“For Black folks, it really don’t matter which white man is in that White House. What matters is you bein’ clear about your work and piece of business. Get your education, save some money, and stay true to what matters in life: Family, friendship, faith in something other than yourself.”

—William McCoy, Sr.

 

I recall my grandfather explaining his profound understanding of the world to me in this declaration (or attempting to!) when I was young, coming-of-age, and pissed off by Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s, followed by George H.W. Bush’s reign into the early 1990s. I didn’t fully appreciate Pop-Pop’s more contemplative wisdom until really grown, for its “everyday people” insight that conveyed how generations of our civil and social struggles in and with this country, “carry the seeds in our DNA.”[1] During this tumultuous period, while also grappling with my Queerness, I witnessed both administrations promote religious condemnation and unrestrained homophobia or “silence” in defense of heteronormativity, amid escalating AIDS deaths. Life was a lot. I was driven by real-time injustices in the world, perpetuated by governing regimes and their policies that sparked outrage and confusion. In turn, I expressed my agitation through Public Enemy’s empowering anthem, “Fight the powers that be!”

 

***

In my desire to find relief and grounding from the overtly “sharp divides” that currently whittle at our graciousness and public safety, I wanted first to examine this country’s anxious need for life as it always had been, falsely rooted in the other dreaded “N-word.” Navigating this country’s hunger for “normalcy” and, by extension, the “pursuit of happiness” and other artificial premises is—exhausting.

Time and history reveal how sanctioned disruptions, social agitations, and ceaseless fighting diminish our legislative power and, increasingly, our mental and emotional fitness. Patterns of systemic behavior, for example, are lodged in the post-COVID fixation with resuming irrational societal norms and have further distorted the nation’s turmoil, mirrored in the startling immoral/illegal ascendance of the 45th president. As an aspirational practice, we’ve pursued “happiness” only for its simplistic pleasures, self-indulgence, and lack of accountability—rather than its original vision of ideals related to “character improvement, self-mastery, flourishing, and growth.”[2] Yet this misunderstanding is unsurprising, considering the nation’s “founders” credited with the design of these virtues were themselves vainglorious models.

Now that persistent concerns about the 46th president’s cognitive health have been resolved with the Democratic party’s more viable Vice President, a woman of color and Black and South Asian lineage, ready to lead, aligned voters look forward to effectively ending the 45th’s return to power in the upcoming election. This is a moment of hope, when our determination for change is palpable, and our resilience longs for renewal.

Whatever the outcome, as the chaos and promise unfold, it’s crucial for everyone committed to civility to remain aware of the “understudies” waiting offstage. More skilled in deceitful storytelling than the 45th, his players are poised with scripts/schemes/agendas that will ruthlessly chip away at fairness and democratic process. Therefore, it remains essential to our fitness that we re/dress, call the f**k out! regulate, and disrupt the boundless sources of physical, verbal, and legislative violence stemming from corrupt political agendas in the U.S.

Justice necessitates that we see the supremacist Right’s machinations for what they are—recycled historical efforts to silence and repress healthy, wholistic ways of being in the world, along with the cooperative communities of folks that dwell in them.

 

I see, hear the outcries
Defensive finger-pointing
figurative and fomented shouts
cable news hollers and screams
collective violence
only to be reminded
all Black bodies are tethered
swinging like strange fruit
from the same desiccated trees.

My ruminations on possible “remedies” to the cyclical impact of rogue political players and the traumas they produce are inspired by a pivotal conversation with renowned cultural scholar Dr. Hortense Spillers, nearing the end of my graduate studies at NYU in 2003. My work, synthesized into a creative play script, blended historical research and testimonials, grappling with the intersections of 9/11 and the impact on survivor Marcy Borders. Renamed Dust Lady by the media, my research and eventual publication draw from the iconic photo of her body covered in white dust and soot after descending Tower 1. Sadly, Borders passed in 2015 from a cancer-related illness caused by the very toxic elements that define her legacy. Her struggles within the broader narratives of global warfare and violence, mental illness, and narcotics dependency, historically endured by Black female bodies in this country, were central to my creative and conceptual explorations.

