More Spiders
kiiiihsshkiihttcck (this is the sound a spider makes)
Dropping in to share 5 places spiders have been leading to:
Simultaneously witnessing a spider deity while on shrooms with 2 friends on the pagan land of Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary during Honcho 2022
Ŋgam dù (nggàm dù) or spider divination. From the Mambila tradition, particularly the village of Somié, ŋgam dù is understood as a sort of compass or as a guide that helps understand the future and prevent various problems that threaten our society (witchcraft, theft, adultery, slander etc). Based on a long history, ŋgam dù has an important place in the everyday life of the Mambila people, and affects the major aspects of life: social, political, economic and cultural.1
The Bet Between Anansi and the Tiger performed by Lies Cruden
Of course the void is a web
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Hedonism – Skunk Anansie music video
Spider nature has just been clicking. The mental sticky (heh heh) note “spider” weaves the daily vision. Spider because I have been converting information, nutrients, and resources into materials that attract my desires. I am spiraling toward a lineage of seekers, named or felt beyond name, who desired succulent, enduring liberation and had the gumption to see to it. I am thinking of abolition with the creativity and tactile know-how necessary to create a web of sustainability. Wondering about regeneration beyond the goal to keep taking. What is true about the nature to metabolize, spin another thread, take care of the young?
Since September I have been working with young people: teaching children 5-8 ceramics after school and mentoring teens in video and photo. Before now I’d only taught one-off ceramic workshops as a guest artist. I was not looking for teaching opportunities when these roles were presented to me. I would like to bottle up whatever it is I’m putting out that suggests I’m a good role model. This subtle dig is about my procrastination, time management, low bureaucratic stamina, and other woes of productivity. The impulse is to say I just haven’t hacked it yet. Rigor is in the sauce, sure, but how can one untie acceleration from narratives of progress? I have been witness to a spectrum of answers, from the joy of watching a child independently apply the fundamentals of hand building, to the slow work of developing the foundation of Eartheaven Collective. Or the elation to share how Alter will be returning this Spring and Summer after a much needed hiatus.
On Friday Nancy Huang and I reunited over matcha beignets. Alter continues to churn our desire for empowered relationships with death, transition, and grief. Perhaps my reluctant aspiration for developing girl boss skills is testament to how I am an expert at adapting. Not at perfecting my landing but turning the ground soft. How to open walls like Lilith from Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler.2
As I look for teachers and learn to teach what I know, I have made a home of Ayana Zaire Cotton’s podcast For the World Builders. This podcast is a testament to the path weaved for us through Black radical feminist tradition. Black feminism as in if I’m getting free you are coming with me. Their podcast and online creative retreat Seeda School are invitations to economically and spiritually divest from systems of domination while creating an income generating offer. I am needing to call money something else because seriously fuck money. I want to be remembered as a source spider and I do need my web wealthy.
bonus playlist brought to you by Spring cleaning. shuffle mandatory xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://nggamdu.org/nggam-du/ My favorite website atm.
Rant: I read The Xenogenisis Trilogy by Octavia Butler when I was 15. I am about this lady okay my soft prefrontal cortex was scaffolded by Oankali interspecies tantric dick appointments. Love the love for Parable of the Sower but if you want some brand new interstellar neural pathways I’d go straight for Xenogenisis or The Patternist series.