00:00:15.200Hello and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast.
00:00:19.640My name is Amy and I am just thrilled beyond to be in circle with not one, not two,
00:00:27.180But the three co-editors of one of my new favorite books, Poetry as Spellcasting, I want to thank Tomiko Byer, Destiny Hemphill, and Lisbeth White for joining us in Circle today.
00:00:42.180Thank you so much, the three of you, for being here together.
00:01:12.640And the portal appears before proceeding an invocation to be read aloud.
00:01:21.140Scarlet sky, fissured earth, cotton-mouthed, your hands clasped across your splitting belly
00:01:33.880in your craw is the historical entanglement, the half-millennium-long planetary ecocide
00:01:43.180genocide not known as since 1492 you were born into it and it into you churning burning
00:01:53.860bulging within you your ears ring soften your craggy breath now a hum soften your craggy breath
00:02:04.040now a song now a song yes a cicada song burrowing into your skull go to the edge
00:02:15.820not the bleach pit of the center but the edge the song says go to the edge no not the hemorrhaged
00:02:25.320modeling borders of empire but beyond elsewhere go to the edge look down slivers a moon rind so
00:02:36.400thin they look like they could slice the soles of your feet the luma in your path you follow them
00:02:43.780sometimes you walk slither hop along the slivers a moon rind to the edge sometimes the knot makes0.99
00:02:50.260that you are writhing convulsing revolting to the edge to the edge nonetheless the edge be a liminal
00:02:59.320space and you know liminal don't equal marginal and if you don't know now you know but rather
00:03:06.200liminal be a ritual space and a ritual space before summoning and transformation when you arrive
00:03:13.880the fragrance of mulberry trees washes over you it is dusk you are not alone here
00:03:22.480others surround you with red threads hanging from their mouths you feel the knot entangled
00:03:30.780within you unravel you all kneel sink into the edge pull the threads from each of your own mouths
00:03:38.200not always gently, not always gingerly. As you pull, unravel, disentangle, you swoon and sway
00:03:47.000in somnolence. A summoning hum, then howl, comes from your throats. And as you summon other worlds,
00:03:55.960may other worlds summon you. And as you summon another world, may another world summon you.
00:04:02.960And it's to summon mother world, a mother world, summon, summon, summon.
00:04:15.800Thank you so much. I love that piece. Destiny, that was Destiny Hemphill reading.
00:04:21.960Can you tell us first a bit about who you are as an individual and also maybe a little bit about the process of writing that piece that you just read for us?
00:04:32.960Sure. So I'm Destiny. I am a poet and ritual worker. I'm chronically ill, and I'm a Black
00:04:43.620daughter of the U.S. South, who has homes in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas, and now North
00:04:50.580Carolina. I wrote that poem during the lunar eclipse in Leo of 2020, which coincided
00:05:03.440with Wuhan shutting down for COVID. And so it was like a big portal opening.
00:05:13.920um on my end state side I was in Portland for a writing retreat and I was in the midst of an
00:05:25.260endometriosis episode so I was dealing with pain somnia and I had this image of someone pulling
00:05:36.840red thread from their mouth and then a ball of tangled red thread in their belly and then
00:05:45.640that was probably like I don't know at 3 a.m and then around like 6 a.m or 7 a.m I got on
00:05:52.080Instagram I saw a friend actually doodled what I had a vision of and so I messaged them and I was
00:06:00.780like oh like I just saw this in my own head and yeah so then I started piecing the poem together
00:06:11.300came in fragments in terms of images and then I was trying to discern you know what was in
00:06:24.500the figures belly what was embedded in them that was trying to um come out and
00:06:35.580and like what was not in them and so um I was thinking about the eco genocide genocide not
00:06:43.560of of colonization and and that sort of violence that's embedded and this particular poem comes
00:06:52.420from um my poetry collection too so it's like what opens the poetry collection and in that
00:07:00.080collection i'm thinking about apocalypse not as the end of the world in any singular sense but
00:07:06.300the end of a world that's constructed by coloniality anti-blackness and with the retreat
00:07:12.320of those structures um maybe we can build new ways of relating with each other rituals of care
00:07:20.680that sustained life, and specifically Black life.
