SIMILAR AND ALSO DIFFERENT: Revisiting Fibonacci

this is a massive re-write of an essay that I first attempted about 2 years ago. enjoy. LEE

SIMILAR AND ALSO DIFFERENT: Revisiting Fibonacci

1. THE IRRATIONAL MATHEMATICAL CONSTANT

I have been thinking about Leonardo Fibonacci for over ten years now.

I have studied Fine Arts and Education, English Literature, Psychology and Biology, but I have stayed as far away from Math as possible. All those little numbers lined up in rows freak me out and, to whoever it was that told me in Grade 12, “Finite is an easier course to pass than Calculus”… I continue to harbor less than charitable feelings towards you.

With Fibonacci however, there is a visual, spiritual landscape to the technically math-like experience that I can walk my poet’s brain through. I remain skeptical of his politics and at the same time, I can appreciate his range of vision. All of the work which immortalized him as the greatest western mathematician of the Middle Ages is based on and yet rarely credited to the ancient Hindo-Arabic numeral system. Of his own accord, he saw how math was connected to nature was connected to art was connected to the human physiological response to “beauty” and it is this synthesis of equal parts logic and creativity that has me consistently smitten.

His theory of the Golden Mean – a mathematical equation that determines the point on a rectangular canvas to which the human eye naturally focuses - is the one thing that remains from that from all that I temporarily memorized but didn’t really ‘get’ about Renaissance art history. There is nothing about the Golden Mean that I aspire to personally or artistically, but some sources refer to it as “The Irrational Mathematical Constant” and the beauty-full, rhythmic opposition of those words alone has been enough to claim my allegiance.

Every time that I find myself returning to Fibonnaci, I know that there is also something different and deeper that I am needing to understand about sustainability… About how every thing and being and experience is connected across a space and depth significant enough that it will always be ‘there’ and yet at the same time really only exist in the moment of perception…

About how no-thing is sustainable without the freedom to change and learn and grow… 

About love.

In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1. Thus, the sequence begins 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610 etc. The growth that continues is exponential, infinite and sustainable because of and despite its inherent irrationality.

I am addicted to the poetry of that truth.

I need also to believe in all of the abstract spaces between the facts because that is where my faith in the potential of people to remember that “truth” is never a simple or singular thing feels most safe.

2. A FOUR PART THEORY OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

a) BIOLOGICAL THEORY:

Any organism’s primary evolutionary goal is to survive… and then grow… and then thrive.

b) MATHEMATICAL THEORY:

According to the Fibonacci Sequence and the mathematics of exponential growth; Similarities in the formative structure of many seemingly diverse patterns in nature can be represented by a stable mathematical equation, where each successive number is the product of the two preceding, and is representative of the growth of each consecutive stage or layer:  

c) COMPOSITIONAL THEORY:

In relation to compositional theory within the western art canon, Fibonacci’s equations translate into the Golden Mean; a process for the conceptual division of a canvas prior to composing a picture in order to better determine the “natural” focal point of the eye. The belief behind this is that when this principle is applied to the composition of a 2D image, key aspects of the subject matter will be positioned in a way that looks ‘right’ to the human subconscious. 

d) SUSTAINABILITY THEORY:

Regarding the sustainability of the human spirit, in order to achieve survival and growth AND to thrive as biological organisms in the modern context of technology and the global village, we both desire and require the opportunity for exposure to new ideas and experiences. What looks “right” to us now at this point in human history is actually more of what feels right. This right-ness is perhaps better represented by an art of experience than it is by an object of composition. This being said,

The basic principles of biological and mathematical theory can and must still stand when it comes to considering the potential of experiential, community-based art practices. The basic medium for this art form then becomes dialogue, in all its numerous forms including but not limited to; writing, drawing, other forms of visual creation, verbal conversation, body language, movement and dance, exchange of personal energies, and any combinations there of.

