00:02:51.240And I was thinking that's how we could start off the conversation.
00:02:55.520You know, so often I think we focus on healing in either a framework of perfection as if
00:03:02.000there's a point we can look to and say, we are healed.
00:03:05.840or we look at it as potentially a lifelong burden with no end and I'm not sure that either
00:03:13.200understanding fully captures the breadth and depth of what healing may be so I'd just love
00:03:21.280to hear more about how you've grown to understand healing thank you so I feel like healing has
00:03:31.940more to do with presence than it does with the absence of illness or symptoms. And while I can
00:03:43.180understand the need to address symptoms, like I know for myself that whenever I get sick in every
00:03:53.260sense, like physical or an otherwise, I want to get rid of the discomfort. I want to ease or
00:04:02.520alleviate the presenting physical concerns. But I feel like what ends up happening if we focus more
00:04:09.540on the absence of said symptoms and physical manifestations or whatnot, I feel like we miss
00:04:20.080out on the root. And I feel like there's a difference in that case, there's a difference
00:04:26.740between searching for a cure. And I suppose like the most common metaphor that we hear is looking
00:04:34.880for a bandaid than getting to the root cause of why the symptom is present in the first place.
00:04:41.480And I feel like ever since coming to the so-called United States, there's just an overfocus on that, on, again, like on symptom then of story.
00:04:55.560I talk about this a lot in teaching contexts and mentorship contexts where I feel like a Western tradition of how it is to look at healing and medicine is limited in that sense.
00:05:11.840limited in just the presentation, just the individual, like ever since having a higher
00:05:20.680education in the so-called United States, like I feel like there are so many hyper-individualized
00:05:25.860modalities of what it means to get sick and therefore impose upon the individual that it
00:05:36.960it's their sole responsibility to get better. So I think about how the reasons for needing to heal
00:05:44.580has so much to do with one's social or sociopolitical systemic context. So as a therapist
00:05:53.600who sees majority Black, Indigenous, and people of color, those who are also at the intersection of
00:06:00.240being neurodivergent um being disabled and also being queer and trans like part of the reason why
00:06:08.100they um they see me is that I want to pay attention to to context to the systemic forces
00:06:16.800that are at hand that's causing them pain in the first place and within supposed circles and
00:06:26.280contexts of healing and especially in the west um there's a lack of imagination around that
00:06:34.020that mental illness and disorders have more to do with with one's singular experience perhaps even
00:06:45.080like their singular family but what i've noticed is that if we trace the dis-ease in an individual
00:06:55.800it's always going to be connected to the society at large like for instance if I have a client who
00:07:02.600has chronic pain and we unpack that and if we trace that I notice that it has to do with their
00:07:12.080their immigrant experience let's say for example has more to do with the the separation that they
00:07:19.500had from their family, and how that impacts them in a bodily sense. Because from my sensibilities,
00:07:29.880my collectivist and contextual sensibilities, the mind and the body are not severed.
00:07:37.320And the hyper-individualized West has always split them because of the roots and history of
00:07:45.260you know, Gnosticism and just how disembodied the culture is generally. And with that,
00:07:53.280I see how, because the experience of illness, of disorders, and I'm using these terms because
00:08:04.520it makes more sense in, you know, in the world of psychology, if the experience of illness,
00:08:11.060sickness and disorders are, you know, in a systemic collectivist context, then it must mean
00:08:18.100that healing must also be facilitated or experienced in a collectivist, larger context
00:08:27.640and more interconnected context. And I can imagine how that would be more challenging or uncomfortable
00:08:36.580because if healing were collective or interconnected, then it will require or invite
00:08:45.060some of our vulnerability, which a lot of us are not used to. I know for myself, even though I'm
00:08:53.280raised in the collectivist context, it's still pretty scary to consider that. I'd rather go
00:09:00.020about my healing in some degree of isolation because it feels less costly. But as I get into
00:09:07.720this work, it makes more sense. And even though it feels costly, I would rather journey with.
