Eclipsed And Everfolding
After not winning the X-factor in 2010, Cher Lloyd would later go on to conquer America with her song “Oath” featuring Becky G. The first lines of the chorus, Lloyd sings
“Wherever you go, just always remember. That you’ve got a home, for now and forever.”
In process philosophy; a term coined by Alfred Whitehead - entities are not seen as static objects but rather processes in dynamic relationships with one and another. Lloyd speaks to an exchange that is everfolding -
when it gets you,
it gets you good
and it stays.
It could be said that something placed outside for long enough could become an ecosystem - another dynamic relationship where organisms interact with the physical.
A dance of sorts where things house things. For now or forever.
We become homes to the things we might not want. “The body is a container”, this we know. But on the outside - the body is also an ecosystem. An ecosystem of not just the things we know of, but to the things that we don’t.
I think about standing still waiting for the train at Raynes Park, where I walk right to the end of the platform just so I don’t have to walk any more than I need to once I get to Waterloo. I think about how I walk out,
stand
and wait.
My body; a pillar, a foundation to a building not yet known.
My arms are tight to my side.
And my feet are almost touching.
I stand as an ecosystem to something.
If not forever, maybe for now.
There has to be something that has latched onto me and decided it’s home. It’s impossible to not be impacted in open air.
But how can I know that something has latched when it might not be able to speak? Oftentimes my body warns me that things don’t last forever. And lasting forever is what homes often promise.
In moments of pain, the human body often does not register that healing is an outcome available on its trajectory. Impact doesn't afford us the time to understand that things pass.
But could it also be that impact doesn’t have the ability to talk - to soothe and tell us - “You will heal”
Who tells the lone flower that by winter it will die, and by spring it will return stronger than before? You see, when my body was an ear, stationed at the belly of the earth. I would listened to all that came before me. The hum of the soil sliding against itself, the peak of the mountains catching the winds through their open arms.
I recall questions passing me.
Speaking to me.
Asking me about the day before.
But I had no way to reply. I was only here to listen.
Days would go by turning into years and the build up of questions had now lodged themselves in my ear canal.
Silence increasing -
I began to retrace my mothers line and seek what was left behind in the great passing. My thoughts now bled into my prayers. When can I relieve this? When can I speak to what wants to be spoken too. Address the unspoken ?
And then, a light casted out of my ear, illuminating through every question. With its sustained light came a sustained sensation. A sack formed under my ear. Almost as if a blister was kissed upon me. The light still illuminating from my ear; the sack wrinkled by the weight of a fluid I had no recollection of.
Then it happened. A leaking inwards that shot a sensation throughout me. My ear had perked and twitched at the sensation. The glow in my ear was weakening - the muffled sounds which replaced the volume of my settings disappeared - the questions flew out. Humming over my blister - leeching away at the surface.
Taste.
I was tasting something for the first time. With the blister healed, the questions became attracted to another light source.
The questions knocked at my surface, at my blister and with no hesitation I split in two…
Welcoming in me every question that was resting in my canal this whole time. I have never had the world translated inside of me like this. And in a moment the questions found a passage, deep down inside of me. I was given a mouth. Something so new yet functioned as if it was meant to be. My mouth housed these questions, not knowing that in fact my hum could be an answer. My sliding soil could tap at the embryo of their needs.
“But time has passed and I can't recall the past and speak of it to you.”
Even if I was to remember the sounds - my newly made mouth wouldn't connect them.
-
*I am now on the train heading to waterloo*
To hold the mark of your return is to fold with the season and come back untouched. To be taken away through impact but brought back in light. I think about the gardens which have been applied on top of me. These gardens are sites of constant processing. Always working and always producing. Identifying all that has come before. The garden is a framework; yet it is empty. Always tangled, the garden is knotting at the roots, reminding us that it's everfolding, eclipsing over, pushing under and passing through.
Earlier this year, Munesu Mukombe articulated to me how
“We all struggle with experiencing devastating experiences and seeing the joys that live in the crevices of them or allowing polar opposite emotions to sit next to one another. The ones who have hurt us have also made us laugh and we can love the countries that unjustly oppress our people.”
But what sits here next to me? Could something sit beside me - so opposite that I can't even register it? Something far from my fabric - far from my garden? I think back to standing out in the open air at the end of the platform. Far away from the station's shelter and directly under the rain. Something is bound to sit on me.