00:07:25.320So that was also a way for me to let the reader know
00:07:32.300in the poetry collection manuscript what is about to happen
00:13:07.300I identify as Black bi-cultural, so I've got some roots in the American South as well, and the Pacific Northwest by way of Northern Europe and West Africa.
00:13:22.560I also identify as femme, queer, tree-loving, magical, whimsy, Piscean spirit in general.
00:13:42.140And I don't know that, I mean, I think Destiny and Tamiko kind of explained our ethos around
00:13:47.400creating ritual pretty well, so I don't know that I have too much to add around that.
00:13:52.560But I will say that I think part of what we all kind of, if I could speak for us all, like really vibe on is this idea of kind of like a living or active space when we're in space with folks.
00:14:10.100Right. So I think, you know, Tomiko mentioned none of us seem super interested in just reading to people with this work, especially in particular.
00:14:18.300And so we have kind of set the invitation for ourselves to respond to what feels most poignant and pertinent in the moment, which is how we've decided which kind of areas of the culture to kind of send some ritual magic to.
00:14:40.280um and also to allow it to be what it is in the moment and not necessarily work so hard on
00:14:48.700replicating um things again and again but to really like keep it as a living um a living
00:14:55.960ritual every time we we convene together and I think the book is so demonstrative of that
00:15:04.120of that ethos that each of you has um pieces that you've written in here but you've also
00:15:09.500pulled work from other people and I have some questions about that but I guess like maybe
00:15:13.960let's start with my umbrella question um when I just on title alone I was so excited about this
00:15:21.980book uh and reading it I just got more and more excited again it's like it's honest about
00:15:30.780you know capitalism and and white supremacy but at the same time it's like it's hopeful
00:15:38.040and joyful and constructive so I don't know who wants to answer this first I'll put it out to the
00:15:45.000group how is poetry spellcasting it's such a big I like it's a whole book there's this way where
00:15:54.700it feels like you know even though we've been in study with it for or I'll speak for myself even
00:16:00.380though I've been in study with it for this course you know these two years three years four years
00:16:06.120however long we've been in study around putting this book together um it still feels so
00:16:12.460uh almost like elusive and mysterious and um and shifting in this way that I really appreciate
00:16:23.060um you know I think it opens up a myriad of meanings that are possible um I think for me
00:16:33.160one of the roots of uh thinking of poetry spellcasting really was thinking about um oh
00:16:39.120well kinji right kinji silu and and actually you know tamiko was the one who brought this to
00:16:46.220to my kind of awareness and knowledge was um kinji silu did this work uh um i think it was a
00:16:56.380an anthology or a review right where he collected um some poet spellcasters together
00:17:04.600and really talked about um poetry uh language is one of the original magics
00:17:10.220right and then from there you know i think most poets are like yes language does something
00:17:18.420to us and with us as we're writing um and you know if we think about languages as one of the
00:17:27.120original magics then it really opens up the accessibility of what we think of as magic and
00:17:32.080what we think of as um potential for power right because everybody has language a language whether
00:17:39.160it's a verbal language a body language physical language is spiritual language right like that's
00:17:45.160that's what's present for most living beings on on the planet and unique to them and I'm gonna trail
00:17:55.400off there and see who picks that thread yeah I agree that I mean each time we talk about it and
00:18:10.080people ask well what is like how is poetry spielcasting or what is poetry spielcasting
00:18:14.980I feel like that meme of the woman where it's like she just looks so befuddled and puzzled and
00:18:24.460then there's like all of these formulas like on this board and she's just like I don't like I
00:18:30.720don't know um and I think I think that's part of the the magic of it of it too but um yeah I think
00:18:41.620this this part about language and like being really attuned and intentional to a frequency
00:18:49.860and also like economy um so that like if you are writing or penning or scribing a spell or prayer
00:18:59.700or a poem, there's a way that one might be trying to find what is most precise and potent
00:19:12.740and that, you know, doesn't get delayed by, yeah, like linguistic obstacles basically.