“No raindrop falls in the storms of autumn that ever fell before, and the rain has fallen, and falls, and will fall throughout all the autumns of the years.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

3. THE SPACES BETWEEN US

Just as I cannot subscribe to any belief in which “identity” is considered finite – is either ‘this’ or ‘that’ – I do not believe that there are only four ways to engage in an infinite mathematical pattern. If the mathematical component of Fibonacci theory is based on a continuous, exponential growth; why not also the potential application of all thoughts and ideas that come of it? 

Of the spaces between these quadrants?

Of the also-infinite number of possibilities that result from equations involving   

  

   unique processing patterns

+ individual experiences

+ a numerical metaphor for growth?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(0+1)

we are each made of stardust,

the collective memory of the cosmos.

(0+1+1)

singular entities,

independent and drifting

come to occupy the same speck of universe and,

(0+1+1+2)

dialogue initiates through contact;

an inevitable exchange of energies

and 2 independent experiences will conspire,

co-creating

a third.

(0+1+1+2+3)

interaction persists

and persistence becomes the potential;

(0+1+1+2+3+5)

the collective,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8)

the creative,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13)

exploration.

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21)

it is compassionate

reflective process

becoming.

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34)

it is authentic,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34+55)

sustainable,

(0+1+1+2+3+5+8+13+21+34+55+89)

  change.

This is a cumulative process that is only continuing;

the concepts of “forwards” or “backwards” are irrelevant to the actual process.

Individuals have an inherent capacity to contribute to an exponentially increasing quotient
of LOVE, kindness and understanding in the world, and this is the nature of our birthright.

Simultaneously, this is the nature of our responsibility… 

it is both/and.

  “A flower is made up entirely of non-flower parts.”

   - Thich Nhat Han

A LANGUAGE IS LANDSCAPE: PART 4. WHY I WRITE POETRY

There are words that I have been carrying around close to my heart in an attempt to keep them safe, but I am becoming aware of the arrogance of that false sense of stasis. It is only for me, and it is at very best temporary.  These are words like sustainable, like community and like ally. I have often allowed my willingness to write, speak, or even think very deeply about any of these concepts to be driven by a fear of how terribly wrong things can go when the energy in spaces existing between intention, action and result are fragmented and unclear. I have been remembering what it feels like to be left alone in the body memories and felt experiences that lurk just below the surface of professionalism when it comes time to challenge the ways that we as human beings continue to hurt one another with subtleties.

I remember and so I carry the words of my own story just as close.

Sometimes too close, and sometimes just close enough, but the truth is that I am really very tired of expending so much energy on deciding which is what.

That is why I write poetry.

We do not have many words in this English language for the in-be-tween.

We have a lot for ‘this’ and for ‘that’

and for ‘either’ and ‘other’ and ‘or’

but when it comes to trying to tell the story of an experience that exists in several places and spaces of the spiral at the same time;

that is not only ‘both’ but also ‘and’

it is what we call poetry that comes closest.

Poetry, like painting, is a variation of language to which I owe my life many times over because it has gifted me with a possibility though which I can maintain enough of a connection to my sense of ‘now’ and ‘then’ and ‘becoming’ that even when I can’t even feel why, I can still know that there is enough of a point to it all to stay. Giving myself the permission to do the math and science and language of my life through poetry has also given me the time and space that I have needed to learn how to tell the story of myself to myself…. it has taught me about the importance of expending energy in the direction of things that are sacred.

Things like change.

I imagine that there is a place just behind my eyes where poetry occurs.

That there is no need at all for forgiveness here,

because there has been no such thing as harm.

There is no mis-directed, re-enacting, side-ways-shooting energy that

was – is – will – be shame or hate or blame and as such;

there is still all the time and space in the universe for the story-telling that is the coming together of beginnings and endings and opposites.

Adding, subtracting and recombining fragments of words through poetry and/or the absence of standard grammatical structure feels like a second chance… feels like transition. It is like the system of language that I was born into did not match the way that my story functions best in the same way that the physical bits of this body did not match the way that my spirit functions best in relation to standard constructions of “gender”.  Poetry is the closest that I have been able to come to remembering – honouring – with every last word that much more than one thing can be “true” at the same time.

