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a tender day

On Being    Krista Tippett interviews Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult.   Please go listen.

 

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the Other Sides of things

 

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this is First Iris     a Cloth that Patricia Spangler made that i bought from her.  It's ordinarily on the wall,  just to my right as i sit at this screen.  I look at it every day.  It is maybe the most extraordinary cloth i know.

 

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i took it down today and ran my finger over it,  feeling how it knows Things.  How it knows what it is to Rise from a tuber that might sit dormant for so so so long.  So so so long and yet Rise.

"The great human rights activist and Irish  nationalist Roger Casement investigated horrific torture and genocide in South Africa's Putamayo rainforest  a century ago and campaigned to end it.  While on this somber task,  his journal reveals, he found time to admire handsome local men and to chase brilliantly colored local butterflies.  Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism.  And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful,  alienated,  and isolated,  joy is a fine initial act of insurrection."

Rebecca Solnit

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13 responses to “a tender day”

  1. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    “…joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.” Yes and so is determination and the quiet joy that comes from rising up, continuing as all those in New Orleans did after Katrina…these are more than acts of insurrection, they are reclaiming life and spirit.
    I too am reading Rebecca Solnit, her latest book, written in 2014 titled, The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness. The book consists of many essays written over a span of years, covering many diverse political, social, and economic issues.
    Solnit states that “disasters took her all over the world and what she found was that her definition o disaster became broader and broader.” She goes on to say, “I now see much of our everyday life for its alienation and its destruction of souls and memory as well as natural and social places as a kind of disaster we escape temporarily in those golden moments of uprisings and carnivals. On reclaiming the story, I see disaster everywhere,…I also see generosity and resistance everywhere.”
    Normally when I read a book of essays, I start at the first chapter but I needed to skip and read the chapters on New Orleans first because New Orleans is a city that pulses within me. I was there in 2007 as was Solnit. I bore silent witness to the aftermath of Katrina. She was not silent, investigated and wrote of the devastation. disengagement and destruction by those in power. I don’t want to dwell on the corruption of those in charge but rather on the power of the people to rise. Her essay, “We Won’t Bow Down, speaks of how they rose in 2006 and 2007 and held to their ritual of Mardi Gras, as Solnit says, “proof to the city that it had survived Katrina, that it had not died.” Solnit refers to Mardi Gras as Carnival and there is a rich history of how carnival is used for subversive agendas, how historically a lot of peasant uprisings occurred during festivals as well as the honoring through the years of old traditions.
    Solnit ends this essay, written in 2009,by saying, “More than ever we need Carnival at is most subservient to survive and to make resistance a pleasure and an adventure rather than only struggle and grim duty. This is the realization that Emma Goldman wanted to dance to, the one that draws people in. Don’t bow down. To Capital. Or to cliche or oversimplification or defeatism. Try rising up instead.It’s more interesting.”

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  2. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Correction: the word realization is wrong, the sentence should read, “This is the revolution that Emma Goldman wanted to dance to, the one that draws people in…

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  3. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    I am so sorry about my mess ups here and I apologize grace and all who come here because I was very emotional when I was typing Solnit’s words and I need to make another correction. the word subservient is totally incorrect. the sentence should read, “More than ever we need Carnival at its most SUBVERSIVE to survive and to make resistance a pleasure and an adventure rather than only struggle and grim duty.”

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  4. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    A thousand corrections only serve to intensify the text. The words you wrote and the words you chose to quote are so very very true and necessary. Thank you.

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  5. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Ah Grace…your astounding irises, and that astounding cloth from Patricia Spangler just illuminated my screen and my heart. So too Marti’s words. Thank YOU.

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  6. yvette Avatar
    yvette

    what a beauty the cloth from Patricia.
    i don’t know what tube is
    and as for answers for devistation , as i understand , the answer in Europe against terrorisme is to don’t be
    afraid
    not for myself, when your time is coming you go
    but the fear is the innocent
    the brainwashing
    little children who cheer when an act of terrorism has taken place
    where has
    love and respect gone?

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  7. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    this has been a week of deeply confronting the sadness of so many people seeking refuge in our beautiful but broken world via the power of the pen
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/05/great-syrian-refugee-crisis-exodus-epic-inconceivable-witness-lebos-islamic-state?CMP=share_btn_fb

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  8. judy martin Avatar
    judy martin

    Just saying hi. I had a visit through most of your recent posts, and was very nourished by them.
    I love all sides of cloth. x

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  9. grace Avatar
    grace

    T H A N K Y O U for all this….Thank You….
    Carnival, Festival, it too is IN us and remains no matter
    what
    THANK YOU, marti for putting this here

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  10. grace Avatar
    grace

    it seems like it’s coming, flowing like a river, all
    the Need to hope as resistence

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  11. grace Avatar
    grace

    tuber…tubers are like bulbs, iris tubers look like
    potatoes in a way, can lie dormant years then send up
    those incredible blades of leaf with water
    i think there is no way around fear, but to accept that
    and not let the GOODNESS die from it…to continue with
    the Goodness in the face of it all
    iwonder….love, respect, there is a very dark desperation

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  12. grace Avatar
    grace

    how words bring things so close in…how words
    can make us feel it as if it is our own
    which it is, really, our own
    THANK YOU for this so much

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  13. grace Avatar
    grace

    thank You, judy…it’s good that you came on this day

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