[-empyre-] Nāntli Cemanāhuatl means Mother Universe in Nahuatl

[Lucia Monge]

Hello todxs,

Thank you lucian, WhiteFeather, Caitlin, Stephanie, and Ciclón for sharing
your practices/perspectives/experiences. I’ve been thinking much about this
conversation and will surely continue to digest and return to it in the
next days.


WhiteFeather, I really like the ritual you describe where people exchange
breathing with the ground and find your comment on giving back and not only
taking very important. I wonder if it's the word remediation that can be a
trap since it implies a fixing or restoring to a previous state and with
that a very specific kind of relationship, that of management. But despite
the name, the act of feeding, nourishing or tending to the land can be/is
part of a (more) present tense.


To me remediation is a form of thank you so perhaps a new term could have
less of "I need to fix this" tone and more of a this is "how I choose to
relate to" so that it can represent a way of exhaling back at the land (to
follow the beautiful exchange you described). And if we change the name,
maybe we can rethink what the remediation practices mean and involve. Have
them include a wider variety of actions that differentiate between a need
for "doing something" and a need for "giving space," as well as incorporate
acknowledgements and appreciation to those engaging in the labor (plants,
fungi, bacteria). I realize now that this way of thinking about
"remediation" rituals and practices is similar to pagos a la tierra,
traditional Andean rituals in which offerings are buried in the land to
give thanks, give back, keep happy, as part of a relationship that is
understood as reciprocal.


I appreciate your question about carrier bag contents Ciclón because I've
been thinking how one way to avoid appropriation is to create your own
site- and culture- specific rituals, but learning is communal/social so
there needs to be some form of dialogue with others. I keep asking myself
what ways can be imagined to exchange and share methods and tools?
Margaretha, perhaps the manifesto can also include actions, intentions,
recipes that humans are willing to share? and furthermore can we
imagine/create a format that serves and incorporates teachings from a
multiplicity of species?


To answer your question, my carrier bag includes Marisol de la Cadena,
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway,
árboles de Lupuna, trees from the Schefflera genus, Nasa poissoniana,
Pleurotus Ostreatus, uff hard question because this list can get really
long, real fast.



Finally, as for reports on how people felt about their body parts, I
honestly don’t know, although now I wish we'd asked a week later!!! We
didn't offer to heal workshop participants (thankfully to them!), the
intention behind this ritual was to share a means of tracing and discussing
connections between soil, fungi, plants, and other people.


Thank you again to everyone for your contributions, I have really loved
learning about your work and perspectives. And thanks Ciclón for starting
this conversation.


Mucho best,

Lucia




*...............*
http://luciamonge.com/
http://plantonmovil.org




On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 7:06 PM Stephanie Gonzalez <sgonza61 at asu.edu> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
>
> What great conversations. I have been working through the forum, and I am
> really drawn to the concept of “two-eyed vision” and its relation to
> storytelling and narratives. I’m happy to say that this past week, I have
> been installing my thesis exhibition and passed my oral defense on
> Thursday. I would like to share my artist statement for the work as it
> relates to cosmology theories in physics and cosmology narratives found in
> Mexica (Aztec) culture.  I was inspired by my time spent in the Atacama
> Desert in Northern Chile this past summer.
>
>
> While there, I experienced slow time. I participated in an artist
> residency, that had a big impact on me. I connected with the land, was
> invited to participate in ceremonies that gave thanks to Pacha Mama, and
> had conversations about the urgency that Pacha Mama herself was
> communicating through the very distinct presence of colonization and
> attempts to further extract resources from sacred lands. I began to
> question my understanding of western science and the indigenous narratives
> that were shared with me.
>
>
> Halfway through my residency, I wrote a breakup letter to colonization and
> began my storyboard and narrative for my experimental/animation/performance
> video. In the video, I take a journey to the center of the galaxy
> and sacrifice my body to a black hole to then be reborn into the cosmos
> with new sacred cosmic knowledge and the understanding that to in order to
> connect to the galaxy and universe, I had to consciously and physically
> surrender myself. This video also became an act of resistance, and a way to
> decolonize my body.  The following is taken from a portion of my
> statement.
>
>
> Nāntli Cemanāhuatl is driven by a culmination of the psychological effects
> caused by world politics, immigration policies, and news and events
> surrounding climate change, and my personal experience of connecting to the
> planet as a whole. I am one of many who is concerned for the present state
> and future of humanity and the planet.  My personal experiences become
> collections in an archive that reflect the human condition.
>
>
>  I am a Mexican-American Woman living on planet earth. I am an immigrant
> living in a border state.  I am a colonized body, I consume technology. I
> understand that my actions have repercussions. We have failed our
> responsibility to take care of our planet. I understand that we are
> consumers in a world that has detached itself from nature and our planet,
> the thing that provides us with resources to live out our lives. I
> understand that I myself am a walking contradiction. I understand that my
> light skin allows me to walk through the world with more ease. I understand
> Spanish. I understand English. I speak Spanglish. I understand that stars
> are masses made of hydrogen that create their own energy to sustain
> themselves, and so do plants. I understand that the ‘star stuff’ we are all
> made of resides not only within every single human, but it dances
> throughout distant galaxies. I understand that when I sit on the earth and
> give thanks to all she provides, I am connecting to Madre Tierra in the
> humblest way that I know how. I understand that I am not the only one who
> has a narrative to share.
>
>
> It is my hope that this narrative inspires others to think of their own
> origin story. It is my hope that these narratives can be shared with one
> another as ways to relate, care, and show compassion. This work is
> dedicated to migrants all around the world who make dangerous journeys in
> search of more prosperous futures and to those who have had their own
> personal journey in life, whatever that may be. We are all a part of this
> world, each, with a story to tell. Each narrative holds a place in this
> cosmos, a star of sorts, each one lit with a bright light, shining brightly
> in our night sky.
>
>
> Below are some stills from the video.
> [image: NC3.JPG]
> [image: NC2.JPG]
> [image: NC1.JPG]
>
>
>
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