A LANGUAGE IS LANDSCAPE: PART 3. THE ETYMOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

The idea that standards of language can provide a safe and viable way for every individual to share their own story accurately is a myth. It is the same variety of myth that claims one can be “colour blind” in a society with an infinite history and definite present of racial discrimination… One where some colours of skin are perceived to be “of colour” and where individuals who are then subject to definition as their skin colour still have to live every aspect of their lives in the context of institutionalized racism. The intention of these words may be to increase connection between individuals, but what they are actually saying is, “I do not see the effects of things that do not have a direct negative impact on me.” The repercussion of this unwillingness to see is a perpetuation of the belief that you can be a good ally from the insides of a box. It is the eventual resurfacing of all the anger and resentment that already exist towards anyone sitting outside of the box because they can’t/”won’t” read what has been so carefully written for their benefit on the walls facing in.

The flipside of this unwillingness to see out is an unwillingness to engage in. It is less blatantly damaging, yet equally short-sighted. It is a demonstration of the exhaustion that comes from being consistently othered and it is not unwarranted, but it is also not any place from which to continue or even to try to begin. There is a landscape to any journey and also to the language that we choose to describe that journey, but whether or not we choose to persist in sharing the authentic story of our experiences as individuals depends in large part on the etymology of our perceptions; on what it is that our bodies have come to believe about speaking.

We learn the words that we are to use and the way that we are to use them –including how loud, how often, and with how much conviction, in the same way that we do or do not learn from all of our primary relationships that we are worthy and deserving of love. We are taught to remember rules and recite facts and in so doing, we can forget how to speak. To remember the timbre of our own voices may first require an internal translation from a) what has been transmitted and absorbed, to b) the truth that is felt without words. To then reconnect outside of oneself in a way that spoken language can both translate and approximate in the context of personal experience requires persistence. This does not mean that exhaustion is to be ignored in the service of social action. Quite to the contrary, this is a persistence that has more to do with choosing to be in your life for the extended version. It is a way of continuing to acknowledge and honour a life lived of experiences and the multitude of reasons why a particular body may not always believe that it is either safe or possible to speak.

My body remembers how deeply it is possible to know “tired” and simultaneously, it remains true that my body is also my brain; is also an artist, a writer,

a poet-teacher-learner.

So, while the etymology of my perceptions say that the standards of language do not often provide words that mean much in regards to the places that I reside; to the in-be-tween, they also remind me that it is not the standards of anything at all that have helped keep me alive and connected thus far in my life. The things that have meant the most in the long run for the authenticity of communication have been integrity, creativity, and love. It is now the process part of creating a truly authentic vernacular with these materials at the core that must receive the best of my attention and energy as opposed to a product-oriented definition or defense.

A LANGUAGE IS LANDSCAPE: PART 2. BUILDING A COMMUNITY WORTH KEEPING

I am reimagining my concept of “sustainability” as something that is continuously self-reflective… As something that is simultaneously learning, changing, and growing.

“Growth” in relation to “sustainable” need not always be defined as forward or upward movement because the making of mistakes as well as the time and space to learn from those mistakes are essential to the development of both personal and systemic integrity. True sustainability in community necessarily involves relationships and as such, that community must expect these same standards of non-judgmental self-reflection from its members and in its mandates.

Public education in much of the western world continues to teach language in a way that positions letters, words and phrases alongside the assumption that collective understanding is not only a possibility but a given. I believe that most teachers who continue to support this system do so with the good and honest intention of making safe spaces for all children to learn and thrive. This is an act faith and, although many things about the having-of-faith are beautiful, the repercussions of a faith that does not also embrace humility are not predictable and rarely end well or with much original good-ness intact.

It seems to me then, that a sustainable model of education is one that can also trust itself and all of its members to mess up. It is secure in and because of the knowledge that mistakes are a normal and healthy occurrence when true dynamic inquiry is being pursued.  The trust factor must also then extend to the understanding that individuals in that relationship will both, a) take personal responsibility for any hurt that has occurred as a result of those errors (regardless of intent and particularly if there is a power differential) and, b) celebrate and honour the learning that comes of that process.

