we had to destroy the village to save it

we had to destroy the village to save it

save us.  the guns hit the jaw and we all fell down.

nothing soaked in blood and saltwater, nothing breathing in the wind, nothing living under the trees

the babies are dust and we are the original sin

becoming midwives

i am writing at becoming midwives occassionally.  check it out.

to do list

to do list:

read the rest of the submissions for the bridge called my baby

send files to lex for frontlines/shorelines

upload the border/home/lands zine

upload outlaw midwives stickers

complete and send in application to clare

finish phase two for clara

write post for becoming midwives

email kat

start piece for make/shift

have coffee with tessa

find an office space

breathe deeply.  from the diaphragm.

oh and i will soon create a pdf that prints out as a zine…just need to buy some more scotch tape…love.

xxooxo

chaos

–i dont think these deaths of fish and fowl are caused by one cause, i think it is an effect of chaos.  like the butterfly to the tsunami, how many poisons do you have to dump into the earth and sky and water until birds start falling from the sky en masse?  before we become the witnesses to homicide/eco cide?

falling out of the sky into our hands

i have been trying to write about this for days, but the words wont come.

this morning my daughter is sick with a slight fever.  i held her against my chest until she fell asleep.

birds are falling out of the sky.  thousands of birds.  thousands of fish are dead washed up on the shoreline.

Brazil
Mysterious killing of fish in coastal

Canada
Update 1 – 10,000s of Birds found dead in Manitoba
Update 1 – Dead Birds and Fish reported in St. Clair River, Ontario
Update 1 – Goldstream River, at Goldstream Provincial Park, Victoria mysteriously turns bright green

Chile
Thousands of Birds fall from the sky in South America

China
Eagles and Birds are falling from the sky in China

Italy
Thousands of Doves are Dying

Japan
Japan on alert after finding dead birds

New Zealand
Hundreds of snapper dead on beaches
Update 2 – Penguins, petrels and other seabirds, mass deaths

Philippines
Update 2 – Residents gather, eat dead fish floating in barangay Ibo

South Korea
Dead Teal Ducks With Bird Flu Strain Found In South Korea

South Africa
Mystery of dead birds on Cape roads

Sweden
50 birds were found dead
Hundreds of dead birds found in the middle of the road in Sweden

United Kingdom
Dead fish discovered in canal marina near Abergavenny
Update 1 – 40,000 ‘devil’ crabs found dead on the beach

Vietnam
Update 2 – Tonnes of farm fish found dead

United States of America
Arkansas
Nearly 3000 Dead Birds Fall From Arkansas Sky
First Birds Fall, Now 100000 Fish Dead in Arkansas

Florida
Thousands Of Fish Dead In Spruce Creek

Illinois
Dead Birds Reported by Residents in Southern Illinois

Kentucky
Update 1 – Dead birds found in Kentucky, Sweden, as crabs wash up on U.K. shores in latest mass animal deaths

Louisiana
Dead Birds Fall From Sky AGAIN In Louisiana, 300 Miles From Arkansas Incident Days Earlier

Maryland
2 Million fish die in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

Michigan
Update 1 – Hundreds of Dead Fish Appear In Lincoln Park

North Carolina
Dead pelican count escalates in Topsail Beach
Update 1: Reward offered for information on what’s causing dead pelicans at Topsail Beach

Texas
Update 1 – Now East Texas also reports hundreds of dead birds
Update 1 – Experts in Texas are weighing in after large amounts of dead birds were reportedly found across the Country and around the World

lex and i talk about the spaces created by the shoreline and the frontline.  its how we begin the call for submissions to this bridge called my baby: legacies of radical mothering.

All mothers have the potential to be revolutionary. Some mothers stand on the shoreline, are born and reborn here, inside the flux of time and space, overcoming the traumatic repetition of oppression. Our very existence is disobedience to the powers that be.
At times, in moments, we as mothers choose to stand in a zone of claimed risk and fierce transformation, the frontline. In infinite ways, both practiced and yet to be imagined,  we put our bodies between the violent repetition of the norm and the future we already deserve, exactly because our children deserve it too.  We make this choice for many reasons and in different contexts, but at the core we have this in common: we refuse to obey. We refuse to give into fear. We insist on joy no matter what and by every means necessary and possible.

i see these birds and fish strewn across the shorelines and i ask who will stand on the frontlines as sky and water crumbles in front of us.  what is our response to this?  this? this what?  this mass suicide?  this mass murder?  this chemical intoxication?  this poisoning of life?

i read somewhere in response to this massive deaths of fish and fowl that we should not be come ‘too alarmist’.  because if we take this too seriously, people will start to lose hope and feel helpless and thus wont get involved.

lose hope dear friends.  abandon all hope of fruition. abandon all despair.  and then lets walk.

we know what we must do.  we must stop this civilization.  we must stop this culture that eats its young.

i hear talk of the apocalypse.  and frankly, im feeling yall.  the only twirk that gets me is…a lot of folks on this planet are already living the apocalypse that we fear is coming.  this is why the world powers that be are building fences to keep the majority of people away from the minority of people who own the majority of the resources.

when i was in the congo, the elders said that the seasons/cycles were changing.  weather was too extreme and people didnt know when to plant and when to harvest like they used to.  people had followed the patterns of birth and decay in this rift valley, the cradle of humankind, for millions and millions of years.  and they had survived by knowing these patterns.  and now they watched the cycles crash into each other, disintegrating.  collapsing.