From the end of the hall, I watched Dr. Spillers as she approached, surrounded by thirsty graduate students eager like me to have any of this extraordinary scholar’s “beautiful mind” particles drift in their direction. After introductions and a brief overview by my dear brilliant young friend, and former student of Dr. Spillers, Dr. Rosamond S. King, she asked me to restate the title, which I enthusiastically shared: “Staging Black Female Body in the Time of Terror,” (and retitled when published, Dust: Murmurs and a Play). She expressed her genuine interest in the topic and then spontaneously remarked, “Actually, we’re living in an ongoing time of terror, wouldn’t you say?”

Honestly, I had nothing to add to her rhetorical question. In that instant, she’d challenged me to re-assess my project through the “ongoing” nature of the political dynamics in constant play in this country instead of a singularly horrific event. Like my grandfather’s wisdom, Dr. Spillers’ perceptiveness loomed as an imprint, a reference point that helped prepare me for the COVID onslaught of human life and, unwittingly, the unkempt wilds of the American presidency, Gaza and Israel, Ukraine, and whatever unrest follows us into the future. Dr. Spillers’ framing becomes something more than an idea to appreciate; instead, it serves as a vital lens to inspect the congruity of that future, for Black folk’s bodies and souls specifically, and by extension, our collaborators across party affiliations, and racial identities who aspire to a “fit” society, rather than a “normal” one. The ongoing is a state of mind and temperament that we can adapt to and, over time, brings sustainable added value to the fight and renewed expectations.

As my grandfather so cannily discerned, policies and governance will fluctuate based on who lives in the White House, Senate, and Congress for those four to eight or twenty-five years. Understandably, this coming November and the November election following it and so forth leaves us anxious for a reassuring outcome or the repositioning of a leader that will cause the least harm.

It’s not that we will fight, shout, organize, and vote. We must. More, it’s about why and how we approach the fight and that we learn restorative skills to support our deep knowing in preparing for those “ongoing” battles. In deciding to fortify our renewal, our very existences in the spirit of joy, we simultaneously reclaim methods for liberation. These methods serve to manage/resist and eliminate the systems and people determined to break us and delude us when confronting inevitable setbacks and triumphs and triumphs and setbacks.

 

These times demand
chorale response
my thoughts
fall
bumble-fumble
staggering
pebbled
until reclaimed.

My Offering

My offering, then, is a “remedy,” as previously mentioned, or a recipe, that proposes alternative ingredients for guarding against scarcity mindsets and fear, focusing instead on enduring radical liberation and rejuvenation. To follow are ten reclamations that can be done individually but are strengthened through the collaborative effort of what Lama Rod Owens calls “spiritual warriors”[3] in workshops, classrooms, and community renewal gatherings.

These exercises were influenced by the 1960s Fluxus Movement, and revisioned to encourage interdisciplinary approaches to challenging and combating social norms and traumas for the world that we now inhabit. I first presented these organizing principles while on faculty at Goddard College (now closed), and they remain indelible to my pedagogy as an educator.

Originally called “Events” or “Happenings,” think of them as counteractive treatments for the weariness that we all experience, when sourced in capitalism, white supremacy, misogyny, as overworked and undervalued laborers, and while seeding forth a more highly intentioned, humane society. When we are exhausted, depressed, and agitated by complex social intersections, the future seems elusive and fearful. Let’s not be afraid. If the political Right employs antecedent tactics to their benefit, then justice movements should also access their ancestral tools while crafting new instruments and honing skills for modern application and “happiness” as intended. After all, Black folks are the originators of “abolitionist dreams”[4] for our ongoing emancipation, and those aligned with us, as the celebrated poet Audre Lorde eloquently reasoned, “were never meant to survive.”[5]

While on this journey to self-awareness, the idea is that participants learn that to value the plants, trees, and flora that grow on our sidewalks, backyards, or any place on this planet is to regard the human lives that flourish there as well. Let’s also remind ourselves that when our shapeshifting connects to Mother Earth, we say Yes! to our healing. Tricia Hersey’s call for “tapping into the power of rest and in our ability to be flexible and subversive”[6] sums up all that is compelling about these alternative responses. Only then can we move towards a future characterized by truth, equity, and heartened relief.

How It Works

First, you enact co-created/performed Events as provided, and next, discuss the intersections of the body, movement, discomfort, grief, anger, and sense of liberation that emerge along the emotional spectrum. Think of this organized sensory play as an open-source platform, which means you can add your own Events or adjust the offerings as needed.

Specifically, these exercises support:

(a) safe spaces in at-risk communities to nurture, feed and cherish, ritualize, heal, and restore the human spirit and the land.
(b) ecologically informed performing and healing arts and minds.
(c) homage to plant, water, and animal life, with a particular focus on homeopathic healing and flourishing.