How can we expect our kids to challenge themselves to the point that they can make mistakes which catalyze personal growth and maturation if we ourselves are acting in a manner that condemns the sometimes-messy nature of PROCESS?... If our actions as adults are driven by our own insecurities and therefore cannot tolerate the slow construction of a solid base for growth?...

If we cannot personally stand to take the risks that allow for inner-knowing of what radical change looks, sounds and feels like over the long term

Sustainable faith in the possibility of community – meaning, one in which a base-line of equity challenges all forms of institutionalized oppression in “walk” as well as talk – must actually be fueled by love as opposed to any intensely individual motive for overhauling a system that does not work.

This is the kind of love that knows you can’t really love any other thing or person very deeply unless you really and truly practice loving yourself.

This is the love that makes kindness and compassion a non-negotiable aspect of every relationship; both interpersonal and systemic.

It may seem remarkably simplistic, but I for one would prefer to spend the next 30 years of my professional energies working with a love-fueled, in-motion,

potentially messy model of change,

as opposed to one that is carefully bound to a static concept or intent.

A LANGUAGE IS LANDSCAPE: PART 1. TEACHING THE HISTORY OF “HOW”

There is something about the learning of language… about the systems that we as social beings spend our formative years growing up-with-in… that I keep coming back to. I am beginning to see the shape of this particular learning in the same way that my visual brain sees the legacy of relationship… sees a spiral. 

The potential of infinite growth that exists alongside a tangible visual model is like comfort food that both my left-brain and logic can agree upon…

around and back but never to the same place;

sometimes similar,

sometimes parallel,

never exactly the same.

A system of communication is not only a means of relating to others; it is a viable and essential participant in one of the most formative relationships that we have as social beings. If we are first taught that this system is all hard edges, sharp corners and absolute rules, we are simultaneously ingesting a message that there are distinct limits around what the mind is capable of conceiving and creating…

Around what an individual can possibly do and be and become.

Any relationship has some effect on the trajectory of its participants. In the case of human beings and their relationship to the system by which they communicate with other humans, the spin-off is exponential. The variety of means that we have available to us to make interpersonal connections will increase or decrease in proportion to the content of that contact and will continue to do so for better or for worse throughout our lives. By the time that our brains reach early adolescence and a stage of development where abstract reasoning becomes more possible, it is already very difficult for most of us to even see this linear structure of expectations let alone the way that we do (or do not) think in relation to it. If individuals are not taught early on that concepts like “language rules” are in fact the constructs of some other fallible human-person’s doing, it will becomes increasingly difficult for them to even entertain the idea that other “absolutes” such as gender, sexuality, race, religion, ability, etc. are far more multifaceted than the binary lens through which those who hold the power in these models would have us view them.

Skipping over the roots of why and how and when and where any idea turned into a “rule” is precisely how we as human beings learn to ‘other’ everything that we do not quickly and easily understand. It is how we learn that it is ok to shut out anything that is too hard and therefore too scary to fit into what we thought we knew about the world. This othering includes the best of one-another…

It includes the best of ourselves.

This chronic omission of context is my primary concern about the way that we are teaching anything to young children.

As long as teaching the history of “how” is not a priority in public education, individuals who support that system without question or concern will become complicit in the building of boxes upon long-established boxes… Boxes that by definition are finite in capacity and that therefore must keep some people out in order to keep from collapsing.

This is no way to construct a community worth keeping.

This construct is not actually a community at all.

furry and fey

I have drawn, painted, etched, paper-sculpted and envisioned dresses a lot over the last 10 years;
more and more so since the last time I actually chose to wear one.

I have told the fear story;
the confused, abandoned, watched and objectified story, with words to describe those experiences finally making sense to the insides of my own ears through the performative act of drawing;
of scratching – ripping – cutting
on paper.

And I have told the anger story;
told mostly in the shape of the fear that let anger stand in for ‘alone’ and did not let ‘scared’ even happen at all;
told in such a way that the scratching – ripping – cutting became a response to the memory of too-tight lines of smocking across my chest;
became a recognition of my fear of the grandmother who stitched them there;
became a covert outlet for my anger at every adult who witnessed and condoned her control through their silence.

