Feminism As A Living Organism (a meditation.)

Feminism Is.

| “I travel in my mind….My body isn’t that interested in moving from place to place.” – bell hooks |

| “Every mind resides in a body.” – Adrienne Rich |

| “Your body, my body, everybody move your body.” – Let’s All Chant |

~

Feminism Is.

No, this isn’t a fill-in-the-blank exercise for you.

Let’s just think about this: when the words “feminism is” make their way across the screen to you—knee-jerk response—you might launch into some twisted kind of Mad Libs rhetoric if you’re anti-feminist. If you feel aligned with overall feminist ideation, those words, “feminism is,” may feel like…a way of being you know like the back of your hand.

Feminism is.

Feminism is individual, like us, with a skeleton, a certain solid foundation. Yet the cells of The Body are in constant motion, constantly rebuilding themselves. Reconstituion. The Being Finds new flesh and skin. Yes. Reconstitutes sinew. Moves about in space and lives a life beyond description. Its ISness is important. It’s all. It’s everything.

Its way of being in the world deserves respect. You might think I would call Feminism a “her…” but we all know—in this postmodern, self-conscious point in time and space—we just have to know… Feminism Is bigger, broader, more metaphysical than just one gender-centric anthropomorphism. Yet of course, s/he wouldn’t be offended, no matter what you called it.

Still: so many people find themselves offended by the idea that Feminism Is, staking their claims and pointing their fingers around is’es and shoulds surrounding the word, concept, ideation, theory, practice, felt heart-sense.

I’ve never (consciously) eschewed or tried to escape the label of being feminist. Neither have I claimed it proudly until recently. I always thought I just was a feminist.

There’s something about naming and claiming that is at once spiritual and deeply rooted in the physical.

Hence, I’ve picked up the word (say it with me…”fem-in-is-t!”). And, I am fashioning a little tool kit of my own with all that s/he teaches me, and with each new interaction s/he inspires.

I was not able to cognize that I deserved such a tool beyond abstraction,a firm concept that already existed (for me, too), ’til I picked it up and made it mine.

Feminism, being that it is…an “Is,” obliges use, repurposing, asking that you don it. This Is makes room and carves out opportunities. Asks for all in its radius to take heed and take hold. To feel its strong arms like M/other, luxuriate in its sensual heart like Lover. It behooves you to make it yours. Being that it is a tool, tools are made to be used–to make life easier, more comfortable–for all of us.

What This All Means to Me

I found I had to make this Feminism mine when I realized that by default, I was letting people discriminate against me–even encouraging it, because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do, and that’s the way things “just were.”

Many people–mostly yet of course not only men–have consciously trampled my rights as an artist, as an administrative worker (in my fields of choice, the work can be quite competitive and clients tend to force low-and-lower bidding practices, regardless of one’s experience or quality), as a creative consultant, as a healer, as a person seeking healing…as a person.

This pattern will not stop until a pattern-interrupt obliterates it.

By nature, we are not meant to oppress or harm others. Doing so is a spiritual dis-ease. So, when you heal yourself, you are also healing your oppressor (whether or not they accept the healing–you don’t stick around or take the time to monitor that progress. The healing happens. This is universal law, in my opinion).

When you speak a truth, you’re lightening the load for others, though sometimes this doesn’t seem to make the burden of it any easier. Sometimes we might not be around see the results of such truth-telling. These things still make a difference.

Everyone experiences this: these tests and trials in the personal, rituals, mores, folkways and laws in the interpersonal–and beyond. How we handle these things, the tools we use, the empowerment we think we have or can have…that’s another matter entirely.

We are encouraged to sleepwalk through life. Waking up and staying awake can be taught–or self-taught–and I’m unlearning too, as I collect all my learnings along the way. Waking from dreams so that I might fashion fully embodied visions and plans that make good sense.

Though my college career has been put on pause for financial reasons, I made it to senior status having changed my major from a creative discipline to WGS (Women’s and Gender Studies). I did this so that I would force myself to look at and deal with issues of conscious intersectionality-building on a daily basis, and so that I would be heavily invested in personalizing them, for my health’s sake.

