seasonal cultural activity

Hello, reader.  How are you doing?  It’s time for seasonal cultural activity.  Fall is my favorite.  The transition into less sun and almost-daily rain is dramatic here in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s time to do fall and winter holidays.

The community where Ming and I live had an ofrenda for Dia de Los Muertos.  I contributed, which felt meaningful.  It was only two or three minutes I spent at this ofrenda.  But that short amount of time helped me feel connected, safe, and whole.

I put a tiny picture of my mom, the banana, the calaveras, and the two arts which are of skeletons in the back, pink and orange.

The bunny skeleton I am proud of.  The pink human skeleton art signifies a transition in my life.  I made those arts in Las Vegas when I was just starting to allow myself to make art more.  It was a sacred transition into freedom.

holidays

Do you like holidays?   For a while I hated them because routine helps me function, and holidays disrupt routine.   There have been times in my life when holidays felt isolating because I missed doing my usual social things, and was supposed to do different, treat social things.  The soup line was closed, and libraries were closed–the things that kept me going.

My life was set up how I needed it to be.  So I was angry because I thought holidays exist for people whose everyday lives are set up wrong, so they need holidays to break up the monotony.

You know I have disabilities and differences including the autism.  I like to call my need for routine a need for structure.  Structure sounds strong like a powerful bridge, helping countless people across a waterway.  Routine sounds boring and rigid, like a mean man in a suit.

wheel of the year

Well, I love holidays these days, and I need seasonal cultural activity because it connects me to my ancestors and other people who share something in common with me.  It’s fun to tap into traditions and pull Ming and other loved ones into the rich spiritual depth.

Let’s go swimming in love.  Let’s swim in the warm waters of time.

Thanksgiving is coming up.  In fact, it’s Thanksgiving Eve.  I look forward to buying a lot of flowers, as for me, Thanksgiving is the day my mom’s mom died.  So my mom would always go to Lompoc to the cemetery and put a flower on my Nana’s grave.

I can’t wait to buy roses and carnations, and do a ritual of thanks to all the powerful women, queers, artists, and other beautiful ancestors who handed me their gifts and keep me going.  Their love sustains me.

The wheel of the year keeps turning.  Might as well enjoy the ride.

living animal

What about gratitude?  Ming and I live thanksgiving every day, when we gratitude journal.  We’re real about what we love about our lives, as well as what we’re struggling with.  We don’t celebrate colonialism.  But we can sit at a table with other people who have so little and like Thanksgiving as a feast or comfort.

I’m sorry for people who culturally only have what they were handed and who (for whatever reason) don’t do much to intentionally create their own reality.  I’m happy that Ming and I dream of other worlds and work toward shared intersectional justice, mutual aid visions.

We don’t eat birds, but we’ll sit at a table with a dead bird and our living animal neighbors, and try to love one another.  I’ll bring the lentils.