Maya Victorine is a dear friend and an amazing human who is a member of the Surrender: An EcoSex Convergence organizing team. We share in common a deep feeling for the non-human inhabitants of earth and the frightening level of extinction that is occurring in this very moment. As we prepare for Surrender, Maya and I exchange conversations and writing regarding our experiences. Surrender: an EcoSex convergence is an event designed to help us build community around our deep love for the planet and create support for those of us who are altering our live styles and working to transform the current cultural paradigms that require violence and randomly declare certain beings and people to be disposable. We are part of a team of 25 people who will be creating 5 days of rituals and group practices designed to support all of us in choosing love, connection and constellational thinking about how to carefully build and maintain sustainable cultures. Maya sent me the following journal entry about her time in Poland and Netherlands.
From Maya Victorine Feb 5, 2014
I have been in Europe for two weeks now…I came for the art, what I got is quite a bit more- where the art came from, the people. The universe has put me on a path to contemplating the moments of time in our history, visiting replicas of Warsaw before it was bombed, seeing buildings disintegrating back into nature due to economic collapse, the first factories of an industrial age, the first Nazi created Jewish ghetto and the train tracks leading them to a short demise, the annoyingly exuberant optimistic crescendo of modern architecture in the Nederlands, where bombs created fresh canvasses- like wounds needing mickey mouse bandages.
It struck me when I read that the Polish did not know what was going to happen to the Jews and Gypsies that were ‘organized’ into the ghettos- Non-Jews felt separate, and distrustful, but their intentions never aggressive, they were good christian people after all. They simply did not know. And when rumors started to reveal what was going on- could they believe? futher, could they do anything? I imagined myself in this state of helplessness, and as I threw my cheese wrappers and plastic tub in the trash, I felt the rush of “I do not know” but “I do know”, but “I don’t want to know” where this rubbish ends up, what forest cleared, what mountain mined, what waste produced by the creation of these trifles. Was I one of those, who turned a blind eye, who didn’t know what to do, and so did nothing. Separation from other people, separation from our environment, separation from our ethos, our integrity leaves us with only degraded, disintegrated, bombed out homes and only shells of life.
I danced yesterday with a man from Iraq, who was shot two years ago. In my head, I rambled on… “I set up my tent in protest when the war started… but I also took it down again. I made tons of signs for Occupy and bore my flag upside down…but I went home again, it was late.” He still has a bullet lodged in his side, I imagine it hurts about as much as my guilt and shame, whenever I let it sink in. I don’t really dare to.
Moving together, our task was to listen to each other…to sense the breath, the energy, the emotion of our partner…respecting our own state and letting that come through as well…we co create an experience, a resonance. Let us dance with what we do not know, with what we know, with what we do not want to know….coming into resonance with what is, summoning the power of change. I want to dance with the water in pipes, the fossils of the linoleum floor, the trees in the walls, and the mountains of my spoon….celebrate and honor them all…the nature around us in our urban environment. We can’t Not be IN nature, we can’t Not BE nature- it is our consciousness that needs to change, to become resonant with ourselves, others, and the planet. It is this ability of resonance that I would like to bring to others, that we might demonstrate it to the world…share a sensation of connection that is the panacea for our modern world…that will help us deal with the changes we have brought about, to re-mediate, to heal and continue on.
From Teri D. Ciacchi Feb 6, 2014
Maya, I was very moved by your comparison between the ways people who were alive in Europe during the Holocaust talk about “not knowing” what was happening in the death camps, and our current situation with the environmental collapse and species extinction that our use of oil and our cultural paradigm of progress “require” as collateral damage. Here are a few resources that explore the themes of violence and disposability you bring up in your journal. Who gets to say what matters and what is valued? These are questions worth investigating, no?
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/are-some-lives-disposable-201421255735775353.html
“The abundance of real suffering tolerates no forgetting. This suffering demands the continued existence of art even as it prohibits it. It is now virtually in art alone that suffering can still find its own voice” Theodor Adrono
Thought you would appreciate this new website and its inaugural edition of writings on the history of violence http://historiesofviolence.com
Beautiful video by Henry Giroux http://vimeo.com/53863154
on the War against youth in America & Elsewhere
Here is the series that made me come to this website in the first place and which reminded me of what Maya wrote:
Special Series: Disposable Life: To What extent is it possible to write of entire populations as disposable? How might we think about mass violence is such terms? And how might we forge a truly trans-disciplinary pedagogy that connects the arts, humanities and social sciences such that we may re-imagine peaceful co-habitation amongst the world of people? Bringing together some of the most celebrated critical scholars, public intellectuals and artists, this three year collaborative project will directly address these types of questions by interrogating the concept of “disposable life”. In doing so, the project aims to rethink the very meaning of mass violence in the 21st Century?
Cynthia Enloe: http://vimeo.com/84972560 talks for 14 min about disposability, accountability, the work of Hannah Arendt and Japanese feminists concerns about Fukishima.
Maya will return this Friday from a visit in Poland and the Nederlands where she has been studying with Butoh Masters Atsushi Takenouchi and Rhizome Lee Rhizome Lee. She has also generously chosen to dedicate some of her time to creating a fundraising EcoSex Performance event called “Forces of Nature” which will happen in Portland Oregon April 11 & 12, 2014 Here is our current call for performers: http://www.spiritembodied.com/butoh-dance.html
On March 22nd the two of us will be leading a workshop called Bodies, Breathe & the Elements in preparation for the Forces of Nature performance. If you would like to attend please see the details here: http://www.spiritembodied.com/butoh-dance.html