What This All Means to You

Coming out as a feminist is good for your health. Being queer doesn’t quite cut it. Having queer friends doesn’t quite cut it. Resting in the sense that you “know what Feminism Is” and that’s that…nope.

Coming out as a feminist is as important as unfolding and evolving all our many other visibilities.

Rasta’s would call this kind of feeling “Freeing Up,” though of course Rastafarian culture is still working out its homophobia issues, therefore its songs of love and empowerment still exclude so very many people (See how important intersectionality is? On 100 percent blast, powered 3-6-5 days of the year?).

Still, as (m)any queer(s) person(s) might tell you, coming out is a lifelong process.

Changing my major–that’s how I did it–how I came out as a feminist. I needed that kind of a shock therapy, a shock to the system, and I would proudly teach these principles to the women and men in my life as I learn them. This is one of my first small attempts to share the Love that Feminism Is.

Should I somehow be able to continue my formal education at some point, it’d be so very lovely–still, this mission has planted darling little seedlings in my soul, and the sprouts are just beginning to bloom into action (however atypical my action/s may seem).

I consider myself to be “intersectionalist” by nature (made-up word, much?), and being a Feminist Is a concept that’s enveloped in this way of being for me.

I found this out, of course, by accident. Yes, by a series of accidents, and via a series of denials–being shamed and denied things. By denying parts of myself.

The Pastiche Creates A Picture: A Case Study Called Me

Here’s how I stumbled into learning what Feminism Is, for me. A few cases in point include:

My birth father sucking his teeth on a regular basis, resentfully saying, “You always side with the underdog.” (This began when I was four or five years old.)

As African Americans, his side of the family migrated from Oklahoma during The Great Migration period. With each passing day–prior to my birth, most likely–he forgets his own history a little bit more. Denial is survival, but it prematurely kills its host.

Another scenario that forced my feminist coming out: my partnering with a lovely soul in a committed lesbian relationship with her. She realizes during our time together that she is trans. We work through it, we share the process with people in our lives. Still, we do our thing as LGBTQ activists. The way activism articulated for me had to do with connecting with a WOC artists collective.

Did I mention my partner was white? Yes, so then there’s that. During my time at the artists collective, we both were often intimidated and messed with–so much so, that I decided to step down from my position at the collective. Folks didn’t approve of my being with a white person, and only felt compelled to defend FTM transmen of color, but not white transguys. Denial is survival, but it prematurely kills the host.

People fight differently or articulate their activism differently. I get that. Still, I tend not to push back once I’ve attempted to reason with folks more than a handful of times. So, we left bereft.

Another: earlier in my life when I thought I was bi, I was called “greedy” for having made that choice and publicly declaring it. I’d always considered myself “straight but not narrow” in my younger, more punk-rock inspired years, and it took me a while to learn that the whole world doesn’t have an “intersectionality mindshare” happening at any given time, for various reasons.

Denial is survival, but you want your cultivate your culture so that s/he will make more good, healthy, thriving cells.

There are many more “intersections” I’ve traveled through and crossed, having made more and more journeys alone, and traveling far and wide (I guess it’s the Okie in me), mostly alone. The double-standards and judgmental exceptions to the cultural rule have happened so often and in so many sub-sects of experience, in so many different locales, that

I’ve come to notice these patterns always had to do with people in my personal/work life who are close to me, who cannot tolerate some way I am being by myself/with others, and who feel compelled to tell me about this–often violently so and repeatedly so.

I’m an incest survivor and have witnessed and experienced other abuse(s) in formative years and beyond, so I gravitate more toward a “family of choice” relational model. Having experienced all of these different situations has afforded me the opportunity to see family dynamics in all interactions and to choose whether or not to participate, though it has taken some time for me to teach myself to do this.

I also leverage such ways of being and thinking into the way I carry myself inter/personally–and because of this, I have a very atypical vibe.

Folks don’t groove on atypical vibes unless they are immediately easy to categorize (i.e. “this person is fuckable, subservient, exotic-looking, or reminds me of x, y, z”). So, I am often met with hostility that I have only recently discovered might be called “microagressions” when I don’t meet these ideals.