Those images were the beginning of actually feeling all of the emotions that this silence taught me to turn in;
They were the memory of forgetting how to breathe.

I didn’t realize until recently that the gradual re-collection and reconstruction of these images of dresses was also the beginning of grieving;
the actual feeling-through of the sad-mad-sad-mad cycle of mourning for all that is lost when too many liberties are taken and too many assumptions are made.
Grieving for the loss of safety;
for the loss of opportunity to discover, own and celebrate my own identity as a young person.
Grieving for the simple fact that I never got to wear those dresses that were put on to my body for photos at ages 3, 4, 5, etc. and be seen at the same time.


if i had been born a boy
lee hicks, 2010

if i had been born a boy,
i would be a flaming queen;
wear tight dresses,
red lipstick,
and be all that is more
than two genders.

but i can imagine my freedom
as a gender queer in reverse
about as easily as i can conceive of
a world where it is safe
to be other.


To be watched and to be seen are two very different things.

I have been “out” as trans and as preferring male pronouns for approximately 2 years now, but throughout all of that time and during each of the 30 years prior, I was still ‘me’ living inside of my head regardless of what my body looked like.

I was a feminine, female-bodied, mostly-male-brained person
when I really loved that white dress with the red stitching at age 2;
when I enjoyed both the sparkles and the skirts on my figure skating costumes at age 7;
and
when I really liked my high school graduation dress at age 18
even if I really hated the way that other people thought they saw ‘me’ in it.

I was also this person when I didn’t know that my body was worth saying “no” for at age 9;
when I explicitly received the message at age 16 that our society continues to imply through both words and actions to everyone it reads as ‘female’…
The not-so-subtle inference that,
“because you are a girl, it is your job to make sure that you do not give him that opportunity...”

I was still this person when, as an out, proud and politically active queer person in my 20s, wearing dresses began to feel like I was helping to perpetuate a reading of myself by others that I didn’t agree with. That reading said that dresses meant “feminine” and feminine meant “female” and so I stopped wearing anything resembling a dress at this time because;

a) it did not occur to me that other peoples’ definitions need not define me,

and

b) I had not yet discovered that there were other things I could do to bring mySELF into the world beyond trying to change the way that I was literally “seen”;
like re-structuring and re-combining words to fill in the parts of my very real
gender queer experience that my language was missing;
like writing and sharing and renouncing punctuation in favour of poetry,
like drawing and painting and etching and sculpting,
like speaking these truths again, and again
and again
whether or not it felt like anyone was listening.

It was not until I started to land more completely in my body at age 31 and to recognize my adult self with my brain on testosterone for the first time that some sense identity that felt real to me – feminine AND male - also felt plausible.

This shift has not been without its own significant complications.
For male-identifying individuals to choose authenticity as a core value with which to negotiate the world when their authentic self really digs sparkles and pink things and hugging their people in public is an act of courage that is both worthwhile and exhausting.
Not to mention potentially hurt-full.
Not to mention potentially dangerous.

We live in a society where a significant national newspaper will still happily print the words of columnists like Christie Blatchford and refuse to recognize it as hate-speech.
Words like;
“… I am wearying of the male as delicate creature. I am wearying of men who are so frequently in touch with their feminine side they, not to mention me, have lost sight of the masculine one. I’m just plain sick of hugs, giving and getting, from just about anyone, but particularly man-to-man hugs. Gay, as I’ve mentioned, is entirely fine. Fey is a pain in the arse. I know men have feelings too. I just don’t need to know much more than that….” (1)

This being said, I have already spent significant energy in this wee short life attempting to negotiate feminine-and-male without ruffling feathers of the Christie Blatchford variety and I am now very, very done with that particular use of my time.

I like dresses.
I adore every single milligram of testosterone I am privileged to inject into my body on a biweekly basis and,
I can’t wait to have enough visible facial hair that I can wear a dress again in the manner to which I have yet to become accustomed...

furry and fey.

At this point I would really just like to try telling "that" story;
of that dress,
of dresses in general,
of me,
again.