00:19:29.700that could point it in a different direction so that like me even the idea of calling forth or
00:19:38.320invoking something but then also adding like or some like or saying something better at the end
00:19:45.020because it's like okay maybe if I call this forth maybe that's not actually what is better I don't
00:19:49.640know what's better it's not for me to like list out and enumerate right now but like let me let
00:19:56.740me say that in this pretty compact phrase and I feel like poetry um is a similar practice of like
00:20:02.340okay how can I create something that's the most potent um and intentional um and that honors
00:20:11.280limits limitations um I think for my personal practice like I grew up my mom's a minister I
00:20:20.060grew up in the church um and so i think black sermonic tradition in terms of like chiasmus
00:20:27.940synaphera epistrophe different mnemonic devices um wordplay like that for me
00:20:39.660was always it became my foundation for how i understood language to have a material
00:24:16.340poetry is my prayer language um and i don't necessarily engage all poetry as prayer like
00:24:26.780i don't engage all poets work as a prayer but in terms of my practice um poetry is my prayer
00:24:34.480language and I also grew up feeling a lot of anxiety around oral prayers um and that sort of
00:24:49.240you know you know like extemporaneous like being able to pray and like call down like I don't feel
00:24:56.800like I'm the most skilled at that often um and so but like writing poetry is a way for me to
00:25:07.340engage in that practice still so yeah for me it's it's very porous um yeah yeah the words
00:25:18.260Lizbeth used were elusive and mysterious and I think I think those apply to like everything we're
00:25:24.460talking about everything we're going to talk about poetry spellcasting prayer um destiny you
00:25:30.840said um you you gotta do something you know like in invocation is great um but you you have to
00:25:38.160follow that up with action so I'll ask Tomiko like how does the book tie poetry and spellcasting
00:25:45.760into social justice and action yeah I mean one of the things that we say in the book is
00:25:57.540both poetry and magic are necessary tools in societal transformation so I think
00:26:04.460I mean I think everything that both Destiny and Lisbeth were talking about of like poetry being
00:26:15.480like an activating ritual um and poetry and magic being kind of like people's practices like um
00:26:28.340the way that I think about it and I think we thought about it together is that um
00:26:37.240there are so many ways there are so many ways that we need to be working towards dismantling
00:26:45.540capitalism colonialism um systemic racism anti-black racism heteropatriarchy all of the
00:26:53.120things um and we need to be organizing we need to be changing shifting narrative shifting culture
00:27:02.080and also there's this for all of us there's this other layer level of um work that needs to happen
00:27:10.860and that maybe we're doing kind of on our own on the like kind of magical level on invoking
00:27:16.860ancestral support um and uh and that is just as like potent and necessary um towards change
00:27:30.680as like showing up in the streets um and so and for us we didn't really see a lot of
00:27:40.520literature out there um I think yeah Kenji's um folio was so exciting because it was like oh my
00:27:48.480gosh like so his folio was um inviting poets of color to write spells um when the U.S. Supreme
00:27:56.860court upheld the Muslim ban um and so so that was the first time for me that I was like oh my gosh
00:28:05.720like I can take my world of you know like social justice organizing and my world of poetry and this
00:28:13.240like you know ritual magical practices that I'm kind of just kind of coming into um because
00:28:20.680unlike elizabeth and destiny i'm a new a new witch a new ritualist um and so like i can bring all of