00:09:17.520I think that's what I would say for now. Yeah, there's so much there
00:09:21.220picking in my mind, but there was something that is reminding me of an article you wrote,
00:09:27.400Reclaiming Abundance Under Capitalism, where you write, quote, it is with sustained mutual exchange
00:09:34.520where abundance unfurls and flourishes, end quote. So I'd love to dive in a bit deeper of how
00:09:41.880are flourishing and healing relational, which really was spurred by so much of what you were
00:09:49.760just saying with this idea of collectivist healing yeah so this reminds me of how okay so
00:10:03.840before I got into psychology I was actually a theology major and I grew up in a Filipino
00:10:11.720a Protestant home. And I didn't have a lot of education around church history. And during that
00:10:21.120time, I was intrigued because I wanted to develop my faith. I wanted to, I suppose, like be, I would
00:10:29.480use the terms like be a more efficient or present servant of God, what have you. So I was searching
00:10:36.620for God. I searched for God in theological study in undergrad and also part of grad school.
00:10:45.540And one of the things that I ironically encountered is, you know, that theology is the
00:10:54.100study of God. But what was interesting is as I studied theology, it felt like I studied more
00:11:00.140about man or about humankind than I did of God, meaning I studied more the interpretations of
00:11:08.160God, the wars in the name of God, the dogma, the decrees, the intense violent conflict and
00:11:18.020fragmentation of the Christian church. In my search of God, I learned more about man. And
00:11:26.560I'm very specific about using the term man because it's a very patriarchal, at least
00:11:31.800in white evangelicalism, a very patriarchal tradition.
00:11:40.720And I'm very fortunate to have studied psychology in a context where we focused, like the school
00:11:50.760that I went to focused a lot on intersectionality, focused more on justice-oriented work, focused
00:11:57.400more on somatics, meaning the connection between mind and body. As I got into psychology, that's
00:12:03.260where I feel like I found God or I found the divine or I found creator. Because as I got to
00:12:09.600know the brain and the body, the connection between both. I saw that we are wired for
00:12:18.740connection. And what I mean by that is that as I studied more about psychology, I saw how much
00:12:25.940our survival is so dependent upon the gaze and the presence of another, that our
00:12:35.780um psychobiological formation our psychobiological formation and our health is so
00:12:42.520dependent upon the connection of another like for instance an attachment theory
00:12:48.160um it's a theory that says that however way your parent or caregiver um has given you
00:12:59.000attention, love, and attunement would then influence heavily on the way that you engage
00:13:08.320with intimacy later. It is with theories like this that I also saw how much, depending on
00:13:15.560your connection with your parent or with your caregiver during your formative years, it will
00:13:20.380also result in how you are in your immune system later. Like for instance, there've been studies
00:13:30.880where if a child or an infant is neglected, even though their so-called basic needs are met,
00:13:40.160like for instance, if they have shelter, food, water, clothing, et cetera, but the attention
00:13:47.100and attunement of an adult isn't there could still result in like lower mortality rates
00:13:58.220could result in them being more like they are developing autoimmune diseases later.
00:14:07.860And you know how it is like when we hear about basic needs, we often think about food, shelter,
00:14:13.700water, clothing, et cetera, like the so-called physical needs. But then as I learned about
00:14:19.000psychology, I saw how much, what if connection and an attunement and some degree of intimacy
00:14:31.860is also a basic need. And that was just moving to me to see how much our neural architecture
00:14:40.900and our psychobiological architecture is so heavily formed by connection that's when I saw
00:14:49.880or witnessed or felt the creator or whoever it is who or whoever it is or whoever
00:14:57.680beings who formed and shaped us as a species or as an ecosystem that we are wired for relationship
00:15:07.520that we are wired for connection and yet we live in a society that aims and strategizes towards
00:15:16.720like severing us from one another through capitalist through the capitalist project
00:15:23.880through the colonial through the colonial project by way of of telling us that or imposing or
00:15:33.860educating us that in order to survive we have to be over um we have to be overproductive we have to
00:15:45.000be um competitive in the field and which could result in us being separate being more isolated
00:15:53.020and and it's so and as I'm talking about this I'm just realizing how um simple it could feel
00:16:02.300that we are wired for connection and yet it's so difficult even though it's so simple it's like
00:16:07.840I'm feeling um there are parts of me which are probably which are very likely influenced by
00:16:15.160trauma responses and by trauma as well that that resists the idea that um that for me to to be
00:16:24.020well or to be quote-unquote healthy or to heal has so much to do with my relationships has so
00:16:30.420much to do with my connections and I don't just mean my connections with fellow human species but
00:16:35.880also beyond human species like what is it like to have the rest of the members of the ecosystem
00:16:41.960as my attachment figures what is it like to attune with them and to connect with them and
00:16:46.860how much my health and well-being and my healing has so much to do with how I'm connected
00:16:53.080Oh, absolutely. I think that has been showing itself to us, this connection between our healing and the healing of the earth or unwellness of us individually and the unwellness of everything around us.
