dear readers,
by the time i had gotten up and showered, it was time for me to log onto a webinar i had registered for the week before called “afrofuturism in birds”. the first half of the webinar was four project presentations from the afrofuturism in birds fellowship. the featured projects included a kids book about noticing birds, an essay on community involvement in ecology, an art exhibit in homage to George Washington Carver, and a collection of stories from Black elders in the bayous of Alabama.
i wasn’t sure what to expect from the webinar going in, but i cannot emphasize the wisdom i feel i’ve gained within the hour. i’ll share a few things that stood out to me. one of the presenters, Dr. Mel, talked about her book Biomythology Bayou, and how birds are ancestral technologies and connectors. they gave the example of the laughing gull, who always seems to know something we don’t, or the brown pelican that can inspire us with it's salt-water desalinization glands. my favorite was the blue heron, who’s telescopic eyes watch over us- watching how we move, seeing all of what we did last night, projecting our actions through to the ancestors. hear Dr. Mel read her brief piece about the heron here (33:19).
what stood out to me most was one of the last questions the moderator asked the panelists. at this point i had caught a bus downtown and was walking to a cafe to get some work done and write (per the advise of a grad-student coworker, i’ve been trying to write without judgement for a few hours per day). the moderator asked: “what is your biggest dream for the future of black people and afrofuturism in conservation?” in response, panelist Binta said “i haven’t dreamed my biggest dream yet”. i began thinking of all of my dreams, and was filled with a rush of excitement for the dreams i have yet to realize. i hope i have a long life filled with beauty, love, humility, and ever evolving dreams.
i have been giving a lot of thought to my dreams recently, a practice that has been a great source of joy, grounding, and serenity for me. as a child, i would spend hours in my room watching nature documentaries, making art and decorating my space, and dreaming in my head. although i wish i had written more of my dreams down for posterity, i remember a few. i wanted to be a marine biologist, i wanted to live in california, i wanted dyed hair and cool style, and i wanted boobs. the last one always makes me laugh a little, but 3/4 dreams come true is pretty good.
it sounds very intense (and possibly a little self-absorbed) to admit, but i think i have always been a visionary. i loved making physical collages of my dreams and desired futures, i loved worshipping people i felt i could learn from, i loved practicing new things and imagining vivid scenarios of the future every night before bed. i have always found solace in my own imagination, and my own dreams of the future. i was a genuine hoarder, an obsessive list-maker and budding archivist. i think that from a young age i understood the ephemerality of life, the fleetingness of memory and emotion, and the importance of posterity. i hated deleting old playlists or pinterest boards, throwing out receipts or ticket stubs that reminded me of a special memory, or forgetting. a lot of my obsessions focused on forgetting, something that would throw me into an impenetrable state of anxiety or full-blown emotional meltdown. i think hoarding and documentation was the compulsion that eased this fear.
since then, i have obviously been heavily therapized and medicated, and the obsession has shifted from a world-ending paranoia to a mild discomfort. i still make lists, scrapbook, and collect, but it’s out of love and devotion more than a feeling of scarcity. i like to think that my childhood prepared me to be a lifelong archivist (one of my ongoing dreams). i archive for my job, i archive my relationships and my time in california. i am currently archiving lesser-known boston history, lesbianism, and religion. my blogging is part of my archive. part of the mark i’m making on the world, the space i’m carving out within the infinity of the internet.
as i continued listening to the webinar, i was walking down one of the most beautiful streets in santa cruz, a street my dear friend rafa used to live on. the sidewalk was lined on both sides with montbretia flowers, sundappled and the air warm. it was at this moment that i saw a monarch butterfly flitting around in the street, weaving throughout the low hanging branches or arbors in front of affluent mid-century homes. i was reminded of something Evelyn- my childhood caretaker/art teacher/chosen grandmother had told me last summer. she lost her brother at a young age, and had processed it through art. she had told me that butterflies are often seen as ancestors visiting, and that every time she sees a butterfly she is reminded of her brother. i have been so privileged in my life as to not have lost anyone close to me, so i don’t necessarily view this butterfly as a visit from a specific ancestor, but perhaps many of my distant ancestors. there had been a lot of mention of ancestors in the webinar, mostly in regards to black and indigenous ancestral knowledge, generational connection to land, and the connection black people have to birds in their resemblance of flight and freedom.
