A cord, a rhythm, a thread: language, presence, momentum, and weaving together
What holds you? What moves you?
Imagine this: there is a spotlight on a piece of cord. Cord, like the soft rope used to hang clothing from the line, cord like the line used on boats and sails. Soft, beige. It hangs in the air, frayed on either edge — vignette of shadow surrounds the center of the cord, revealing individual fibers, radial threads fanned out like rays of the sun. Up close, gathered together, they are stronger, woven, held tightly and intertwined, strong in the gathering together.
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The next image and vision is this: it’s a Thursday. It’s night, and dark. I am standing in a crowd in a darkened room in the evening under wooden beams. There is a low stage, sounds all around us in the crowd, the warm glow of an orange room.
We are listening to music, we are transfixed all held in the dark cocoon of the space, the room. We are the threads, held together joyfully and made stronger by the songs, sounds, chords and rhythms, in the flow of momentum and tuning in to the moment’s rhythm and time, watching these musicians and their attention to one another, their expression and their movements.
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The density of the news unfolding in the last few weeks wound its way like a knot into the center of my body, like a blanket made of thick cord, dense and constricting. To find my center, and stay grounded, I write most mornings; last Sunday, I walked in the park — one big, full, three mile circle, urged onward from a force within me at the center of my body that said let’s go out, to the outside, to the fresh air, to try to move something around instead. Doubt crept in, it does that, and then worry, and then the heavy thick of despair. I began to question the nature of art, life, meaning. Whirring mind. Worry, paired with deep feeling. Despite the birds, sticks, cyclists, rocks, families, and myriad leaves stirring and changing colors and still across the ponds in the distance, the story I tuned into was just a thick dense cloud of worry, despair.
Until I made my way around from the south end of the park to the east and felt the hints of the threads of music. First, I heard and felt the rhythms from the drum circle — and then I saw a group of ten or so men, where they sat, mostly elders, figuring the rhythms on their drums on the park benches, an arc like a sun across the skyline, smiling, looking to each other, tuning in, keeping time, and nodding.
By that point, three miles in, my body relaxed, and my mind could follow, too; with enough spaciousness outside of the constriction of thinking, I made space for the embodiment of joy, for contentment, for grounding, for noticing, for being in the groove, too. Without realizing it, my stride synced with the beats, feet embodying the rhythms of their drums as I am walking. From the sound, to the ground, up through the earth, from my steps to my legs through my feet, through the cavern of my stomach, soft, up into my heart’s center and space and core, I felt a new story take form: one that took the tears of what if into open, expansive awareness, and moments of glimmers of optimism: a dahlia blooming. The sun rising up — a kind of vitality, opening possibility. A space of aliveness and hope. All through listening.
The surprise, acceptance, and spontaneity, being open to these moments, and paying attention, were what allowed that uplift to come through and generate the channels of hope, love, and optimism that then came to live inside of me like a well to generate from as a source of vibrancy and vitality throughout last week. I did not show up to that show, stand as a part of a crowd in that room, or walk around the park seeking that inspiration, or seeking this creative force or transmutation, but as I grounded into the moment, it arrived, and I am grateful.
This tug started as a whisper, an inclination, the creative force leaving hints like breadcrumbs, a trail to follow to a clearing, or a thread. As Grace Lee Boggs writes, quoting Margaret Wheatley, “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.”
This fabric of life and its abundant connections and these momentary seconds of sense and awe are what I’ve returned to repeatedly and rhythmically since last week. Being part of something larger than my own, small views, and embodying a sense of connection and community have been strengthening. Stitched together with the threads of the previous quote, Grace Lee Boggs goes on to say that “[t]hose who have used music metaphors to describe working together, especially jazz metaphors, are sensing the nature of this quantum world. This world demands that we be present together, and be willing to improvise. We agree on the melody, tempo, and key, and then we play. We listen carefully, we communicate constantly, and suddenly, there is music, possibilities beyond anything we imagined. The music comes from somewhere else, from a unified whole we have accessed among ourselves, a relationship that transcends our false sense of separateness. When the music appears, we can’t help but be amazed and grateful.”
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I often wonder, as humans have for centuries, as many of us do in these capitalistic times, about the role of the artist, the writer, the nurturer, the role that our images, shapes, sounds, actions, tastes, etc., play into our everyday existences. Call this a product of productivity, that the process of art for the sake of existence is enough. That these moments of expression matter. But there in those moments — the park, the venue, I come back to the strength of humanity, made visible by our varying expressions, how we share ourselves and each other, the ways our creative expressions uplift, enact, ground, energize, and give the strength to move through in challenging moments. Our art is necessary for the process through what we are creating whether we are tuning in and in tandem with the various parts within ourselves and psyches or externally in our communities and in the world.