00:17:17.720I don't think many people might be conscious of that because of our cultural conditioning and just the way that we're being told what we are or aren't and why that is.
00:17:31.940But I completely agree with that. And yeah, it kind of brings me to this thought around collective grief and the relationships to oppression. And something that you write in How to Decolonize Mental Health Treatment for BIPOC for Yes Magazine, you write,
00:17:51.620The mental health industry is no stranger to a culture of punishment and policing while also replicating environments of incarceration from that of the prison industrial complex, end quote.
00:18:03.500And so my question for you is how might we or how might understanding care collectively, socially and politically impact the way we understand mental health and what happens when the issue is with society and not with the individual?
00:18:21.620Mm hmm. If we go about healing in that way, then society and the state would have to like if we lead with that, they would have to have a sense of responsibility and having to undo the very sources of why mental health conditions or mental health disorders exist in the first place.
00:18:43.460So it makes sense why the mental health industrial complex would lead with the individual than they would with the society, because it would mean that they would have to be accountable.
00:18:55.360And this is kind of interesting to come from a practitioner of the field, perhaps even, you know, just threatening to the state or from or threatening to the mental health industry.
00:19:09.540but I have to I suppose like as a way to respect the mental health world I would have to address
00:19:16.980its lack of integrity and address the fact that the mental health industry is still an industry
00:19:23.680and as long as an industry exists they exist to profit and in this case and I say this because
00:19:32.040I'm also you know I'm also complicit to it specifically with the mental health industry
00:19:38.360it profits off of other people's trauma other people's tears like the reason why i am the
00:19:45.380reason why i'm able to pay my bills is because another people another person is hurting another
00:19:50.940client is hurting and so if we um i feel like the way that we have to engage with um with healing or
00:20:04.700with treatment plans, with wellness plans rather, has to be holistic, has to be, as I keep talking
00:20:13.160about, like it has to be interconnected because it means that the reasons for our grief and our
00:20:19.720grief itself is also interconnected, especially in our time right now where our exposure to violence,
00:20:27.660our exposure to harm has increased due to social media, due to the internet, our access to such
00:20:36.240information. And I wrote in this article how vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress
00:20:48.840exists like just by witnessing um a violent act a harmful act influences our our neural networks
00:20:59.280and in a way it influences it in a way as though we were there we were at the actual scene so this
00:21:06.580is why I talked whenever I talked to people about their traumatic response to an event that they
00:21:12.480weren't even physically in this is what I would tell them that just by witnessing something even
00:21:19.660through the screen this impacts you and so if this awareness weren't known or distributed
00:21:29.940people just end up gaslighting themselves or diminishing the impact even though the impact
00:21:36.940is valid and is vast so i feel like now more than ever um we have to we as in the people maybe more
00:21:47.960the people than than the state than the industry itself have to reckon with that just the reality
00:21:55.040of our just the level of our connectedness and i just want to say too how difficult that is
00:22:01.420How difficult it is to try to heal in that kind of context, to try to get better in a society that contradicts our relations, that insists that the more vulnerable and connected we are, that that actually weakens us or that it disrupts our path towards success or security.
00:22:26.860So I just wanted to, I just want to recognize how, how it's one thing to say it, it's another thing to believe it and to do or practice from a sense of interconnectedness.
00:22:40.860connectedness, um, to practice and believe from a sense that, um, from, from a belief system
00:22:48.420that trusts that, that your freedom has so much to do with my freedom, that your flourishing
00:22:57.620impacts my flourishing. That is radical. That's a radical belief. And, um, it's radical,
00:23:06.040especially in the context of a society that believes in the disposability of marginalized
00:23:11.720folks, of folks who have done different scales of harm. It's a radical thought. It's a radical practice.
