Wynter Hymn
It is important to remember
I’m human.
I remind myself
each morning.
I am human &
alive. Now what?
The day is a savanna
Endless &
an occasion for frolicking.
But I am 33 &
my knees have been putting in work
to carry this heavy
life with no shortage
of smite. Passion is
suffering. To be in love is
to be divinely punished.
& here I am
smitten with you,
smited by compassion
for the collective.
Rumors of war ring
in my ears to block the truth
of genocide. Fire &
Frost plague the lands.
I tell you I am now obsessed
with death. You say
Welcome.
✱
There is something I want to say and I’m fixing my mouth for a shape to say it in. This morning I sent a text to a beloved friend letting him know that I was thinking about him. He is the one who activated my heart to reinitiate its process of worry. And because of him I’ve been thinking about everyone I know who lives in California, LA or not.
I’ve been oscillating between my honest desire for this world to burn and a new found worry for my loved ones. I have not been the compassionate human most people think I am. I have not felt pain in the ways people expect me to. Because of my life’s experiences, I have almost always known that death is not far from any of us. And I know there are things worse than death. And they all suck and turn the lives we think are so important into grains of sand in our own hands.
Because of this, when someone loses everything they own— I know they will be fine. Because I was. When someone I love loses a loved one, I know it will be challenging, hard, and dark, but they’ll make it to the other side. Because I did. If death visits someone’s psyche and they are thinking those thoughts, I don’t panic, because I know those thoughts intimately and live with them like a lover. And I am more than okay and alive.
For those of us who are doing whatever we can to restore our collective humanity, if we are honest with ourselves and aware of the process of healing, we know it comes at a cost. When everything you are born into has relied on the suffering of others to exist, healing and restoration can not come without the leveling. The sacrifice that we are called to, then, is to relinquish the habituated patterns of relying on systems and objects that coat our hands in the blood of our kin.
I think, perhaps, most often when we dream of end, we do not consider how the end will arrive upon our doorstep. We ask ourselves– have we not sacrificed enough? Have we not spent our time, our labor, our energy, our resources to do good? Why are we being visited by this judgement, this executioner? And the hard truth is that most of us have gone where we were permitted to go. We have followed the accepted ways provided by the inhumane institutions in order to satisfy our need to be helpful, useful, and loving. Because of this, we have bolstered these institutions with our good will as they continue to wreak havoc upon our kin near and far.
Hope is not lost, though. The conditions of our current existence have us perceiving possibility from a narrow and fractured perspective. Our imagination and understanding of life itself has been under siege since our youth. This is good news. All that we know is not all there is. All that we think is not all that is possible. Truth is, the truth can be found at the place of the wound. From the mouths of those who have been wounded and forced to kneel in order to hoist this imperialist, supremacist, colonizing, patriarchal death machine into prominence. Prominence, not Provenance.
In order to exist, our nation effectively silenced, slaughtered, and enslaved millions of people who had an intimate relationship with all of creation, including themselves. People who understood the land and its many facets for maintaining and sustaining its life and the life of its inhabitants. People who knew how to provide and from whence their provisions come. Through sword and gun, chains and cages, words and reasoning, entire cultures’ sustainable way of life were delegitimized and demonized into submission. Submission, not extinction.
In the organizing world we say: “The people closest to the problems are closest to the solutions.” In the world of Christianity that transcends dogma and White supremacy we know that “The stones that builder rejected shall become the head cornerstones.” These sentiments are both unique and related. Those of us who have been disillusioned from a society so obviously not built for us and our humanity have had holes dug into us that have the opportunity to become wellsprings of life for generations to come. For some of us, through force and suffering, have arrived at the truths that our ancestors embodied generations ago.
We know that death is a servant to life, the shores upon which the seas of life crash and return unto itself. And thus, we have nothing to fear. We know that what is material is temporary and what lasts are the relationships, love, community, lessons and blessings that we cultivate and unearth while we are alive. We know these things span across time and space and in some mysterious way from our ancestors to us to our descendants. Beyond what is written. And most importantly, we know that in times of crisis (be it fire, flood, or genocide) or in times of peace our relation is refuge. How love guides and moves us to act is our salvation.
The way that love has wounded me into worry for my beloveds has revealed the wisdom of connection and what exists beyond the control of oppressive institutions. It has emboldened me to speak, to act, to organize and make things right. Not by appealing to the abandoned humanity of our oppressors, but by reconstructing and tending to the bonds of relation amongst my neighbors, community members, and loved ones. Along this journey much is left behind but even more is gained. No life is insignificant and profit margins, material possessions, and status pale in comparison to the bounty found in the midst of healing, relation, and creation.
I know that I am in this reckoning for the long haul. I know it’s my friends and beloveds who keep me here. I know that amongst us all there are skills and knowledge and wisdoms that we possess that when brought together has what it takes to build a better tomorrow for us all. That is what gives me faith that in the midst of the rubble there is a promise for something better than we have ever had before. And that’s what I’m after.
Resources for the LA Wildfires:
