"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and...love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"Knowing others is intelligence. Knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power." - Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching These two quotes begin Kasia Urbanak's Unbound's A Woman's Guide to Power. Kasia Urbanak is a Dominatrix and A Taoist Nun. I have just finished listening to today's Episode of Fresh Air which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE LISTEN TO IF YOU WOKE UP WITH YOUR HOPE DOWN THE DRAIN. None of our Negative Feelings are Permanent. And I KNOW. I KNOW THAT ARTISTS RIGHT NOW FEEL FUCKING USELESS. This is why the spiritual center is essential. Scholars Tressie McMillan Cottom and Eddie Glaude reflect on the struggle for civil rights and what it means to celebrate King on the same day that President Donald Trump is sworn into office. They speak to MLK's creative and artistic ability to speak and to rouse. I needed to hear Eddie Glaude's point of becoming so overcome by MLK's leadership that we just lay below him, kissing at his feet, unaware of where to go next. We need a next of where to go. We need to heal the stuck. We need to heal our wounds. Our personal wounds that have us frozen. And afraid. And doing nothing. MLK was considered a RADICAL in his time. Was considered written off. Was something to be feared. Was ahead of his time. HE SPOKE OUT. WE ARE BEING ASKED TO DO THE SAME. TO BE RADICAL. Admittedly, it hurts to be alive right now. Truly, it fucking hurts. It really fucking hurts. It personally hurts because I feels so deeply devalued. And I am hungry. I am poor. And it isn't fucking fair. As A RADICAL ARTIST. A RADICAL THINKER. And I also retain hope. THAT MY RADICAL IS EXACTLY WHAT IS NEEDED. Scholar Tressie McMillan Cottom: "History repeats itself. I like to think of history as a spinning top - that even as it moves forward, it wobbles, and the interior of it is going round and round. So sometimes progress does feel like turning in circles. And that our commitment to a transactional hope that when we do the hard work, when we go out to vote, when we sign a petition, when we march, that there has to be an immediate return to those actions to justify taking yet another action. Is one of the ways that the neoliberal order that Eddie has spoken about so eloquently here that so many of us are suffering through convinces us to divest from the things that matter to us. You do the thing that matters, whether it feels like you are moving forward or not. Because the thing about history is that you really don't know where you're standing until it has passed. That's why in the moment, we are supposed to be guided by something more, something bigger - morality, accountability, responsibility to ourselves, to our values, to one another. And that this is not the first time we've been called to do that. I take a lot of comfort in that. You know, Eddie says that's the reason why he chose that speech because it so mirrors our current moment. I actually take a lot of comfort in the fact that we have been here before, and we've not only survived it, we have figured it out. And so I think that we will continue to figure it out, but we probably need to give up the transactional nature of our hope and do the thing that needs to be done because it needs to be done. That's our responsibility to history."
3 Comments
Emily
1/20/2025 03:12:59 pm
Sending all love. Grateful for all the ways you pour a spirit of love and generosity into the world. 💗
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Zaza Diana Oh
1/20/2025 03:36:03 pm
thank you for holding hands
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Dee
1/20/2025 07:47:59 pm
A much needed point, thank you. The good bits are never transactional.
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Diana Oh "Zaza D"
This is a Space Where I Save My Own Damn Life (and maybe even someone else's). All Parts are Welcome, bb. Archives
February 2025
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