00:23:36.040There are a few things that you said in your response that made me think of what are other
00:24:01.940forms of connection and healing that are perhaps outside the system that people can maybe more
00:24:12.560easily have access to or feels more radical in the ways that you're speaking to. I'm just feeling
00:24:21.340into the importance of recognizing that there's not just one solution or maybe even any solutions
00:24:26.780to transformation and understanding trauma. And going back to the interview or the article,
00:24:33.240excuse me, how to decolonize mental health treatment for BIPOC, you wrote, quote,
00:24:38.140it's possible that the compass guiding us towards our healing points or healing points us back to
00:24:45.240ourselves and our relationships, the relationships with our communities, natural world, our roots and
00:24:50.120our ancestors, end quote. And of course, that's so much of what you've been speaking to. And also
00:24:55.720in that article, you do talk about how therapy can be helpful and it's not the only way. And so
00:25:02.980yeah, I'm wanting to hear you expand on that. And maybe also we could speak to
00:25:09.800how do our bodies teach us to heal and to self-soothe?
00:25:15.780Yeah. What I love about the message of abundance, the essence of abundance is that it teaches me
00:25:24.860that we already have all we need in order to heal and that means that our body self heals um especially
00:25:35.480in in the proper conditions in which it heals um that we already have the again like our ecosystems
00:25:46.020our relationships in order to heal and what the state insists is that is is the scarcity mentality
00:25:53.360that we need more the state insists a culture of more and you know beyond what we already have
00:26:01.920and in a way um it also makes sense that people have a scarcity mindset because
00:26:11.740um the system does privatize and pollute a lot of the already existing natural resources
00:26:20.380that we all naturally already have so um it also makes sense but essentially um again we lead with
00:26:30.060the the framework of abundance where we already have all we need to heal and i kind of um so in
00:26:38.580my my practice in my teachings i try to emphasize that and and with that how do we access the
00:26:47.600the parts of our body the parts of our soul the parts of our relationship how do we enhance these
00:26:53.360parts that are that have healing properties so if I think about um let's say embodiment work
00:27:00.520one of the things that I would let my client or my community consider are like something as simple
00:27:09.880as as as releasing it could be in the form of dance it could be in the form of song
00:27:15.860it can be in the form of a meditative breathing practice we hold so much in our bodies our
00:27:24.800bodies are incredibly intelligent we have such a high capacity to absorb the experiences around us
00:27:31.160even absorb the experiences of generations before us especially as I learn about the
00:27:38.220intergenerational transmission of trauma that we've inherited stories we've inherited trauma
00:27:44.780from ancestors that we know and don't know. And so what is it like to release a lot of what's not
00:27:53.380ours, even the things that are ours, but that we don't want to be aligned in the path ahead.
00:28:02.440And so even though it sounds so simple, I would invite my community, even myself, to
00:28:11.120find embodiment practices. For me, and I feel quite privileged to have access to this, but I
00:28:18.380would have a massage like once every two weeks. It's soothing to me. And I also take some time to
00:28:29.200to bask before my ancestor altar. That to me is an embodiment practice because it's meditative
00:28:37.400in a way where I could just gaze upon my altar, gaze upon the photographs of my ancestors,
00:28:44.340gaze at the elements, the sacred elements that are on the altar. It allows me to feel my connection
00:28:52.600with my ancestors and remind me of our interconnectedness that way. And remind me
00:29:00.060that I did not just receive or inherit the trauma, but also the medicine. Try to highlight that in
00:29:07.380in intergenerational experiences where we not only inherited the pain, the survival mechanisms,
00:29:17.580but we've also inherited the joy, the laughter, the beauty, the capacity for closeness,
00:29:26.080the creativity. And whenever I'm embodied, whenever I'm present with my body, I have a
00:29:32.760higher capacity to, to access that ancestral wisdom. When I'm with my breath and when I'm
00:29:39.840grounded, I have a higher capacity to be present with these, with these ideas and with these
00:29:47.940stories. So that's one like embodiment practices. Like I also think about beauty as medicine,
00:29:59.360maybe for folks who are in spiritual spaces, y'all hear this a lot, but I really think that
00:30:05.040beauty is medicine. So I think about beauty in the context of doing creative work, of
00:30:12.400telling your story, of listening to other people's stories. There is a generative power
00:30:20.680to storytelling and to creativity, where if I witness somebody else's story or somebody else's
00:30:29.100creativity. I feel compelled to tell my story. I feel compelled to create. I think that's so
00:30:35.840beautiful because the more distinct the artist is, the more distinct and unique that I feel called
00:30:43.100to create as well. And that also reminds me of my own, of our own sense of interconnectedness
00:30:50.840in that way, where how is it that somebody else's particularities in their story invite me
00:30:58.860to, to seek my own, to seek my own particularities, my own, my own uniqueness, my own sacredness,
00:31:06.360as I bear witness to that of another. I think that there's a healing component to that because
00:31:12.620again, it invites more presence. It also invites more embodiment. Like I think about the creative
00:31:19.440process and how it connects mind and body. And it also connects me to some sense of spirituality.