Making me an ecosystem - a lisp that echoes the past.
“Wherever you go, just always remember. That you’ve got a home, for now and forever.”
In process philosophy; a term coined by Alfred Whitehead - entities are not seen as static objects but rather processes in dynamic relationships with one and another. Lloyd speaks to an exchange that is everfolding -
when it gets you,
it gets you good
and it stays.
It could be said that something placed outside for long enough could become an ecosystem - another dynamic relationship where organisms interact with the physical.
A dance of sorts where things house things. For now or forever.
We become homes to the things we might not want. “The body is a container”, this we know. But on the outside - the body is also an ecosystem. An ecosystem of not just the things we know of, but to the things that we don’t.
I think about standing still waiting for the train at Raynes Park, where I walk right to the end of the platform just so I don’t have to walk any more than I need to once I get to Waterloo. I think about how I walk out,
stand
and wait.
My body; a pillar, a foundation to a building not yet known.
My arms are tight to my side.
And my feet are almost touching.
I stand as an ecosystem to something.
If not forever, maybe for now.
There has to be something that has latched onto me and decided it’s home. It’s impossible to not be impacted in open air.
But how can I know that something has latched when it might not be able to speak? Oftentimes my body warns me that things don’t last forever. And lasting forever is what homes often promise.
In moments of pain, the human body often does not register that healing is an outcome available on its trajectory. Impact doesn't afford us the time to understand that things pass.
But could it also be that impact doesn’t have the ability to talk - to soothe and tell us - “You will heal”
Who tells the lone flower that by winter it will die, and by spring it will return stronger than before? You see, when my body was an ear, stationed at the belly of the earth. I would listened to all that came before me. The hum of the soil sliding against itself, the peak of the mountains catching the winds through their open arms.
I recall questions passing me.
Speaking to me.
Asking me about the day before.
But I had no way to reply. I was only here to listen.
Days would go by turning into years and the build up of questions had now lodged themselves in my ear canal.
Silence increasing -
I began to retrace my mothers line and seek what was left behind in the great passing. My thoughts now bled into my prayers. When can I relieve this? When can I speak to what wants to be spoken too. Address the unspoken ?
And then, a light casted out of my ear, illuminating through every question. With its sustained light came a sustained sensation. A sack formed under my ear. Almost as if a blister was kissed upon me. The light still illuminating from my ear; the sack wrinkled by the weight of a fluid I had no recollection of.
Then it happened. A leaking inwards that shot a sensation throughout me. My ear had perked and twitched at the sensation. The glow in my ear was weakening - the muffled sounds which replaced the volume of my settings disappeared - the questions flew out. Humming over my blister - leeching away at the surface.
Taste.
I was tasting something for the first time. With the blister healed, the questions became attracted to another light source.
The questions knocked at my surface, at my blister and with no hesitation I split in two…
Welcoming in me every question that was resting in my canal this whole time. I have never had the world translated inside of me like this. And in a moment the questions found a passage, deep down inside of me. I was given a mouth. Something so new yet functioned as if it was meant to be. My mouth housed these questions, not knowing that in fact my hum could be an answer. My sliding soil could tap at the embryo of their needs.
“But time has passed and I can't recall the past and speak of it to you.”
Even if I was to remember the sounds - my newly made mouth wouldn't connect them.
-
*I am now on the train heading to waterloo*
To hold the mark of your return is to fold with the season and come back untouched. To be taken away through impact but brought back in light. I think about the gardens which have been applied on top of me. These gardens are sites of constant processing. Always working and always producing. Identifying all that has come before. The garden is a framework; yet it is empty. Always tangled, the garden is knotting at the roots, reminding us that it's everfolding, eclipsing over, pushing under and passing through.
Earlier this year, Munesu Mukombe articulated to me how
“We all struggle with experiencing devastating experiences and seeing the joys that live in the crevices of them or allowing polar opposite emotions to sit next to one another. The ones who have hurt us have also made us laugh and we can love the countries that unjustly oppress our people.”
But what sits here next to me? Could something sit beside me - so opposite that I can't even register it? Something far from my fabric - far from my garden? I think back to standing out in the open air at the end of the platform. Far away from the station's shelter and directly under the rain. Something is bound to sit on me.
Making me an ecosystem - a lisp that echoes the past.
✿