ours, we proclaim our right to enjoy all of the West's most marvelous conquests and to savor the fruits that ripen on the manure of our sufferings.

With these words, a real electric current passed through the crowd and it reacted as a single being. On its feet, endlessly applauding the speaker, whose pathos-ridden voice became that of two-thirds of the planet.

... Oppressed people of this earth, we need only rely on ourselves. Not even the proletarians of the advanced nations. We blame them, too. In the division of riches between the predators and the prey, they too benefit from our exploitation. And they happily accept the crumbs from the bountiful table of their bosses. For a long time now, they've violated their own pledge, which today they consider like some youthful folly. We've adopted their rallying cry: Stand up, wretched of the earth! But we've remained alone on the pavement. They're no longer by our side. They haven't responded to our brotherly appeal. So where are the cohorts of workers from North America, from the great and sublime Europe? We publicly accuse them of being revolutionaries for nothing more than salaries and social services.

Their bellies full of waste, the workers in industrialized countries have become wise adults, drunk on their paid vacations, their leisure activities, their beer and their wine. With their insurance policies and social security, they can hold out for a few more centuries. There's no urgency for them anymore. That's why they're biding their time; they stay blind and deaf to our misery. They aren't threatened. If the body of the snake is on their turf, its voracious head, the devouring head, is definitely on ours, in the Third World. And we should burn down the granaries that feed both the bosses and the workers of the imperialist powers.

People of Latin America, Asia, Africa, of the Indian Ocean, the time has come to urge you to combine your efforts to slice off the tentacles that pitilessly suck you dry. The time has come to track the predators skillfully hiding behind the angelic masks of philanthropy. In this regard, it's urgent…”

12. "true socialism is an attitude of mind" https://www.are.na/block/17371751

13. see #10

14. from this post

15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_liberty%2C_or_give_me_death!

16. from this post