00:31:30.400Again, if we're looking at holistic healing, we consider physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual
00:31:37.040aspects. And so often in Western medicine and psychology, the spiritual is neglected. In fact,
00:31:45.380when you address anything that's spiritual it's even labeled as psychotic and so um in non-western
00:31:54.560perhaps even in indigenous practices what is it in when it comes to healing what is it like to
00:32:00.200invite the spiritual into your healing because and that to me makes sense because in my colonial
00:32:07.720history, my spirituality was invaded upon, was colonized. Christianity was weaponized.
00:32:17.300My ancestors' indigenous practices and traditions were labeled as primitive, as savage, as
00:32:24.480inferior. And so it must mean that part of my healing also has to do with healing my spiritual
00:32:33.360being healing my connections with the cosmos with my ancestors with realms beyond the material realm
00:32:42.980so yeah so that comes to mind spirituality beauty even poetry I find poetry to be quite
00:32:49.580healing for me and some clients and I would bring a poetry in sessions and that might seem
00:32:57.300unconventional, but it actually invites more, invites more meaning to our sessions.
00:33:07.520It allows to, it helps us make the unconscious conscious by, you know, bringing up metaphor
00:33:13.760and imagery. What does this rhyme mean to you? What does this metaphor mean to you? And it
00:33:20.500invites us to more understanding, more self-understanding. So a lot of this might
00:33:24.980sound unconventional, but, but I think that it's in the emergent and distinct from the status quo
00:33:35.960methods or techniques where we find a lot of ourselves and we find who we could be as a
00:33:43.860community. Another thing that I've seen you write about, which could be one of these embodiment
00:33:54.000practices is the importance of cultural tradition in the ways of food, as an example. And I really
00:34:01.840love this. I've been noticing that when I really want to chill out, I'll watch food videos and
00:34:09.600there's something about it that feels so human and brings me into ease and a type of healing
00:34:19.660where I can focus on something nourishing. And it's something that I have to do anyways every
00:34:24.700day. And so, yeah, I just love that food is such a significant example of the ways that
00:34:30.780the things that offer connection and respite are often tangled into the webs of white supremacy
00:34:39.860and capitalism. And at the same time, though, I think there can be these simple ways to reassert
00:34:46.540cultural and traditional values here that go beyond our current system. So I would just love
00:34:52.680to hear more from you about our relationship to reconnecting with food. Yeah. There's been a lot
00:35:00.960of literature, specifically social political literature and material on food now, which is
00:35:06.500great. Like we are starting to address more about the unethical production and distribution of food,
00:35:14.280food colonization also have more increased we have increased conversations around
00:35:21.300eating disorders and the relationship between body shame and also food and
00:35:30.880we can appreciate this and learn from it and it's critical to be aware of these intersections and
00:35:40.800these realities and there also came a time when this is in the article but I um one night I
00:35:49.600realized that I've I've only engaged with food from how how it's been colonized how much there's
00:35:57.460been a lot of um issues like more negative issues around it and um one night some friends and I
00:36:05.640gathered we did this um filipino eating tradition called gamayan which means to use one's hands or
00:36:12.580to or by hand it's a filipino tradition where the table that you use to to eat is has like
00:36:21.000steamed or sterilized um banana leaves on it and you've got a lot of rice you've got a lot of
00:36:30.440protein and produce, mostly grilled food, fruits and salted egg, et cetera. And we don't have any
00:36:41.740separate plating. We all share. It's one big meal that we all share together and we get to use our
00:36:50.020hands. So that is automatically a form of embodiment is when we involve the senses a lot
00:36:59.360more not just the sense of taste but also of touch and in that during that evening that's