Events + Guiding Principles

Events may be adjusted as needed. They should occur within the space used and approached as a “sacred” sanctuary.

  1. Participants are encouraged to engage with as many or as few Events as desired. However, Events #1-3 should be experienced sequentially.
  2. Thereafter, Events can be experienced either as sequenced or based on the participant’s liking. This may be helpful to larger groups where Event stations may become crowded.
  3. Participants are mindful and silent as they move between Events, and all electronic devices should be disengaged. Ambient music is optional.
  4. You are encouraged to keep written notes that may contribute to personal creative writings or document sensations and visions.
  5. It will be helpful to have (2-3) non-participating observers in place (depending on the group size) who help facilitate movement or questions that may arise within the space. They may also support any participants who experience emotional triggers.
  6. Also provided is a list of suggested supplies needed for the implementation of each Event.
  7. Resist. Renew. Rest. Have fun. Then do it all again!

The Events

EVENT 1
Share a Piece-of-Peace – (based on “Cut Piece” by Yoko Ono). A volunteer is seated in a meditative pose, either on the floor or in a chair. Comfort is the goal. This Event sets the tone for the start of activities and can be used to “open the house.”

  1. In her original performance, Yoko Ono invited participants to literally cut away pieces of clothing from her body while remaining still. For safety precautions, in this updated version, instead of cutting at the subject’s body, participants will safely affix pre-cut pieces of fabric/paper to the volunteer’s designated area.
  2. Imagine, then, cut objects or symbols that encourage peace, equity, self-empowerment, and ease, joy, love. In so doing, we also consider what is disturbed or enriched in these forms and our very humanity.
  3. What is triggered? Are actions toward peace a patchwork, a cover-up, a band-aid? What can be mended, minded, healed? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 2
Strange Fruit – ***Note*** This Event may cause unexpected emotional triggers. It also absorbs my own with the recent police murder of another Black woman, Sonya Massey, as painfully framed by author Cassandra Lane. You are strongly encouraged to invite volunteer counselors or others with therapeutic/somatic skills to be on-site to support participants if needed.

  1. Use yellow caution tape and outline the fallen body of a human, animal, or tree. Lie in the formation after shaping it. Be as immersive as you can. Visualize. Meditate. Consider the discord/disruption contributing to fallen life despite the species.
  2. Then return present. Observe yourself.
  3. Discard the caution tape or engage with it if that’s your inclination. How are you feeling? In what ways did the experience surprise, energize, sadden, anger, and ground?
  4. How does centering your body within another living subject’s embodiment shift, deepen, and alter your understanding of their struggle for survival or demise?
  5. Sit quietly with the sensations of this Event and observe yourself. Take your time. Note your sensations and visions. Speak with a support person if needed.

EVENT 3
Just Dirt – Following Events #1-2, this exercise allows us to find justice in the dirt by returning the toxins to Mother Earth.

  1. Grab a pot, soil, and seeds from the pre-set containers from a designated area. Offer an affirmation, wish or prayer for cleansing, wellness, and releasing what is no longer useful to our healthy thriving, before you “seed forward” new ways of being in the world.
  2. Sprinkle a handful of seeds into the soil and gently press. Sprinkle a bit of water.
  3. Sit quietly for a moment. How does this process leave you feeling about the physiological and scientific structures that contribute to growing a healthy life, regardless of the species?
  4. How does it renew or cause discomfort? Why? What conversations are required of you and others for sustained conservation of the plant life that support us? How can we improve our ability to listen to, communicate with, and honor trees? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 4
Food/Fresh Air Justice – These teachings borrow from the global spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindful eating guide that reconnects us with our values and gratitude through food.

