since orienting my life to an ecological worldview (existing inside of relationships between living things & my environment), i’ve become more aware of how my body responds to a spectrum of interactions

because of the values i hold & the work that i do, i spend a lot of time noticing how systems impact us. the economic system of racialized capitalism is also an ideological one – a system that contains ideas & ideals – particularly ones which lay the foundation for a political way of being. capitalism relies on extraction – a way of interacting that takes, and takes with force

repositioning my world & orienting to life as its own force has transfigured the movement patterns i take. for example, rather than money being something i capture & hoard – it is a resource i create pathways for & share. rather than relationships being something i accumulate, use up & dispose of – they are something i consent to, participate in & change with

ecological living is both non-linear & cyclical. when i walk to the river everyday to cleanse myself, i may stop in the wildflowers to spend time with my odd & ungovernable nature or meander over by the trees to observe the seasons of my growth. when life mirrors itself to me, my experience of life & my own body is altered. i am *not* at the whim of authoritarian rule

ecosystem mapping has been a way to both remind myself of my own free will & responsibility to life as well as a permission slip to dream, imagine & create new worlds. ecosystem mapping has as much to teach us about where we’ve been as what types of futures are unfolding

ecosystem mapping is a type of embodiment that recognizes our bodies have influence & are impacted. we touch life & alter it in some way. we are touched by life & transformed ourselves. this truth is an on-going indication that our existence (and the way we participate with it) matters

i’ve been thinking about where – as in which places & containers – i want to be seen, known & impacted by. who & what do i want refining my thought processes & offering feedback about my choices? i am certain that i have boundaries around this. i do not consent to everyone’s feedback, nor do i consent to closeness or accountability with/from folks i am not in relationship with

in many ways, social media – a stadium filled with humans (some known & some not), bots, trolls – has altered our understanding of relationship, responsibility & consent. when we post somewhere in a public forum, where eyes have access & opportunity to see *and* respond, what sort of relationship are we entering?

when the people who are engaging with the content know us in some capacity beyond that platform, we have a container of conduct to reside in. what about strangers with whom we have no relationship? are we engaging with strangers on the internet with the type of pacing & curiosity as when we meet a stranger in person? and what is it about social media in particular (which i would like to mark as its own distinct type of virtual space that does not mirror all virtual spaces) that creates such a wild card effect?

as someone who much prefers one-on-one or small group interaction, social media has always felt like a puzzle in many ways. my preference is to use social media as a type of community bulletin board where i post about my values, my likes, my curiosities & then leave an arrow that points to where you can find me sharing about those things more deeply elsewhere

in my ecosystem of life, social media (ideally) is a bulletin board i post on & read for only a few moments a day because, over time, folks have started congregating around (virtual or in-person) fire pits to practice life together more intentionally & with shared interest. i have no desire to tell other folks how to engage with their own social media movement patterns, but i do know that my most trusted interactions are happening elsewhere

if social media is a bulletin board that points to other places – this is one of those places i hope to hang out in. if this is a place you’ve enjoyed poking around, there are other places i’ve created where you can chat more personally

here are a few containers to check out :
the lighthouse
embody the ecosystem
ecological embodiment

the revolution from the perspective of a paint bucket

i grew up saying that i wasn’t creative. i guess, at that time, creativity felt like something only certain people were gifted with. the way some people are singing phenoms or exceptional painters. as i grew in my understanding of myself & the world, i started noticing that my sense of creativity was something i could activate or participate with

colors began speaking to me. energetically i can feel the color of an object (by its size, texture & shape) even without opening my eyes. how odd! how intriguing!

it has made me endlessly curious about what else my creative body is capable of. if i think of a color in my mind, the color stays one dimensional. if i feel a color as an expression of breathing life, my creative body starts humming like an espresso machine moving hot water & steam through its pipes

in my experience, artists are engaging with their creative bodies in a way that allows humans to expand beyond what is currently seen & known to us. when i exist in the flow of creativity, i am more hopeful about the possibility of something new emerging. when my dream body sends me visuals of something i’ve never seen before & my creative body brings that visual to paper or digital screen – there is a world being formed through my willingness to birth it

when a creative (a person who creates) wonders : “what if i put this thing next to this thing?” when we’ve been told to never let those two things touch, a new possibility pathway emerges. creatives defy the sequence of things, the presupposition of things & experiment with rearranging life as we know it

this is an act of liberation

it is also why for so long artists & poets & oracles have been a threat to the status quo. imagination takes us somewhere we’ve been told is not available or even possible to us

creatives ask : “but what if it were? what if we can be different?”

and then they bring the transformation to life – what a gift

you’ve got mail (remember how good that felt?)

this ecosystem i’m growing here has been heavily influenced by oyster with a final nudge by the visual feast kening zhu has created in their digital world

about 6 months ago, oyster had been strongly encouraging me to develop ways of unhooking from the information overload that comes with scrolling social media. i had noticed, over time, my creative body had developed holes like a piece of swiss cheese as my dopamine was being flushed down the drain

rather than disappear from the digital landscape completely, i have been resonating more & more with the idea of going analog while staying in the digital world. i am someone who much prefers scrolling through blog posts than short social media blurbs. my favorite notification to receive on my phone is the “you’ve got (e)mail!” icon. and i delight in the creative effort it takes to construct my website in a way that feels like world building rather than consumption & extraction

i’ve been dabbling in digital doodles for several years now – small showcases of art that scratch some part of my brain & light up my creative body. i don’t always know which programs or tools to use to get my visions onto the digital screen but i’m slowly experimenting with collaging, clip art & electronic drawing

these musings will (and do) include my doodles

deep space portals

the track of linear time has been laid out before me – the stops are already built, the pace is already set. it’s quite boring, truly

snail & mushroom introduced me to deep space portals – the holes you sorta sink into when you engage with time in sticky, stretchy, slow, trippy, upside down kinda ways

i remember meeting time as a turnstile or boat wheel – some gateway that spun me around right back where i began but with new memories

time can play games in that way – taking you here & there & everywhere all at once. for the logical, planning brain – this version of time can feel like sand slipping through your fingers or time returning over & over again like groundhogs day. losing the linear track of time takes a bit of foolishness

in this digital world the linear track of time exists as one option among many. slip on a banana peel & you may just slide back to monday or 1984 or a recent future where the closest thing to a clock you’ll find is your own beating heart

catch yall in the open spaces

the sensory experience of being consumed in a digital age

this is an experiment in creating my own digital world. a place where i can stretch out my imagination and find a home for it to live in. my creative body is so so tired of being consumed by a million tiny gnashing teeth

i want to invite you here, into my digital world, where we can stay awhile. my hope is that this world, over time, will operate as an ecosystem in itself. when you come here, i would like you to feel nourished – but i’m allowing that to be your responsibility. my responsibility here is to create a world that i am excited to exist inside of

my own creative hunger is my responsibility. i want to tend to my hunger in a way where i ask myself : what does yearning feel like in my creative body & how do i answer that call? i’m no longer willing to convince myself that social media is where i go in order to be fed

i’m imagining that this digital world will be filled with my own attempts to express myself more authentically. for much of my life, authenticity was synonymous with serious, deep conviction. which is still true for me. but my authentic expressions are expanding. i am also incredibly playful, vibrant, goofy, fantastical & delighted by simple things

i want to surprise myself with what arrives here
here’s to creating the world i’ve always dreamed of but didn’t have a space to grow roots