On embodiment as creative grist

and the flow, rhythm, and tone of the Wholly Earth newsletter.

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment. —Maxine Hong Kingston

There is a moment in the book Beloved, by Toni Morrison, that I often think about when I am feeling lost, or alone. The passage describes the Clearing, “a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of the path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place.” As the scene unfolds Baby Suggs, holy, invites her community to remember with her, and with each other. First calling on the children to laugh. Then the men dance. The women cry not long after, and with each action, a threshold appears. The ringing trees seem to generate the shuddering ground, while the wind holds the wailing. Like the clearing herself, the space they create is also a portal.

They carry on encircling each other for some time, re-weaving ancestral connections to all of the elements: earth, air, and ether, fire, water, even wood. In this way, Morrison gives the gift of world-building to black people, and by extension, I think all people of color can relate to this emergence. She asks us to imagine, and use the body as a vessel, and reclaim a collective creative cosmology. It is from the clearing, from the threshold, in reciprocity with life upon and within the ground, that I offer this creative space. In reverence for the living, breathing earth.

Through this endeavor, I have the privilege of joining the lexicon of BIPOC voices rising from the ground, roots holding steady through a matrix of soil and stars. These voices include the living and the dead. The breaths of all of our relations. I seek to do this work through community, always. To interlock with others who believe that creativity is a practice of embodied relationship with the wholly earth.

This newsletter is a constellation of observations, questions, and practices dedicated to intersectionality and interdependence. Making art has always been a helpful way for me to remember and integrate information. The act of keeping a record through artistic expression is praxis—embodiment as creative grist, or a way to leave evidence. You can expect creative essays, along with notes on what I’m reading, listening to, or creating. Once a month, if you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll get something extra from me.

Thank you for being here, relatives.

We must leave evidence. Evidence that we were here, that we existed, that we survived and loved and ached. Evidence of the wholeness we never felt and the immense sense of fullness we gave to each other. Evidence of who we were, who we thought we were, who we never should have been. Evidence for each other that there are other ways to live--past survival; past isolation. —Mia Mingus