00:28:30.280these things together in one beautiful magical practice like what does that look like and um
00:28:39.540i think for for all of the reasons that we've been talking about like poetry and spellcasting
00:28:44.260and poetry as spellcasting is really like a for me a powerful way um to be thinking about how do we
00:28:55.140how do we lean into new ways of relating to each other to the connection of the more than human
00:29:02.700world how are we de-centering human experience toward a different way of being on this planet
00:29:10.620and it just it feels like such a profound invitation toward radical imagination which
00:29:19.800I think is so necessary for social change. There's a very magical word that is alchemy
00:29:27.080and I think about that a lot as not like turning lead into gold but what magic comes when we
00:29:35.060combine things and whether that is like people's perspectives or poetry and social justice or
00:29:42.900spellcasting and social justice um tomiko can you read a little section for me this is from
00:29:51.640practice repetition and return yes i bookmark it okay here it is um so this is from my from the
00:30:03.100essay, my essay in the book. Just as I believe that when I write on the best days, the poems are
00:30:10.640not coming solely from me, but also from the channel that I open up, I also believe ritual
00:30:15.580and magic are mutually co-created. My morning prayers at the river or my tarot poles aren't so
00:30:22.180much a petition to the ancestors and guides for them to make my prayers a reality. Instead, I'm
00:30:27.740asking them to join me as collaborators accomplices co-conspirators or co-creators
00:30:32.680I'm asking them to help me learn what I need to know in order to manifest what I desire
00:30:37.760I'm asking for additional spiritual power behind my actions and energetic focus
00:30:43.620yes I love this bit I mean I love the whole thing but so I'll say I love that bit every
00:30:52.260time something comes up from the book but there's so much about this alchemy of collaboration
00:30:57.480in the book um like you said the non-human world and our ancestors and i want to know about this
00:31:04.820idea of collaboration or the ideal because there are three of you you know talk about too many
00:31:11.300cooks you'd think that it would be difficult to i don't even know the word i'm like organize i guess
00:31:20.280three people's ideas into the creation of one book and then on plus you're pulling from other
00:31:28.600people's work so I'm wondering like first of all how did you like manage this sort of idealized
00:31:38.120version um where we can all work together in the creation of one um one piece and also how did you
00:31:46.100decide which poets you were going to um curate into this piece
00:31:51.520yeah i mean i'll just start and i um i think it was i would say that this collaboration is one of
00:32:03.700the greatest gifts that i've had in the last few years um and we it was so organic i think
00:32:13.100one of you said that it's something about organic um we just like kind of found our way together
00:32:19.760um I met Liz Beth very randomly in Tampa at a writers conference and then we like hung out
00:32:28.940again the next the next year at the next conference and um Liz and Destiny knew each other from a
00:32:36.140different writers conference and so then we all kind of ended up together and um I we had no idea
00:32:46.740how it was going to end up or whether it was going to work or you know we um North Atlantic
00:32:54.040books actually came to us and because we did a panel um at AWP the writers conference on this
00:33:03.280And they were like, do you want it? Do you want to make it into a book? And we're like, okay, maybe. And, and so we were like, who knows, we'll write a book proposal, we'll see what they what they think. And we really just like went at the speed of trust, you know, which is a very different timeline.
