Remembering, Every Day

As the lives of young people in occupied Palestine and occupied Tibet continue to be extinguished (click the photos for more news coverage); as state powers continue erasing the cultures of occupied and indigenous people in the U.S. and the world over; and as transgender people like Brandy Martell continue to face deadly violence — in so many interconnected struggles, part of our work in the face of loss is to remember.What do processes of political and spiritual grieving mean to us?  One clue comes from scholar Judith Butler, whose essay "Violence, Mourning, Politics" reminds us that mourning can powerfully expose the fallacy of a separate, completely individual self — resonant, perhaps, for Buddhists who study the dharma of anatta, or "no-self."  Via zunguzungu:

I do not think, for instance, that one can invoke the Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. One cannot say, “Oh, I’ll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I’ll apply myself to the task, and I’ll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me.” I think one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and finds oneself foiled. One finds oneself fallen. One is exhausted but does not know why. Something is larger than one’s own deliberate plan, one’s own project, one’s own knowing and choosing…When we lose certain people, or when we are dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an “I” exists independently over here and then simply loses a “you” over there, especially if the attachment to “you” is part of what composes who “I” am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who “am” I, without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we do not know who we are or what to do. On one level, I think I have lost “you” only to discover that “I” have gone missing as well.

In this spirit, today we are honored to share a beautiful call to memory in the face of loss and injustice, written by artist Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski last month in honor of Trans* Day of Remembrance.Thank you, Amaryllis, for your words and your fiercely loving work in the world.

May we speak your chosen names with an utterance akin to prayer, and might we know the sacredness of it when it passes through our lips.May we honor you for as long as this earth would have us, and in doing so, demand your Divinity be upheld.And if we do not know your experience as we know our own, might we see our struggles as two streams which spring from the same sea.And if we know our sufferings to be intertwined might we also know the connectedness of our dreams.

May we honor our living as we would honor our dead. May our rage be a meter to our humanity.May our love be as unshakable as our souls.Brandy Martell, 37Brenting Dolliole, 22Cassidy Vickers, 32Githe Goines, 23Deoni Jones, 23Tyrell Jackson, 23Coko Williams, 35Paige Clay, 23Tracy Johnson, 40Kendall Hampton, 26Tiffany Gooden, 19Kyra Kruz, 27Janette Tovar, 43Dee Dee PearsonRosita HidalgoRest in PeaceRest in PowerWith all my love,AmaryllisNovember 20, 2012*This is an incomplete list.This list is in the thousands.

Artist, Activist, and Alchemist (by way of creative transformation and the alchemic process of using art as a means to transform poison into medicine), Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski aims to practice the integration of multiple art forms as a way to expose truth through beauty. She is an experienced muralist, performance poet, playwright, youth organizer, and visual artist. She has toured her poetry and solo show Sangria Cipher nationally, performing in various venues ranging from prisons, shelters, high school auditoriums, SisterSong Conference for Reproductive Justice, Children’s Law Institute, and the WGI Manhattan stage. Her poetry was featured in the Wise Fool New Mexico’s production of BAGGAGE, a social justice theater initiative that addresses issues of domestic violence and women of color within the state of New Mexico. Amaryllis is the co-founder (along with Cynthia Ruffin and Jessie Workman) of the B.R.E.A.T.H (Building a Revolution of Expression Through Heartwork) program in Albuquerque, NM that teaches poetry and performance to incarcerated youth as a means to heal, resolve conflict, and uplift. She is a graduate of the We Got Issues intensive leadership program and is currently pursuing a degree through the Individualized Major program at the California College of the Arts. Through innovation, integrity, intuition, and intention, Amaryllis has dedicated her life’s work to stand with countless others in the movement that intersects the arts with activism, using creativity and expression as the tools necessary for community liberation, and the means by which we may all realize our sparkling dreams.