- lee


(1) “Toronto, City of Sissies” by Christie Blatchford, National Post, December 11, 2012

How will I recognize mySELF?

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be “recognized” this past week. By “recognized”, I am referring to that thing that happens when “who” a person is, on a fundamental level, is seen and acknowledged in a way through which they can feel and experience the seeing as accurate and real. Part of this is about coming to know what being recognized by others actually feels like, but I also think that in order for the feeling to go in and to register as experience, there is a significant amount of recognizing oneself that has to happen first.

This past week, for the first time in my life, I have been referred to with male pronouns almost exclusively. THIS is good…. this is great actually. That is exactly the internal reference point at which I find the greatest amount of personal comfort, and it is an amazing thing to have that reality mirrored back to me with increasing frequency and accuracy as the physical process of my transition from a female-bodied to a more male-bodied person progresses. The question-raising, thought-provoking, slightly destabilizing part of that for me has been the context in which it has occurred;

Five days ago, I started teaching at a new school in a new community. When I left my previous school at the end of June, I was very much “out” as trans and male and despite that, was very much still seen and referred to as female by the majority of students, staff, and parents…. Here in this new place, a very liberal and equity-minded environment, I have never specifically asked to be recognized as male and yet, have received male pronouns and reference points 98% of the time. I know that some people in the school community are aware that I have had gender experience outside of biological male-ness, but I am not sure how widespread that knowledge is. As such, I also do not know if I am receiving “he” because I am actually being read as an assigned-male-at-birth individual, OR if people here are just really nice and totally respectful of the fact that as a transperson of the male persuasion, I prefer masculine pronouns.

All of that is fine. The only part of this experience that is unexpectedly throwing me at the moment is that for the very first time EVER, I do not know how it is that people “recognize” me. Having lived as a visibly gender queer person for approximately 10 years prior to any name changing, surgery, hormones or other more obvious professions of preferred gender identity, I have become very used to random people letting me know explicitly – by either words or actions – exactly “what” they think I am, so I have rarely had to guess. This lack of ambiguity meant that until I needed to make specific decisions about being out as trans, I could defer the work of “recognition” and function almost exclusively with the information about me that I was getting from outside of myself. Despite all of the frustration and negativity and even violence that sometimes came with being recognized that publicly and arbitrarily, there was an odd sort of familiarity to that state of knowing. It crept in over time… So much so it seems, that the fact that this was a significant part of my life experience that would shift along with all my other changing parts never really occurred to me.

Without that immediate and definite knowing of how I am being read, I am suddenly finding it difficult to understand how I feel about a few basic things;

a) What now is required in order to maintain the integrity of my entire self and all of my experiences… both as a person who lived for 30 years in a female body and as a person who spent 30 years feeling like they were not supposed to be in that female body.

b) Can I ethically accept and make good use of this safe space that comes with being less visible in order to “recharge”?… To step back for a moment from the constant struggle for comfortable space and authentic recognition in order to enjoy the fact that this “he” is directed at me?
because seriously;

c) Does anything other than just BEing matter at this point?

The truth is though that as soon as I typed the words to
c) Does anything other than just BEing matter…?
I understood that although on some levels I want to be able to find and internalize a different answer to this question, I can’t actually do that...
Because it does matter.

Ideally, no one in the world would ever have to fight for their birth-right - the safe and quiet space in which to just BE that we are all entitled to. Reality on the other hand, is a reminder that we as a society still have a lot of work to do in order to make this happen without constant vigilance. That being said, I am also realizing that points a) and b) have everything to do with a slightly different question that holds a great deal more personal responsibility.
This being;

How will I recognize mySELF?...

This is really the point in this particular transition that I seem to be coming to now; the transition from being obviously, visibly, gender queer and very vocal about that to needing to make different – and in many ways, more active – decisions about what of who I am I actually want to share with the world… To acknowledging that I am stepping into the privilege of being seen as male and white and English speaking and able-bodied among other things – so how then do I want to BE in that?
It is this question…

“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

…and I am not yet sure how to intentionally write myself in to that.

LEE