00:33:23.140we had like the publisher's timeline but we really like made it our own and we um you know
00:33:31.560like made space for whatever was going on in each other's lives and um we each bring like really
00:33:40.060different skills and experiences and approaches and like we made space to do what we were good
00:33:48.780at and how to do it and um yeah I mean I a lot of times I think about like how what like the
00:33:59.940experience of co-writing um was like um because we we really did like that book proposal we wrote
00:34:08.080it together and then by the time we submitted the manuscript we had written the introduction
00:34:13.120together and the last essay together and just like when I think I don't know how you two think
00:34:20.340about it but when I think about the the different um how it felt like I felt like when we did the
00:34:28.500writing of the essays at the end it was really just like we had built so much trust in each other
00:34:33.720um that we're it was just a very smooth process um and it just felt very easeful and beautiful
00:34:43.060and like respectful of each other and the process and our collaborators maybe I'll let one of you
00:34:51.100talk about how we chose the people in the book yeah I want to know that but Elizabeth can you
00:34:57.560before you tell me how you chose the other collaborators um because because the fates
00:35:02.680just brought the three of you together and how much fate was involved but I'm curious um in in
00:35:08.620some of your other work you work as a therapist a counselor is that correct so how much of that
00:35:14.880work has enabled this you know compassionate um effort because you know i have a partner in
00:35:23.780missing witches and people ask us about collaborate writing a book together like
00:35:27.760people think of the author as like a you know the hermetic figure alone and and we're constantly
00:35:34.200working together and so much of it has to do with like you say making that space working at the speed
00:35:39.420of trust is like I want that as a tattoo you know and just like I I don't have it today we say that
00:35:46.620to each other all the time and we're like cool neither do I nothing's happening today or I can
00:35:52.420pick up the slack today or however that works so again before you tell me about how you chose the
00:35:58.140other authors in the book can you tell me how much being a therapist like it was involved in
00:36:03.840I don't know you know I do have a so I have this former life as an expressive arts therapist and
00:36:11.400I guess I was still practicing when we were when we started this book and I've since stopped um I
00:36:16.920don't know that I was holding like my therapist hat was probably way out the window when we were
00:36:22.240doing this work I think for good for good to good end and for good reason but I think what I will say
00:36:29.440about that is that okay so expressive arts therapy really is around intermodal ways of engaging with
00:36:37.840a process and so the focus really is on allowing the creative process to be itself and be its own
00:36:44.600process right and I think that that and I think probably that's actually something that all three
00:36:51.160of us really have um as a skill set is this is this um tolerance and this uh spaciousness for
00:37:00.920for a thing to unfold as itself and i think that's part of what happened what was happening
00:37:07.180with us that made like you know our trifecta um works so well was was that each of us kind of
00:37:14.720already came with this orientation of like well what is poetry the spellcasting it is this elusive
00:37:19.180thing and this book is probably going to be its own um its own being and it's like show up in its
00:37:27.120own expression and and so how can we um like create a container create space for that to happen
00:37:34.880and maybe do some stewarding but i i think that all three of us were were coming already coming
00:37:40.740from this place of um of letting our ego sit back a little bit to see what was going to emerge
00:37:48.060and and that is a huge like that's a huge boon for any kind of collaboration
00:37:55.680right is to be able to have folks that that can do that and it was you know and it was messy too
00:38:02.360I mean there are definitely times where like I know I have on my calendar the times where my ego
00:38:07.620was like what I want something to happen this way um but again I think yeah I'm commitment towards
00:38:17.240allowing something to come to fruition or emerge I was gonna say like I think I did come to it
00:38:26.600with like an openness to that but I think I learned from both of you like more ways and
00:38:35.260better ways to step back and let the process unfold than I would have if I had been out by
00:38:40.620myself or with a different set of collaborators like I feel like that's part of the gift that I
00:38:45.760got from this project was to to like know to know what it feels like to be in a collaboration where
00:38:53.960like I can let my ego take a backseat and like trust trust each other and trust what we're
00:39:02.200creating together and I think that's it's like helped me become a better person
00:39:07.620there I mean there's there's the sense reading the book and going through the book that
00:39:13.260that it is um as kind of egoless um that all three of you were working in service to
00:39:20.540the book and not in service to your own self-aggrandizing or or whatever that might be
00:39:27.640and there again we come back to this word alchemy um just when you when you put three people together
00:39:34.560it's going to be a different book than if if each one of you had had written this book by yourself
00:39:41.540right it's completely different experience um elizabeth do you want to do oh go ahead destiny
00:39:49.660oh i was going to say that i felt like the collaboration was also reflective of
00:39:55.140like an alignment and practice and values and so i think it would have been really
00:40:02.140sad and very possible um especially under neoliberalism and like where there is a market
00:40:11.160for this sort of writing and thinking um but like a neoliberalized version is very disconnected to
00:40:23.360again like the practice and doing this like i think it would be very sad and possible for us
00:40:27.400to be talking about spaciousness and openness and being process driven and then like be very rigid
00:43:48.760I think it was pretty organic again I'm having this moment where I'm like was it as useful as
00:43:56.900it was but it kind of was in some ways um from what from what i remember we i think each of us
00:44:07.080had kind of um this are like folks in our community who we felt were also kind of writing
00:44:16.160along these lines of um towards like embodied action and towards care for the world and towards
00:44:23.120you know radical imagination and and all of these um things that we were really intrigued by and
00:44:29.920interested in ourselves um and so from there was kind of an easy generation of uh potential folks
00:44:38.440that we wanted to extend invitations into or out to um to to further the collaboration and respond
00:44:46.700And I think if I'm remembering right, well, we actually had like some kind of ideas that ended up becoming the general sections of the book because, you know, we're, again, exploring what poetry is spellcasting means, thinking about, you know, what are the different aspects or ingredients or expressions of that.