i was reminded of Abigail and Dennie, former bosses and mentors, calling people ancestors in training. i feel the need to devote myself more to my dreams, more to my community and loved ones, and more to spirituality in order to become the best ancestor in training i can be. on my walk, i pass a magnolia tree in full bloom, its smell filling the air around me. i pick up a pristine petal, feeling its softness and admiring it’s beautiful magenta coloration. i’m reminded of the magnolia in the front yard of my childhood home. the magnolia, to me, is an ancestor and guiding spirit. i know how to cook it’s blossoms, how delicate the petals are, and when it blooms (at least in an east coast climate).
i spend a lot of time thinking about connection to land, belonging, and spirituality in terms of whiteness, indigeneity, and settler identity. i have a lot of complicated thoughts that might be best for a future blog post aided by supplemental research, but i’ll give you the elevator pitch. for my whole life, despite my love for and connection to my childhood home and lands in massachusetts, there’s been an underlying sense of dissonance. undoubtedly, this is a symptom of the settler identity. a lack of connection to any “native” land- not in the “united states”, surely not anywhere in europe where my ancestors are from. there’s a reckoning that is ongoing, a feeling of grief over the loss that whiteness and colonialism have inflicted on white people. this is obviously not to discredit the impacts of colonialism on people of color, specifically indigenous people in this case. however, i take it as a fundamental principle of my work as a white person committed to liberation and ancestral work to grapple with this truth.
from a human level, i do resonate with the idea of land and animals as ancestors. but simultaneously within that connection, there is an acknowledgement of the hollowness that whiteness has created within myself, and evidently, many other white people. one way i hope to reconcile with this hollowness is to dive into devotion, spirituality, and the creation of new belonging. not through appropriation (the method many white people take in the effort to belong), but through hard work, creation, and honesty. i want to create a space between the lack of belonging to turtle island lands and to european lands. i want to reconnect with my blood ancestors and metabolize the legacies that proceed me (good and bad). i want to create new spaces of wholeness for myself and other white loved ones, and in the process connect deeper to the people of color i hold close.
a dream that has been emerging recently has been the work of a death doula, in addition to the dream of being a birth doula or midwife. in the webinar, one of the panelists named Mykah had mentioned how her mom always knows when something has died because she notices the turkey vultures in the sky. this anecdote, along with the talk of ancestors (in training), reminds me of the beautiful sanctity of death. it reminds me of the many problems with the death practices in our western society, particularly among white people (and most especially; non-religious, long term “american” white people). i deeply admire the work of Äni, a community member who runs Ancestors Embrace death doula services. although we have only met once a year ago, i look up to Äni with such reverence and devotion. i dream of being a healer who is honored and trusted enough to bring life into this world, as well as helping ancestors pass with peace, dignity, and culturally relevant healing practices. i look to my ancestors in training, Äni, Dennie, Evelyn, Abigail, the panelists from today’s webinar, the birds.
i am throwing this post into the void as an oath to my childhood self and my ancestors. it is a reaffirmation of my seriousness about this work. it is a promise to commit deeper to decolonizing my mindset and my communities, to build new connections through friendships and loving mutual aid, to regain my spirituality. it is a betrayal of the assimilation i used to strive for- into empire, capital, and whiteness. i began this post by talking about my literal dreams, of marriage and life in the city, and i end it by illustrating my goals and visions for the future. i am taking after the vultures, the magnolia tree, and throwing my heart into the good, messy, hard, and beautiful work that awaits me. i am frequently reminded of a poem by w.b. yeats, called Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, that i’ll leave you with:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
in love and cosmic reverence,
- ek
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