bearing grief is an act of art.

waking up in the new dark ages

The Body Politic

All parts of me
The body politic
We wage war
We make love from that soil

The body politic
Fires shots then peels out, flag waving
We make love from that soil
Where we plant our bones

Where we fire shots then peel out, flag waving
Spitting
Where we plant our bones
Then help one another off the pavement.

Spitting
We wage war
Then help one another off the pavement.
All parts of me.

[November 8th, 2022] 

On election night we self-soothe, avoid the news, light lucky candles, sit close & share greasy chicken from a bucket, stacking bones between us. Then I stand to wash my hands and my left knee suddenly, painfully gives out underneath me.

I think, “This isn’t a good sign…”

The term soothsaying came about sometime in the 15th century.

This morning my husband texts to recommend a playlist of Renaissance music saying— “Listening to this beautiful music and trying to imagine the dark world that gave rise to it is somehow hopeful.”

I play it and am particularly drawn to the sorrowful vocalizations in an arrangement of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. I look up the biblical origins:

Some motifs of a traditional Mesopotamian "city lament" are evident in the book, such as mourning the desertion of the city by God, its destruction…others "parallel the funeral dirge in which the bereaved bewails... and... addresses the [dead]".^[2] The tone is bleak: God does not speak, the degree of suffering is presented as overwhelming, and expectations of future redemption are minimal.¹

Yes, I think, these mournful minor chords are sooth-singing.

In dark times we look for signs.

In dark times, we seek soothing.

The morning after the election—looking for the news I already knew and didn’t want to know—my brand new phone suddenly shuts off and won’t restart. I stare at the dead brick in my hand for a minute and think, “…got it… I don’t need to take more in. I need to let more out.”

I open my notebook and grieve on the page:

WE ARE ALL IN PALLIATIVE CARE.

I write this extra big and it echoes around in my brain like music. We are all in palliative care. We are all in palliative care.

I keep myself writing, moving energy through the pen— I’m so scared. I’m so scared. How could you? How could they? How could we? (The list becomes a terrified tantrum, it goes on and on.)

I’m so scared. We are all in palliative care.

When grief outgrows the page and words stop working, I get up and move to the piano.

Music comes through like it always has for me— throbbing in a minor key. I don’t need the music to go anywhere or do anything, I just need it to move through me. To let pure notes hold what’s too heavy for my body to carry.

I let all this be an act of emptying. I don’t want this fear and anger and sadness to live inside me.

On election day I sketch & write in my notebook: ART IS AN ACT OF BEARING WITNESS.

This morning on the page: GRIEF IS AN ACT OF BEARING WITNESS.

The part of me that’s soothed by just playing with words has been pulling and weaving these thoughts around one another all day….

Witness this. Art is an act. Grief is a witness. Bearing witness is the art of grief. Bearing grief is an act of art.

I am here with all of you, my fellow limbs and lymph of the body politic— feeling, witnessing and grieving.

Let it flow, friends:

1. Write your own terrified tantrum. I started with a few leading phrases and kept filling in the blanks ‘til I ran them dry. I’m so scared___. How could___? I don’t want___. I want___. Why___? How___?

2. Share with us— How else are you moving energy? (I’ve also been: texting my people to tell them how much I love them, taking baths so long they run cold twice and cooking— because chopping celery is brilliantly neutral and we all need time to just turn the fuck off):

Next week I’ll be sharing a special creative meditation with paid members— let’s move some more energy together.

xoxo,

Good medicine from a few fellow creative women:

Thank you

Neko Case

for sharing this beautiful piece by

Becca Lee

- it brought the tears that needed to flow:

On Waking up Today

Thank you

Ellie Robins

for writing this brilliant piece on grief, women and the origins of democracy:

Democracy was founded on the legal suppression of grief, and why politics without art is death

Thank you

Sal Randolph

for this soothing spell:

This is a Spell for the Nation

Thank you

Courtney Maum

for sharing this from wagingnonviolence.org- it brought me back to my training in radical acts of creative resistance and community care:

📌 "10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won”

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Lamentations