00:45:06.640And then, but just kind of these loose, like kind of, you know, this shape is part of poetry is spellcasting.
00:45:14.320um and then we really left it open for the folks that we invited to just like take that general
00:45:21.720shape and go in whichever direction they felt called to do and again this is where like trust
00:45:28.100comes back I mean the amount of trust I think that it just feels like a huge um thing at play
00:45:35.160in this in this alchemy here too right it's like you know just as Amy before you were like we're
00:45:40.900just going to trust what the universe wants us to say in this moment i think we had we had some
00:45:46.680trust and like well whatever what what starts to come together is going to be um what this being
00:45:53.720poetry is spellcasting is calling for in this moment right and this expression in this iteration
00:45:58.760um yeah and i love this notion of radical imagination um it's in the book and you
00:46:07.400mentioned it just now um it's again like a a necessary component of social justice of world
00:46:15.180changing you have to be able to imagine a completely different world that functions in
00:46:20.080a completely different way um again this is another phrase that you know will be like a
00:46:25.180series of tattoos that i get take from this book this notion of radical imagination but i want to
00:46:32.900get to this reading, Lisbeth, would you read from Enchantment, the Liberatory Gift of Wonder?
00:46:42.060God, listeners, this book is so good. I'm sorry. It's so good.
00:46:49.780Yes. So it's a bigger chunk. You're looking at page 86, right? Until the end of, okay. So yes,
00:46:59.380This is from Enchantment, The Liberatory Gift of Wonder, which was my essay contribution to this book.
00:47:07.760True transformation, true power, does not exist in a vacuum, but in a space with many other energies, many other beings, many other knowings.
00:47:18.540Or else there is no material, physical or psychic, to transform.
00:47:25.540It belies innocence by which I mean both a vulnerability and a willingness toward that vulnerability.
00:47:33.540It softens the rigid edges of thinking to make room for play and the seepage of surprise.
00:47:39.540The relearning of enchantment activates expansion as we must stretch the container of our perception beyond what is physically and materially known.
00:47:52.540This is how we enter the transformative arts.
00:47:56.540If poetic obsession is held as a practice of enchantment, there is spell work that arises.
00:48:03.200While enchanted, the poem becomes a vessel, energy summoned and held in the container of line.
00:48:10.860If the work of healing is held with a practice of enchantment, there is a potential for recovery of loss,
00:48:17.060whether that loss is of power, connection to the soul, or a type of innocence.
00:48:23.100While enchanted, when I write about even the most tender suffering and ache of the world,
00:48:28.400the writing itself becomes an application of love in the form of deep attention and care that touches the page.
00:48:36.580If the work of social and spiritual justice is held with the practice of enchantment,
00:48:42.880there opens a portal for all ways of beingness and knowingness to be present, to engage, and to be witnessed.