  1. Select a piece of fruit or vegetable from a set-up. Peeling an orange, apple, banana, or carrot is perfect for this Event.
  2. Take small, deliberate bites. Listen for the sounds of chewing, swallowing, inhaling/exhaling, and burping.
  3. When finished, walk or sit breathing deeply. Consider consumption, footprint, and damage. Consider digestion, nutrition, and distribution of food; of who has access to fresh, whole-healthy foods vs. processed foods.
  4. How does food inspire focused, intentional nurturing, and breathing? How does it feel when we eat food with our attention, without electronic devices? How does food generate gratitude and greed? When does it “serve” us as an energetic practice rather than a hasty necessity or a source of overindulgence or waste? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 5
The Midway Progression Point – Take stock of your actions and responses so far. What needs more accountability, discipline, grace in your life? Write an agreement with yourself to commit to an action that brings you joy and can be repeated weekly. Do this for your self-renewal. If you typically care for others (and we all do in turns), shift the focus. Examples include preparing a luxurious bath or a favorite meal, taking a hearty walk when you complete an essential task, binge-watch a favorite show, or buy a treat you can afford. Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 6
Tree Stand Yogi – Position yourself in the yoga Tree Stand. Grow your branches, then your roots. The other option is to stand in the company of real trees. Yum!

  1. What kind of tree are you? Are you mirroring with a real tree or imagining yourself in a pose? How are you rooted? Do you nurture wildlife, nuts? What is your “Hidden life as a tree?”
  2. How can you, as a custodian and partner of the planet, support the quality of your tree’s life, health, and behaviors?
  3. Say an affirmation for healing the earth and all living species. Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 7
Hug a Wave or Water Reflection – Visit a beach, lake/river setting or visually project a natural scene. Or watch/listen to a video image or audio recording if you’re not near an actual body of water.

  1. What does your encounter with water sound and feel like? What do you observe in this moment with nature and the mythological water spirits, Yemaya, Oshun, Neptune, Mermaids, and other sentient creatures that inhabit the ocean? How will you honor their legacies?
  2. What lessons and skills can we borrow from the water and its living urchins that serve to protect and replenish us? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 8
Howl for Joy – In many Native American tribal myths, wolves are considered courageous, strong, and sacred. “To many, God roamed the earth as wolves.”[7] Imagine yourself a wolf who howls for joy to strengthen the lungs and exercise voice. Then let it rip!

  1. This exercise can get loud! Identify a designated room (or step outdoors if possible) to avoid disturbing others engaged with quieter, reflective exercises.
  2. How does the howl feel when released from your body?
  3. Consider how voice and words are used in our daily encounters, often aggressively and defensively. Can a tender voice still be a source of strength? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 9
Self-Study – I first presented this Event to students during a Goddard College Commencement Address, which was life-changing. I wrote, “Take the time to browse or read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. (No, really, I mean it!) Pay special attention to the 2nd, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments. Study them to discern how our prankster/gangster politicians use entrenched laws as mechanisms that split, cause rifts, conquer, divide, and disenfranchise with ease.”

  1. Given this country’s political climate, in what ways do these “founding” documents continue to serve and fail us as a modern society? What would you add? Amend? Cut?
  2. What other inspiring documents or resources should you reacquaint yourself with when considering the “state of the nation?”
  3. What are you reading, writing or devising as a collaborator or “spirit warrior” that offers new thinking and can be pragmatic and divine? Note your sensations and visions.

EVENT 10
Make America Act Like It Has Some Sense Again – Devise your own Event or happening.

Suggested Event Materials

EVENT 1: Share a-Piece-of-Peace

  • Comfortable chair or cushion for meditation
  • Loose, removable clothing for the volunteer
  • Scissors, paper, cloths, pins, tape, band-aids for affixing to the volunteer

EVENT 2: Strange Fruit

  • Yellow caution tape
  • Packets of seeds
  • Blankets/yoga mats for floor
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 3: Just Dirt

  • Small plant containers
  • Soil and scoopers
  • Seeds
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 4: Food/Fresh Air Justice

  • Variety of fruits/veggies (e.g., bananas, oranges, apples, cucumber/carrot slices)
  • Water and containers (tea can also be a substitute for water)
  • Cups
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 5: The Midway Progression Point

  • Quiet surrounding
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 6: Tree Stand Yogi

  • Colorful cloths for wrapping trees
  • Space with access to trees (forest, park, backyard)
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 7: Hug a Wave or Water Reflection

  • Access to body of water if near or visual projection
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

EVENT 8: Howl for Joy

  • Open space for participants to howl (indoors or outdoors)
  • Notepads and pens for participants to note their reactions

 

[1] Owens, Roderick Lama. The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors, 2023.

[2] Rosen, Jeffrey.  The Pursuit of Happiness, 2024.

[3] Owens. Ibid.

[4] Owens. Ibid.

[5] Lorde, Audre. A Litany for Survival, 1978.

[6] Hersey, Tricia. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, 2022.

[7] https://missionwolf.org