the trees will not pretend it is okay.

radical love letter #69

Dear ones, 

I learned recently that the etymology of the word ‘horror’ is “a shaking, a trembling.” This falls under the definition of the term as a noun, but it describes an action, or at least a thing that moves one to action. I am thinking about horror and the horrific because when P sends me a picture from out his window of the black and red smoke clouds from the wildfires in Catalunya, I shudder.

The ecological crisis is something some commentators have been trying to claim is too overwhelming for the majority of the population to contend with. Certainly there is some truth to this – who amongst us has not “checked out” of the headlines, who has not, at certain points, felt ‘helpless’? But this narrative runs into infuriating omissions and false conclusions: it uses electoral politics as a centering point for people’s engagement; it ignores that indigenous folks and ‘radical’ environmentalists are also part of the same population they turn into a monolithic apathetic mass; and, in the case of the article above, it pits ‘jobs’ and ‘the economy’ against ‘the environment.’ The latter reifies the egregious suggestion that ‘the environment’ is separate from us, and we from it; and it also continues to cling to literal business as usual as the ideal endpoint to all this. Never have I seen a “the people want job security today over environmental sustainability tomorrow” coupled with the fact that we are living through what some call The Great Resignation, a huge part of the population simply refusing to go back to work. Might we contend with how these things operate together? I’m asking a lot for The New York Times, I know, but I think it’s important to keep naming these silences, these vacuum-siloed analyses that don’t take broader context into account. 

Are we (some fictitious mass) actually not willing to look at what is happening, or are we just finding ways to express that it is both hard to look and impossible not to? Last summer, when fires were raging in California, I found myself asking similar questions. Do you remember that red-orange sun we saw last August, beautiful but also evidence of the burning planet? This is from the newsletter a year ago, regarding snapping a pic of the fire sun: 

What if that’s helpful?, I wonder later in conversation with my friend, S. Maybe there is something useful in wanting to look towards the horrific? That destruction in this case was somehow inching toward sublime? I am hesitant to share this -- with them, with you --- but I try to explain: “Not in a poverty porn kind of way. Not in a Sara McLachlan commercial kind of way. But in a Jenny Odell ‘what you behold you become beholden to’ kind of way, or a Robin Wall Kimmerer ‘focus attention to…[live] awake in the world’ kind of way.” 

S indulges the reflection, but pushes back a bit: “The aestheticizing of the apocalypse has made us into the perfect spectators.” 

They are right, of course; and spectatorship is consumptive, not liberatory. But maybe this is only a problem if we continue to understand aesthetics as about representation rather than actually about our bodies, sentience, and the sensory. I still press on: can we turn our bodies towards destruction in a way that transforms the conditions of it?  

This week too, I took a picture of a beautiful orange sky (above) only to realize later the hue was probably partially a result of the wind-carried ashes of lost life from across the ocean. Horrific, a shudder, but still I’m turning towards it, because I am of it. How do you look away from something that exists in everything, is everywhere? 

“When we hold our breath, we can temporarily see and hear better,” Autumn Brown shares on How to Survive the End of the World. “And that applies both to the experience of being afraid….and to experiencing awe.” 

I think when it comes to the burning (and also thriving) planet, we are holding both fear and awe. I shudder, I hold my breath, but then I see so clearly what needs to be done, what is already being done.  “It’s hard to have hope,” is a sentiment I hear a lot. But maybe that doesn’t have to be the goal. Kyle Whyte argues that “hope should be completely removed from environmentalism, environmental discourse.” Instead, he says, “I think a lot about my own ancestors…they confronted power directly, they didn't need hope.” 

I’m not sure if I agree with doing away with hope entirely– I like when Mariam Kaba says that it is a discipline, or when Mary Oliver says it is a fighter and a screamer — but I think what Whyte is aiming for is what we find in the clarity of a gasp. When our senses are heightened, even in a time of fear that is also a time of awe (is it not just as inspiring as it is terrifying that the trees will not pretend it is okay?), I think we have the opportunity to look closer at what works: the small-scale but deeply impactful resistance, supporting eco-“terrorists” with bail money and challenging Green Scare and anti-indigenous propaganda, the refusal to accept colonial greenwashing, and, always, finding ways to bolster indigenous and other land-centered ways of being that kept the planet alive long before colonialism, states, and capital emerged to pillage it. (You can read more about examples like this in P’s latest book, The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below). 

We are living in horrific and awe inspiring times. If our bodies are shaken by the truth of both, it means we’re still moving. It means we haven’t given up. Let’s not tell a narrative that suggests otherwise. 

love & solidarity,

raechel

Reading & Podcasts

William C. Anderson on the violence we’re used to (and the violence we need). The hauntings of house arrest. There are few people I’d rather listen to more than Sophie Lewis, and this episode of Final Straw features them being brilliant about repro justice, trans liberation, family abolition, and more. And as a 90s alterna-girl at heart forever, I was delighted by this profile of Janeane Garofalo. Also spent time with a lot of (sexy!) poetry recently, which you can see here. 

Watching 

Not much! It is too hot to sit in my living room, so I am spending most evenings on my porch. But a few weeks ago, when the temps inside were still bearable, I watched Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and really loved it. There are some critiques swirling around (mainly that Emma Thompson used to be a SWERF, who has since changed her position (yay!), but some people still don’t love that she’s in a movie about SW), but I definitely think it’s still worth watching. In addition to pretty solid SW representation, it explores themes of aging, desirability, family, shame, and more. Really stuck with me! 

Listening

Sweet Pill is a mathy/midwest-emo influenced band my sweet friend JH shared with me, and if you know me at all, you know I love mathy/midwest-emo! Digging this song “Where the Heart Is.” 

Joy & Attention 

Little robin hops. Farmers market conversation. Omg, the best and most delightful Cher cover concert that I attended with my uncle! Eggplant. Kitten cuddles. Afternoon visit with my Nana and Momma. A lovely reading at Visible Voices. Rain storms. Friends with whom I can be entirely myself. Rhizome House. Repro justice workers. Looooong walks (when does it go from a long walk to a hike?). Memes, honestly thank goodness for the laughs. K&A. The neighborhood skunks and their bushy tails. Clients. The library and all the books it just lets me take home, what a gift man. Theory podcasts. Iced americanos. T, that blessed kinky queer kin of my heart. Feeling the heartbeat of a tree pressed close against my chest. Poetry. You, and you, and you. xo