Rarely do I ever sound like someone thinks I’m supposed to sound or look like I’m supposed to look, etc. Perhaps because my interests and experiences are so varied, I’m confronted with this idea often, by people who feel very comfortable telling me how uncomfortable my Being makes them.

To say that the political is not personal is extremely short-sighted and naive.

Too, my father is dark-skinned, and my mother is a light-skinned African American woman who “passes” easily, and who constantly picked at me as a person for my lifestyle choices, my weight, my hair, etc., etc., etc. in my formative years, and continues to do so.

This is why, when people tell me I’m not black enough or I’m acting too white, it’s forever laughable to me, in ways beyond explanation. So, I remain silent.

I’m an empath, and an artist, and I take everything in. Much of it metabolizes into art, much of it hasn’t made sense up to now. Sometimes when I reflect on all these “rest stops,” these “chiding and crit sessions,” these intersectionality roadblocks, I think, ‘None of this has made any sense up until this very moment.’

This is why I know I’m a feminist. Why I know we have to name and label things, even in spite of our fondest desires not to label or be labeled.

This is why I duck and cover when I’m finger-pointed at by this or that group, this or that church, this or that person, in this or that social media timeline, that I should be doing x, y, z, defending x, y, z and kicking this or that person to the curb, when I am barely coming up for air myself.

Me? I don’t fight back, per se. I don’t stoke the fires of argument when I’m met at these intersections by townsfolk with pitchforks and firebrands, zealous to make the monsters of difference get the fuck out of town, zealous to harm these beasts of reflection. Zealous to preach their BEingness doctrine(s).

That is to say, I don’t fight back in the way(s) I’m expected to. I slip from the scene, I give my time, heart and attention to this or that cause, charity, individual.

I donate my dollars or digits, my 0′s and 1′s, my admin or creative skill set, or my empathic ear, my healing energy, to people who are making a positive difference.

I try to be a little Aiki about things. It has served me well, to date.People perceive this to be weakness. I have come to be accept this (you wanna call Morihei Ueshiba weak? I won’t stop you…).

I might have to, sometimes, give of my positive energy to people who are making a difference for one segment of society, who can’t quite connect with me and meet me where I am, but who do not wish others harm (in theory or in practice).

I have come to accept that, too.

I am by no means “perfect:” I have as many blind spots as the next person. Indeed, when I am poked, prodded and pressed to diss this or that friend or loved one, or to deny my inherent self when I meet people at these sorts of intersectionality crossroads, I am forever reminded of my little blind spots, my little cleanup work, my big evolution(s) that are constantly in progress. Constantly necessary.

My love and trust in the beauty of what Is, the harmony that we are, and the peace of mind that we all deserve, that’s what keeps me going. What keeps me moving forward.

I’m much less “woe is me” about these strange occurrences and intersectionality roadblocks in my life (truly, each strange new instance of ‘targeting of isnesses’ feels like a Sci-Fi surprise).

I have yet to see the full purpose of such situations, yet the pattern is becoming a path. It leads me to appreciate what Is, which is all I’ve been doing in the first place, and this whole blessed time, anyway!

There’s a gratitude in that knowing that I feel released. There’s an ease in the bones. A returning to center. Yes, a Freeing Up. A certainty. That must be the vibe that seems so scary and off-putting to people. That’s their business, so I’ll just continue to be on about mine.

The deal is: I love You, and I’d love to take your hand and walk with you on this leg of the journey. We might even run together, if we’re able. We might lose sight of one another for a part of the trip.

And if we do meet up again, and you grab me by the hand, that’s gorgeous.

You might, however, catch up with me or discover me, then grab that hand and yank it, hard.

Or you take a hand to my throat with a death clasp in your grip.

Or, you might try to pull me down from my waist and think you just might have your way–

You’d better damn well know right now…no matter how much I love you–

I will not let you take me down with you.

Worst case scenario: whether or not I have reinforcements on hand, I won’t stand for your violence.

Best case scenario: I will have to let you go…

…With Love,

Shakti P.

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Shakti P. is rebuilding, reconstituting, revivifying. So is her website. For now, please feel free to reach out to her on Twitter: @ShaktiWGSFem2