I come back to this vision of the cord, this thread the feeling of the chords in songs, on stage and the intricate overlaps of connection, communication in life both above ground in our humanity, and under the earth’s surface like in the case of mycelium — those networks of life tethered together and strengthened in their togetherness and their communities. I think of voices shouting, singing, sharing, arms overlapping, crafting strength in their togetherness and solitary forms, and how in communities, we are made stronger together. We are threaded together in our strength. There are movements made, harmonies, and dissonances, beats played together and against each other, chords contrasting to highlight the focal point of sound (in the case of music) and moments of tension and release in the case of working with thread, stitches, cord.
Weeks ago, I lead a class on French link stitch, a bookbinding technique characterized by its decorative stitches that are beautiful, yes, but known mostly for the way that the threads intersect, overlapping, a strength made up through tension, measuring, and interdependence. In the weeks that have followed since then, watching the world and the news unfold, I have thought often about that moment in time and this stitch — how it is precisely the stitches overlapping and interlocking together, like arms linked in intimate embraces, like arms held in tandem in protest across streets and holding signs, like voices woven together in shared and collective spaces that make them stronger. The threads we use to sew are waxed in this stitch, and so they are strong on its own, yes, as we are on our own individually, and this strength is magnified when those geometries meet; when they are are stitched, knotted, overlapped, and intentionally woven together to take form.
As adrienne marree brown writes in Emergent Strategy, “Many of us have been socialized to understand that constant growth, violent competition, and critical mass are the ways to create change. But emergence shows us that adaptation and evolution depend more upon critical, deep, and authentic connections, a thread that can be tugged for support and resilience.” The nature of life within us and around us teems with these moments of connection, communication, tuning in, and emergence. “Birds don’t make a plan to migrate, raising resources to fund their way, packing for scarce times, mapping out their pit stops,” brown writes. “They feel a call in their bodies that they must go, and they follow it, responding to each other, each bringing their adaptations.”
I write this to you with the threads of gratitude: for glimmers of moments of embodied hope, slivers of shared time, accidental awe, and threads held together by collective effervescence. Creativity is a creative force alive within each of us, living through us, necessarily, with life, tied together between us. Make your stitches, sing your notes, hold them together, as we each play with tension, shape, and tone. We are stronger, brighter, more vibrant when we are held together in ourselves and in community, letting our voices and thoughts and tones be heard.
Art is a way to process what we feel, notice, care about, love, and care for what we want to protect. It is a process by which we digest, transmute, transcend. It can be uplifting, grounding, connecting, arousing, communicating, and is much needed. It give us language — with words, and beyond them — for the clear and the loud, like protest banners, ceasefire signs and for the whispers within. It is the space to rest, to digest, to activate, to come home to. It is the thread. It is the cord. And whatever its form, however it is expressed, it is present within us, and is so necessary.
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This week, try simple, supportive practices like a three minute writing practice in the morning at night to ground down or energize for the day — or writing, breathing, or stretching for the duration of your favorite song to let the simple moments and complexities of life move through. Try expressive writing1 (writing for 20 minutes about a singular, stressful experiences, and then discarding the paper; try this for three days in a row). Try playing with blank pages and color or pencil, letting your mind wander, letting the shapes on page be the language that shines through.
What moves you? What do you turn to when you feel stuck, or when some kind of momentum shows up in life? What uplifts you? What soothes you?
experiences:
October 26 | Build Your Journaling Practice irl
November 4 | Bookbinding: Pamphlet Stitch + French Link Stitch irl
November 7 | Taste & Write: Meditating on the Senses irl
November 11 + 12 | Renegade Craft Fair irl
With November ahead, a whole slew of classes are up on the calendar, mostly in person. Embodying the Artist and Build Your Journaling Practice arrive to the journaling class recording library, here, in the coming week. These guided experiences are here to ground, uplift, inspire, offer new perspectives, and support your journaling practice. I often talk about journaling as a bridge practice — a tool like a thread that can help us stitch together and center in our inner worlds as we navigate the world around us and our daily lives. If you’ve been craving some grounding practice, try these. Turn to paper when talking won’t do and as you are tuning in, and noticing, and processing. Then, get out of the page and into the world. Creativity is an ongoing flow of conversation. Onward, momentum, and flowing.
inspiration:
Nourished by | Figs, fresh and dried, purchased and foraged. Tofu with spinach and coconut milk — greens for grounding — and a Saturday long run.
Listening | this playlist I put together for autumn, this talk on emotions with Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Reading | “How the Wonder of Nature Can Inspire Social Justice Activism” by adrienne marree brown, revisiting Emergent Strategy, The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez (Bookshop)
see Dr. James Pennebaker’s work on expressive writing for more