Each Wave a Potential Witness
Dear Reader,
As I went to bed last night I said a single prayer for all aboard the Madleen as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition abducted by Israeli forces, hoping for their safe return. I prayed for Gaza, for ICE to melt away from Los Angeles, for my dance maker kin to travel home safely from dance camp. What I see is the people taking back the power, dismantling systems not built for us and crafting new ones. What I see is the mass sharing of information - the spread of knowledge in hopes of amplification, helpful passage, and intact rights.
I have seen the great lifting up of Greta Thunberg, Rima Hassan, and their fellow activists. I have seen the tearing apart of this effort as a publicity move. While we all have our roles, I am curious if those with the greatest critiques are getting ready to sail their own humanitarian aid to Gaza or not so much. This is not to say those with criticisms aren’t valued; let us always be questioning. I also think when many of us are angry and frozen it’s good to look to the ones on the front lines, even if they are new to the circle.
In these times I feel the greatest critique is to show me something better, something of wilder impact, something of deeper care. Something that pulses with aliveness rather than irony, that risks sincerity in a world too fluent in detachment. Show me an alternative that doesn’t just dismantle—but rebuilds, dares, gathers, and tends.
Today I woke up in a sawed-off truck bed with no service and the rain lightly tapping the old sail draped above it. The light and the birds woke me up at 5am with the perfect duet only they can pull off so early.
I gently asked myself, what is next? To bring information to the people. To sit myself down with my black tea and move my hands over the keyboard ready to report, to keep all of our eyes open wide, to stay curious about what could be possible.
Part of the pleasure of my work is to build systems for myself and then relay them to my friends and readers. One of these systems is the newsletter, one is movement, one is quilting. These are my entry points for understanding how to be in the world, push myself to the edges of discomfort, and act accordingly.
I have spent the past few days in a laboratory environment with my dance mentors, The Architects, working on compositional improvisation as a performance form and practice.
I have been studying this work for the past thirteen years with them and consider it the root of everything I do. It is the way I fine-tune my attention to hold more, to expand my capacity to hold more grief, more news, more information, more joy.
In the studio, we practiced saying yes—not passively, but actively—yes to complexity, to contradiction, to the spontaneous emergent moment. Improvisation at this level becomes a form of listening so attuned that it can’t help but ripple outward. Each choice in the circle is made in relation, with and against, toward and beyond. It is a way of being with others that refuses domination or collapse. It’s a way of working that asks: how do we stay present, and move, when nothing is fixed?
This is the same question I hold as I read the news from the Freedom Flotilla, from multiple genocides, from the ports where blockade meets resistance. How do we stay with the world and move with it—not as spectators, but as participants? The skills built in the dance studio—presence, responsiveness, collective trust—are not separate from what the world demands now. They are practice for it. Improvisation not just as art, but an ethic: all eyes on deck today - the ocean is not just water — you sail into a current of international law and public imagination. Our collective insistence pushing the work forward.
Each wave a potential witness.
Things of Note :
This post has action items listed for the safe return of the members aboard the Freedom Flotilla.
This weekend I am teaching a class called Systems for Artists that integrates our values with our systems for organizing information, projects, and art making.
You do not have to identify as an artist to take this class. If you are a creative person juggling many projects and wishing you had more aligned structures of tracking them : this class is for you.
Let me know if you have questions - payment plans available at checkout, recorded if you can’t make it live.
SAVE THE DATE : July 12 is the opening of a collection of quilts by yours truly at Cedar North in Cedar, MI. There will also be open sewing days leading up to the opening where community members are welcome to join me in creating a series of raffle quilts.
My friend Geoff made really good stickers and you can DM him for one or all
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Writing Group : Landscapes
Want to read May’s installment for paid subscribers : Check out A Devastated Heart, a Return to the iPhone, and a Pilates shed