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.