00:37:07.200when I realized that oh I kind of lost track of how food is also medicine is also I mean
00:37:15.380obviously we do think about food as medicine that's where we get our our nutrients our
00:37:22.800sustenance but what if it's also a social and also spiritual type of medicine where it is with
00:37:31.220the presence of my loved ones it is in the context of preserving ancestral tradition
00:37:37.160it is within the context of eating the food of my people that I feel more myself where I feel more
00:37:48.580at home where I don't have to worry about how the state targets me or surveils me where we could
00:38:03.520just be us in the moment and so in this article and even right now with with with my life and
00:38:13.660my relationships um i i want to go about food approach food have a different relationship
00:38:20.860with food um in a more intentional way um where like recently um i just started to eat
00:38:31.980and i and again like this is so subjective like i try to eat without playing something in the
00:38:40.140background because before I would have, I don't know, like music or a movie or a show or a podcast
00:38:49.280episode on. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does kind of shift my attention
00:38:57.660from what I partake to kind of like scattering my attention to other places, I suppose. But this
00:39:04.760time around, I'm shifting my engagement with food by way of really noticing the flavor,
00:39:12.060the texture. It's another way of looking at it as mindful eating is when I take my time
00:39:21.980with the flavors, the substance, the grains, all that I eat. And I feel like that is
00:39:34.760again, like that might feel simple as a simple healing practice, but it also feels like I'm
00:39:41.580divesting capitalism because capitalism insists that we rush, that we, you know, just eat food
00:39:49.620so that we're sustained enough to get back to work. And that food is only for, it is only meant
00:39:56.040as fuel to be able to be a machine, but I want to divest that. I want to not just regard food
00:40:06.000as a fuel. I'm grateful for how much food does give me more energy, allows me to have the energy
00:40:14.300to go about my day, to connect with you, to connect with myself. But it's more than just
00:40:23.880a fuel. It's also a portal. This is what my editor says, Ayu, a portal to connecting with
00:40:32.920my ancestors, with my loved ones, with myself, and with the present moment.
00:40:53.880the path I have not taken calling out into the darkness have you seen the blackbird silent is
00:41:05.240the answer oh night sky with all your open eyes there's another topic that I really wanted to
00:41:16.520explore with you, which is around how to find what we want and desire and eros beyond what
00:41:24.640we've been told we should desire. Because so much societal conditioning tears at so much of our
00:41:33.860identity and often tells us that our desires are somehow wrong or should be something we're ashamed
00:41:39.780of. And I'm really interested in how do we break out of this cycle and listen to the voice of what
00:41:46.480our desires really are. And when I say desires, I'm also speaking about desires that are
00:41:51.960accountable to the earth, accountable to ourselves, to our communities, to our relationships.
00:41:58.800Yeah. Thank you. I love this topic. And I love talking about this, about desire, specifically
00:42:04.740in the context of the diaspora, which I believe are, of course, like connected to a lot more
00:42:09.740universal themes and experiences. So when we engage with desire, even pleasure or the erotic,
00:42:21.440and I pay homage to Audre Lorde, to Roland Barthes, to Esther Perel, and a lot of queer
00:42:30.340writers of color when it comes to the topic of desire, longing, and pleasure. It feels like
00:42:36.600stepping into desire is dangerous to the state.
00:43:01.640how I love talking about freedom and healing in a way where we're not only discussing and engaging
00:43:12.040with what we could be free from, which is, you know, different kinds of oppression and violence
00:43:20.500and trauma, but I'm also concerned about what we could be free for or free towards, you know,
00:43:28.120in the moments where we don't have to think about this state and state violence, we got to be able
00:43:36.000to have the imagination, the language, the vulnerability to access, okay, what am I about?
