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TRANSFORMATIONS
On the heels of Earth Day, this is a special "Transformations" edition with an expanded roundup of actions, ideas, inspirations, and good news culled from the past week.
How do we change?
Be more like Nick Cave
Nick gave up his artist man-Cave to reengage with the world.
Green your banking
Don't let your money be invested in the planet's demise.
Give locally
Donate to those already doing the heavy lifting.
Be more like Sweden
Minimizing waste + killing it with recycling and waste-to-energy.
Track Russian eco-crimes in Ukraine
Actually that's covered.
Meet at the barricades
First we need to stop the fascists, again.
Come on up for the rising
I mean, if a destroyed town in a deep-red US state can go green...
Compost yourself
If all else fails.
Focus on solutions
Doesn't mean you have to be perfect, or delusional.
Be an Earth Hero
There's an app for that.
Make your yard a habitat
If you have one.
PRIMORDIAL MOTHER SPEAKS FOR HERSELF
An Earth Day poem by Zakiya McKenzie
[via Topia]
1.
Before the birth of civilisation
I was
Primordial
Picked from the order of which
Root itself burst first
In the wet, blackout belly of blue
Deep secret sages and siren sisters
Seen only in the slumbering (submarine) visions
Of divine women who open their eyes
Not knowing they carry my blessing on their heads
When night wraps up in deep violet and delicate velvet
These siren sage women exhale
(Children sleep)
Wanderers moving through shadow
Floating as galaxy
Everything within
When light flees into shooting star and no wish can satisfy
She is like the drinking gourd
Playing the hand of the sky
Pulling hope through hardship
Steering boat through woods of discord
The caravan’s only true guide
through astral waves and landed shore
Before the growth of modernisation
I was the mother primordial
Watched over by the old woman who
sat with daughters she did not bear
Yet poured into them
with the affinity of moss covering softness
Shaded from time
Taller branches older
For ideas, for flowers
Folded into terra firma
As a baby is swaddled
As a tonic is swallowed
For rhythms that flow through connected veins
Turning bitterwood to sweetwater
when heartblood is mixed in
2.
Primordial mother answers to many names
Oya, daughter of chaos
thrashing as hair pulled from scalp
Howling outwards, whirling inwards
Still
An eye full of calm
As smoke is silence and signal
in the same
She is sweet with the salt of duality
Her mercy is potion that washes the throat
Of those under her grip
She opens the gate while watching the earth rot
Ushering empty souls to overflowing plots
Standing guard at this monument to the anthropocene
Waiting to close the crypt and end the script
Of this earth exhibition
Like a fledging bird finding steadiness on wind
If it never returns, she won’t say a thing
For content is primordial mother
that in this eleventh hour
She gave
She gives
Refusal of honey for taste blunted on sour
Is outside of her power
She may wail for her creation but will preserve her essence
For primordial mother will return to elemental nothingness
3.
Before the birth of anything sure
My bones chalked and my flesh mangled
into dust that made me indistinguishable
From that which made the first man
Zakiya McKenzie was 2019 Writer in Residence for Forestry England and, at Ujima 98FM in Bristol, she was a Black and Green Ambassador. Zakiya is a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter with the Caribbean Literary Heritage project, researching Black British journalism in the post–war period. Her debut pamphlet, Testimonies on the History of Jamaica Volume I, is a piece of historical fiction exploring environmental implications, published by Rough Trade Books in 2021. Follow @ZakiyaMedia.
Music Declares Emergency
We are excited to announce our support for @EarthPercent Earth Day X Bandcamp campaign - 100s of artists releasing previously unheard music to raise money for climate causes.
For a limited time only!