IN BLOOM: Desperate Refusal

“Utopia, for me, is a beyond; an earthly beyond. I hesitate to say “mundane”. Because the world today identifies itself with this world: precisely what repels me and which pushes me to search for a world beyond. I feel close therefore to any transcendent measure or dimension. Without identifying with the theological forms that it takes, I find here, and I use, a form of thinking, and a form of speaking, with a political dimension, which metaphorically, or allegorically, alludes to something other than what is here, to something other than that. Even if only in this choice, there is … Continue reading “IN BLOOM: Desperate Refusal”

IN BLOOM: Ghostly Alignment

I had the opportunity to try acupuncture for the first time this weekend; I long ago unpacked the biases that name some medicines “alternative” and some sciences “pseudo,” but I was yet to go under the needle, so to speak, and experience the deconstruction (or reintegration) for myself. I was nervous. Not only because I’m actually a touch sensitive and pain averse wimp, but because this particular practice was more than poking and prodding; there was going to be talk involved too, and I was bursting at the seams with things to say. Lucky for me, this practitioner is the … Continue reading “IN BLOOM: Ghostly Alignment”

Montréal: Airport Swim

This time last year, I was telling you about our little cocoon of comforts by a lake in Idaho. I hadn’t planned to tell you about this cocoon of comforts on our last night in Montreal exactly one year after I told you about that cabin by that lake, but I’m not surprised by the coincidence. x I told you about that lake of baptisms and the washing away of shame, so it’s only appropriate that, one year later, I’d tell you about a dinky little overchlorinated pool on the eighth floor of an in-terminal hotel where silly people try … Continue reading “Montréal: Airport Swim”

#AdventWord 2022: Corinne

Corinne isn’t really on Instagram anymore, but this is how we connected: pouring our little hearts out into this app until we became friends a couple years ago around this time, after a chat about some #AdventWord posts I’d made. Since then, we’ve worked together on a couple of things, including the coolest battle vest you’ve ever seen and that gorgeous set of portraits that David took for @inconjunct. Though I’ve known her primarily as a visual artist, I’m touched and honored to share Corinne’s moving poetry in the next three posts: x WILDERNESS by @cascadiacore Once a wolf swallowed me, andcarried me in … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022: Corinne”

Trip Like I Do—Sunland, June 28

Someone asked me some time ago why my username points to the Columbia River—why not the coordinates of Seattle itself? I said something about my fascination with dislocation & slippery identities; it’s that “catch me if you can” kinda vibe that’s very “on brand.” And all of that is true; I do indeed prefer to be pinned down &/or mapped out with at least some effort—quite literally miss me with that noise, as the kids might say. But there’s another dimension to my choice of this particularly off-centered coordinate. Before I ever read a thing about Nch’i-Wàna, a.k.a. the Columbia, itself, … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Sunland, June 28”

A Note on Aura

I had my aura photographed as a birthday treat on Friday. That experience & this ongoing heatwave seem to be conspiring to get me thinking about bodies again. For one, I don’t like being photographed at all, which is why I wanted to have this moment in time captured in the first place—which made one of the color associations on the little info-card they gave me even more interesting, once my photo had developed: my dominant “vibrational energy” was associated with “new beginnings.” I also don’t like to feel sweaty and gross and physically encumbered by needs & anxieties, & … Continue reading “A Note on Aura”