00:43:44.360You know, what is it that makes me come alive? And Eros has, of course, when we think about Eros,
00:43:52.600we think about sex and senses and sensuality. Of course, it has so much to do with that,
00:43:56.700but it also has to do with a sense of aliveness because we can have all the sex that we want and
00:44:03.600still not feel alive you know and and so what is it that makes us align with our our our sense of
00:44:13.480purpose and I don't also just mean aliveness that in a sense that you know it's just a constant
00:44:20.920state of being happy. I don't, it's not about just being happy. Alok, and you've had Alok here
00:44:29.220before in this podcast, it was a beautiful conversation, talked about, they talked about
00:44:34.760lucidity and how, I'm paraphrasing, but I think they were referring to the ability to experience
00:44:42.660the fullness of every emotion and every state. And I think that's also what I'd like to associate
00:44:50.140with desire and my hope in my work in what I write is that that we're more okay and more comfortable
00:45:03.580in taking ownership of of that desire of of accessing what makes us come alive and I feel
00:45:12.620like with specifically my experience or maybe the diasporic experience having to experience
00:45:19.880having to endure different types of of dispossession and severance from from land from
00:45:28.360ancestors from culture from language and needing to adapt in new spaces or foreign
00:45:36.040I suppose like contexts and having to be in the in-between a lot having to translate a lot it
00:45:44.720can be difficult to access that desire because we have to or I have to be less visible I have to be
00:45:53.340more flexible I have to adjust all the time I have to mimic or imitate what's considered normal
00:46:03.100around me that I have to compromise um some of my uh culture in order to fit in um in in those
00:46:13.740contexts it can be difficult to access desire and so with that uh yeah what is it like to address
00:46:23.300you know what is it that I'm trying to free myself from what is the um the cultural pressures
00:46:32.060the pressure to be um more white more white american um that i'm trying to free myself from
00:46:40.400and then what am i freeing myself towards or where am i freeing myself towards which in a way feels
00:46:45.360like a return of sorts like a return to roots a return to to one's own um motherland maybe not
00:46:52.800physically but the stories that come before me you know and i feel like um in the context of
00:47:00.280accountability with with the land oh my gosh like i feel like there's so many of us who are able to
00:47:07.480access desire and aliveness through through nature through um through what the trees and
00:47:16.760the streams of water through other species um give us because i feel like the more that i
00:47:24.600um the more that i observe beyond human species it feels like they're more
00:47:30.560they're living accordingly to their kind and humans are not um humans try to not be human
00:47:39.960by um again like being complicit to the capitalist project in a way and in a way we have to be in
00:47:46.440order to survive unfortunately this is the setup but whenever i see just fish being fish
00:47:51.560and, and, and being together, trying to find food together, no homework, no work. I'm, I'm reminded
00:48:01.680of how, you know, is it, is it possible that we just have to access what we already have right
00:48:07.660now? Again, like accessing the natural abundance that we already have and somehow beyond human
00:48:13.260species naturally show that to me and in the context of accountability how do I in my work
00:48:22.580in my subjective experience in my own skills and and strengths how do I maintain that abundance
00:48:31.760for them for these species for the land what does it mean to sustain their
00:48:39.640them just being them. And to add on to that, like, I feel like accountability towards the natural
00:48:53.880world will always be land back, will always be returning the land and the stewardship of the0.57
00:49:00.300land to indigenous peoples. And so I feel like that has to be accomplished at a local level,0.55
00:49:06.200um at a grassroots local level uh dependent on where you're at and again like dependent on where
00:49:13.440your strengths are at and to organize and to practice justice oriented climate justice
00:49:21.400oriented practice and land back justice oriented practice um with um to lead with awe in that to
00:49:30.960lead with wonder, to lead with astonishment, astonishment of the beauty before us and
00:49:38.540wanting that beauty to be sustained, to be protected. Yeah. I feel like that's, that's
00:49:45.180important to me yeah yeah and I I guess I'm I feel that this eros or desire and love can
00:50:02.500connect us or or lead us to new worlds and I'm really yeah I think it's funny because in a lot
00:50:13.300of ways what we see in dominant culture of how to get out of the predicament we're in is more of
00:50:20.860the same like more extraction more industry different economies different money systems but
00:50:30.700really it's just reinventing the same wheel and I think so much of what you've spoken about
00:50:37.240our i don't want to say the solutions because i really don't like that word but uh they are the
00:50:44.440ways we can explore ourselves out of this really challenging and um in a lot of ways sad time
00:50:59.340lonely, lonely time. And so, yeah, I just love speaking with that and thinking about your
00:51:08.040article, what capitalism has to do with falling in love. And I really love that title. And I love
00:51:16.020thinking about how we move beyond extraction and how we, yeah, how love and desire and connectedness
00:51:24.900leads us to new worlds. And how do we grow and listen to them and show up for our love?
