mini essay: being together
Last night, cloud and oak kin reminded me that “being together” manifests in countless ways. Being together is a sacred practice that is infinitely more intimate and nourishing when practiced creatively, subversively, multi-dimensionally. Holding hands together, admiring a moonrise together, listening to the same song together, breathing together, existing together, being impacted by climate catastrophe together, experiencing fear together, sleeping in our own beds hundreds of miles apart together, crying on the phone together, being in the same literal frame of reference together like these cloud and oak kin I experienced a storm with yesterday evening.
While at work yesterday, many floors above the ground in an apartment building overlooking poison-rich colonized marshlands still teeming with abundant life amidst overdevelopment, I grounded myself the same way I usually do while in that location: watching pin oaks sway with the wind from a distance against the backdrop of color-changing and shape shifting clouds.
As a rainstorm crept over Munsee Lenape Lands, my mind embraced the blending, booming canvas and I synchronized my breaths with the soft and strong pattering of rain on the balcony. Our sky looked deeply dyed with iron and sumac berries, the shades of grey interrupted only by sporadic flashes of electric yellows of lightning. Swelling and floating, the clouds squeezed rain from every pore in a legato symphony of meteorologic coalescence. The rain and my tears fell together.
I thought about life beneath cloud and rain kin on our shared planetary homebody on these Lands and those that lie beyond this archipelago of empire. I thought about cloud, rain, and wind kin carried by Beryl, whose strength waxed as the number of safe spaces on the Lands beneath the storm waned. I thought about cloud, rain, and wind kin creating streams of raw sewage and flooding tents in Gaza. I thought about the countless ways climate catastrophe empowers extreme weather events while exacerbating existing damage caused by storms of hurricanes past.
The chances of being killed in a manufactured coastal infrastructure disaster increase exponentially when colonial powers defund—or completely ignore—necessary repair and maintenance projects for bridges, tunnels, etc. Not to mention the long-term effects of necropolitical city planning and overdevelopment on Lands destined to be underwater, at least during this stage of our shared planetary homebody’s development.
I think about that often, who is being slowly force fed into the mouths of sacred Waters by genocidal colonizers. I think about how we’re all destined to be swallowed by the sea together.
At least the colors of post-storms skies blending with vibrant oak crowns inspires me to write. I guess. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the violent absurdity of life in a colonial police state together, while we can.
I digress.
By the time my shift was over the storm had passed and the blending, booming canvas grew silent as ochre, marigold, beets, and tekhelet dyed the sky. I was eager to admire the colors from beneath the crowns of my beloved oaks that line the road below. I’d already framed the photograph in my mind before limping my way downstairs and to the sidewalk where I saw that the rain had darkened the bark of the oak trees. The usually grey-brown ridges forming the skin of their lower trunks looked dip dyed in charcoal. They felt rough and damp on my palm as I slowly caressed the bark and watched their leaves dance with the wind.
I looked up at the clouds through the leafy crowns. The image was just as I imagined. Fluffy, blushing pinks greeted dripping leaf sinuses before my eyes and bristle-teethed tips bit glimmering golds as night pulled our sun below the horizon. We stood beneath the moonrise together. We were embraced by the wind together. We survived another day on colonized marshlands together. Cloud and oak kin blessed my lens with life together.
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