00:48:49.580while enchanted even the slow alchemy of revolution might be graced with something
00:48:56.000that could resemble play and feel even a bit like delight
00:49:00.080listeners right like you're ordering this book right now i'm convinced of it destiny can you
00:49:08.400maybe react to one of my favorite um word combinations in that passage the slow alchemy
00:49:14.940of revolution how do you see that in action and in the world that we live in now
00:49:20.260it reminds me and this is a paraphrase of tony k pambara but um that basically speed isn't
00:49:34.400a reflection necessarily of um of understanding or the
00:49:43.800like the achievement of our ideals and this is like a deep paraphrase but that's what i think
00:49:50.340about with the slow alchemy of of revolution um and that doesn't mean that things aren't urgent
00:50:01.280And I think that's something else that Tony Kip on Barra talks about is like speed isn't the same thing as urgency either. And so that things like are definitely urgent. And there does have to be this openness to things unfolding in the time that they need to unfold.
00:50:27.800and partially because there's that revision and so like when you are alchemizing something and
00:50:33.640you're putting together different elements you are calibrating you're trying to figure out like
00:50:39.660oh like well i added this and this had this effect what if i add more of this what if i
00:50:45.800start over and don't add as much of this this time um and like really being open to that
00:50:52.940revision work um and I think too what this phrase that um Liz so brilliantly put together
00:51:05.400makes me think of is like how do we orient like and to whom are we orienting um
00:51:13.520because I think that the way that we're conditioned socially and also at a somatic level
00:51:27.680is that like the structures that govern our lives presently are pretty sedimented
00:51:34.700and are going to take a long time to disintegrate and then the people that we want to do things
00:51:45.200with the people that we feel aligned with oftentimes we're impatient with those people
00:51:49.460um and it's like how can we make space for that slow alchemy revolution with your fellow alchemist
00:52:08.500direct and ferocious like with the state you know um and I think that's a hard thing to discern
00:52:21.320and I think that's also especially hard to discern um post-civil rights and integration
00:52:27.000where the state has absorbed um so many of the ideals from the civil rights movement in order
00:52:34.320to neutralize more radical formations and organizing and really emphasize like patience
00:52:41.100with bureaucracy and the speed at which the government decides to treat you like a fraction
00:52:48.580of a bit better you know um but yeah it also makes me think of that discernment of like
00:52:55.420yeah like how can we be patient with each other um and that slow alchemy of revolution
00:53:02.980and like still be like ferocious and direct like in our confrontations with the state
00:53:11.280miko does this relate to working at the speed of trust
00:53:16.300yes definitely and i just want to say that i i stole that line from adrienne marie brown so it's
00:53:24.540it's definitely uh not my my language but i love it so much um but i was also thinking destiny as
00:53:32.340you were as you were talking um about like the other kinds of cycles um in this world that um
00:53:42.940i think elizabeth's work is so grounded in um the the cycles of nature and the cycles of growing
00:53:49.480things and um the speed the the variety the varying speeds of um of how things grow and appear
00:54:01.260and disappear and disintegrate and compost and then grow again um and and I think like
00:54:09.160so much of the time we can get so cerebral and so um you know forget that we we are bodies
00:54:18.480located and rooted in in the land and in relationship and interconnected relationship
00:54:27.260with all the other creatures and so I think Liz you should talk about this because I know this
00:54:32.820is something that you're kind of obsessing about right now or thinking through um but and I'm so
00:54:38.840interested in in doing it alongside of you but like really thinking about like what does that
00:54:44.640what does the alchemy of revolution look like not centering humans and centering all the other
00:54:50.820living creatures and what does that timeline look like and feel like and how do we participate in
00:54:55.940that um I love this where you're going yeah I'm excited thanks for being excited about that too
00:55:04.580I'm excited to kind of lean into that also um you know as both of you are talking I I was like right
00:55:12.860I mean, revolution is happening all the time. And I think that's the thing that's so easy to forget in the kind of culture that we live in, where we're so event-based, right? And a thing happening at its peak moment and at its peak momentum.
00:55:28.400Um, every time, I mean, I think of the Haitian revolution, like every time I think of the
00:55:33.820revolution and, you know, folks really, it's a very complex thing.
00:55:39.800So I'm, this is going to be again, like a deep paraphrase, a deep kind of distillation.
00:55:45.360But, you know, that revolution was happening for at least a decade before this last kind