00:51:31.260You write, love is multifaceted, love is messy, and messy isn't marketable. It takes courage to
00:51:37.480confront that each of us loves in complex and untidy ways. And that means we won't always get
00:51:43.480things right. The good news is that being a lover doesn't mean being perfect. It's about showing up,
00:51:49.460end quote and yeah maybe we could just speak to showing up for love and explore that a bit
00:52:00.040I love that thank you I forgot that I wrote those words thank you for reminding me of those words
00:52:06.440I feel like being a lover is one of the selves that I want to access to more
00:52:17.060I wish that we asked each other that more in a you know day-to-day or maybe like weekly basis
00:52:25.180like how are you a lover today and I feel like if I am asked that I am reminded of
00:52:34.400the things that I already have and that I'm already that I can be grateful for I feel like
00:52:40.820the at the heart of being a lover is gratitude is awe and being in this world right now
00:52:51.840an over consumptive overindulgent extractivist as you say and I agree with that world
00:53:00.820there's something about awe and gratitude that makes me want to give and maybe in certain moments
00:53:09.220to also um give up on on things that do not that get in the way of our connection of our intimacy
00:53:21.540of of what's possible with our connection and so when i think about um let's say my
00:53:30.980so i'm back here in the philippines i'm in closer proximity with the ocean
00:53:35.000and i'm i'm getting into surfing and there's a aliveness to it a connection with the water
00:53:43.520with the waves with balance and motion and because of that awe because of that astonishment
00:53:51.020and that uh tapped in electrifying energy i i try as best as i can for that not to be interrupted
00:53:59.900and with the gratitude towards the waves how then do i um you know practice and have sustained
00:54:10.980practice that would protect the ocean so that's what i mean earlier that when we organize when
00:54:17.440we unionize when we are when we defy um capitalist and white supremacist ableist etc like notions
00:54:27.760ideologies and and structures of the state like how do we lead with astonishment how do we lead
00:54:34.560with the gratitude that we have over the things the beings the subjects of our astonishment
00:54:40.320and and it does start with asking like you know how are you um how are you a lover today like
00:54:51.100what is it that you're you're in awe of you know who is the subject or what is the subject
00:54:57.160of your affections what was when was the last moment that made you feel like you want to lean
00:55:04.100in um that made you feel safe enough to want to lean in to be intrigued to um to embrace to kiss
00:55:14.600um to to listen and i will always connect like as long as i'm living in this lifetime i will
00:55:24.740always connect loverhood with um with social justice work or justice oriented practice like
00:55:32.860I feel like there's I can't disentangle these two parts of my life like a lot of why I do what I do
00:55:41.960has so much to do with wanting to express this gratitude, this awe, this wonder,
00:55:57.860or this intrigue towards more wonder and possibility. I feel like I'm drifting from
00:56:04.300your question. I'm just like really riffing from that. And I think I'm also expanding what it also
00:56:11.280means to fall in love too. Like it's more than just the, you know, monogamous romantic partnership,
00:56:18.280but I think about what it's like to fall in love with, with friends, to fall in love with, again,
00:56:24.380like beyond human species, to fall in love with stories, even to fall in love with parts of
00:56:29.420yourself um that kind of brings me back to my humanity um and to feel more humanized or
00:56:41.040re-humanized is automatically defiant against capitalism that functions in a way that wants
00:56:48.820us to be machines and so um yeah I feel like I it makes me wonder like what is it like for for you
00:56:57.280or for anybody who's listening to intersect loverhood with your practices, with the ways
00:57:03.780that y'all divest capitalism and oppression. Oh, Gabes, thank you so much for going in so
00:57:13.540many directions with us. And it's been a really sweet conversation that has left me feeling warm
00:57:22.040And also more and more ready to show up to continue and do the work internally, externally, individually, collectively, all the ways that we've spoken to.