I am the coalescing awareness of moondust and the eternal void.
I am a coalescing of modern human multiplicity - European blood living on Salish land, living by Kashmir tradition, dancing to Spanish rhythms (which are of African beats & hauntingly beautiful Moorish tunes), counting with Arabic numerals, using technology created by… wearing clothes made by…. eating foods from…
I am the heavens, in which planes now fly, and Christian loved ones go after they die.
I am the loamy earth, in which old bones tell stories of primal ancestors long past, and in which we bury plasticized goods created and no longer desired, which will linger in the soil perhaps as long as those old bones have too.
I am the glacial mountain stream, still safe to drink in some places, for people with healthy guts, and I am the bottled Coke sold to people who cannot drink their streams without poisoning themselves.
I am the coalescing of so many things, beyond ideas and thoughts and beliefs.
I am a descendent of people not from the land upon which I now call home.
There is something lost when a people leave their land.
Or when a people are forced from their land.
Or stolen from their land.
A disembodied culture turns into hollow beings of pathologized ideals.
For a few, the spirit stayed tethered through song. Through dance.
My God! How they did that…
There is something lost that we all yearn for, but look in all the wrong places.
It is not in books, in your thoughts, on your computer.
It is not in making others wrong, or being self-righteous.
It is not further dividing yourself from those you share land with.
How rude.
The concrete may separate you, but the land is there under all of our feet, nonetheless.
What you are yearning for is in the glistening of the eyes of those you do not like.
Your narcissistic ex. The corrupt politician. The drugged-out homeless woman rolling around on the ground, screaming for her suffering to subside.
What you are yearning for is everywhere around you.
Under your feet, especially.
When was the last time you let your whole body-mind melt in the rain?
Or be completely taken by the smell of the loamy earth where you live?
Or lost yourself in the sound of the ocean waves or creek trickling?
I am the coalescing of someone not from this land in which I call home, but it is home.
How is that reconciled?
We root deeper.
Om Jum Saḥ kṣetrapālāya namaḥ | I honor the spirit of this land, for which I do not know the original name.
Our roots intertwine beneath the surface.
This is the only way to create community again.
Or else, we will pick silly fights about ideas, beliefs, thoughts… things that aren’t real… and cause our own demise.
How does a forest recover after it has been clear-cut?
Sometimes it gets replanted (and then re-cut.)
Sometimes it's left feral and it coalesces into something new.
Either way, nature has her way.
It cannot be un-cut.
But it can grow again.
Grow where you are.
Intertwine with those around you.
It is beautiful already, your own coalescing.
What is it?
Tell me, You.