i close my eyes and exhale and listen to the birds and fish falling and flailing…what do you want?  i ask.  what do you want from us?

there is a way out of feelings of impotence and despair.

we can pay attention, even though the truth hurts.  we can listen carefully and listen some more to the victims.  listen and wait for the answer.

and then we can step onto the frontline armed with truth of the dead and dying, and fight to stop the culture killing all of us.  birds, fish, human babies living on the margins of our societies, mamas holding up the sky,  our dreams, our ancestral lands, our spirits, our stories, our languages.  this earth.  this sky.

i said before we need a movement.  but now i think it is not just any movement that we need, but a coordinated group of people willing to stand on the frontlines, refuse to turn their heads from the decaying flesh, and insist on asking the question again and again.

how do we stop this?

there may not be an easy answer to this question.

how do we stop the murder of our world?

each or our answers will probably look different.  because we come from difft places, perspectives, cultures.  we must listen closely to ourselves and the dying and the living.  and we must be willing to act when necessary.

be ready.  for the time is nigh upon us.

space in between the buzzwords

so i have been (slowly slowly) working on the outlaw midwives zine vol 2.  i really love the submissions.  am inspired. get excited.  and then there comes this block.  and i just came seem to move.

what it comes down to is frustration.  see, over a year ago i put out the call for submissions for outlaw midwives vol 1.  i hadnt seen that many places publishing centered around birth, racism, violence – structural and direct, critiques of the natural birth movement/industry, practical advice for marginalized new mamas, etc.  what i had been looking for when i was preggers, birthing, breastfeeding.  so i decided i wanted to create a space for people to share their stories.  i wasnt sure what to expect, and the response has been awesome.

last summer, squat, a birth journal, appeared.  from the beginning i supported the work, keeping my reservations to myself.

my reservations during the first issue:

1. in the intro there was a mention of wanting squat to be a place for among other folks listed, like ‘radical doulas’, they also mentioned ‘outlaw midwives’.  and yet squat never contacted me to say — hey there is this magazine getting started that we want to be a place for well, outlaw midwives.  i mean it is weird, cause i didnt know of anyone who had used the phrase ‘outlaw midwife’ before me…

2. the contents of the magazine were white, liberal, middle class, natural birth industry stuff.  i mean stuff you can find all over the web. i think  radical doula miriam is the only person who was even kind of pushing the line…kinda…even though it claimed to be an ‘anarchist birth journal’…

before the second issue, squat contacted me and asked if i wanted to submit.  yeah, sure.  sounded cool.  i figured it could be an exchange of support of sorts.  i still identify (with major reservations) as an anarchist.  and i hoped it would push itself to doing more writing and publishing relevant to the communities i center.

anyways, i ended up withdrawing my submission.  some shit went down. and i dont feel like going into the details because i have just run out of my quota for ‘white progressive ladies fuck me over’ stories for year 2010.

issue 2 of squat came out.  primarily white, liberal, natural birth movement-y stuff again.  ugh.

now issue 3 is out.  and on one hand, the content is much closer to what i had been hoping squat mag to be.  on the other hand, i feel jacked.

i dont know why putting lists on the internet calms me down…

what i want to write about:

–connections between the earth, birth, self care, community health, living in the miracle, anti-civilization, rasta feminsim, and the cosmos

–my experience both as an aami student and as a mamma primitiva student

–my life in cairo.  this is hard because i dont want to tell stories that are not mine to tell, and i do want to share and record this beautiful world that i live in.  and what i see and learn.  and unlearn.

–poems, haikus, tankas, series of poems, books of poems, memoir poems

things i am interested in learning more about:

–the connx between reflexology, acupressure, and the childbearing year

–how to bring down civilization quickly (you know the quicker it falls the better it will be for all of us)

–photoshop (i finally have it on my computer, but wow is it a little intimidating!)

–garage band

 

books i want to finish reading:

–birth as an american rite of passage

–sophie’s world

–healing sex

–theatre of the oppressed

–prophet of zongo street

 

things i want to do more:

–imbibe less sugar

–drink more herb tea (especially ginger tea.  am loving it in the cooler days)

–yoga

–meditate

–write poems

–take beautiful photos

–sticker bomb the city (oooh i met another sticker artist!  he is an amazing graphic artist.  love)

–twist my hair up

–call my grandmother

–keep falling in love again and again and again

so much things to say right now…

wow so so much has happened in the past few weeks.  i am srsly just catching up.  so we shall see where this goes…

–you can follow the tumblr

–i am sad that this chica, kat, went back to london and the states.  she was good for my soul here in cairo.  an outlaw girl.

–i witnessed my friends birth in a pool in their apartment.  their son was born in the caul at one am.  it was such a beautiful, magical birth.  and he is such a cute newborn with a head full of hair and a quizzical look on his face.

–nanowrimo.  i am still behind.  but getting there.  this story is taking off in places i did not expect and i admit it is scary to let go and just ride.

–did i mention i have amazing friends?  really i do.  they are so full of heart and verve and fight and smarts and tears and gods and devils and water and fire.

–eid is coming. the air is cool. the sacrificial animals are being groomed and fed.

–i am loved.  truly truly loved.

 

we are

living in the miracle.