Weaving an open redistribution research journal

Research
,
1

## of February, 2024

I am not confused. I am not afraid of what I came here to do. I’m made of stardust.

:man_singer:t5::zap:.

2

## of January, 2024

On the first day of this year I did a ritual with my neighbor :white_flower::woman_elf:t3:, guided by Peter Limberg.

I don’t really like him.

I do like my neighbor, and it has been super interesting to follow their philosophical inquiry. I see myself as a recovering stoic, a born-again animist, a solar punk hacker. One of the invitations during the ritual was to write our minimum viable philosophy, so I looked at my waving reflections and wrote this.

Minimum viable philosophy

When I get distracted, when I get lost, I come back here.

1. My prayer

I am awake, I breathe, I say good morning, I’m grateful, I smile. Water for my face, water for my stomach, I am water. I connect with my body, what am I feeling? I connect with the sun, I connect with the forest, what are they saying today? I connect with my heart. It is open, I’m sharing it.

In the rocking chair, a prayer for those who are with me. A prayer for those who could not come. A prayer for those who were here before. A prayer for those who will come. Humans, and more-than-humans.

Shape-shifting. I change.

With my feet in the soil, I am ready to talk with the earth’s council.

The earth remembers. I remember.

2. The mystery

I am not confused, my curiosity is not overwhelming. I am light, I am dark, I am lightweight. I am not alone, the mystery is around me, the universe hugs me, my deaths are behind me.

My commitment is with myself. I am one, sometimes. I am multitude, sometimes. I am all sometimes, and sometimes I am not. Shape-shifting. I am present. I breathe. I show up at the table again, and again, and again. And I say:

  • I am impeccable with my words.
  • I don’t take anything personally.
  • I don’t make assumptions.
  • I always do my best.

A water libation. :droplet:

3. Clan

With my heart open I walk with other human ánimas, the fugitives dancing at the edges.

  • We share generously.
  • We stay, present, with this trouble.
  • We take responsibility for our own self, our well-being, and our boundaries.
  • We meet our cultural identity differences without making them the enemy or the idol.
  • We don’t know what we don’t know. It’s ok.
  • We aim for kindness, settle for curiosity or even avoidance.
  • We honor the stories and learnings.
  • When we feel safe enough, we leap.

We are water. :cloud_with_rain:

4. Tao

For the world is a sacred object, nothing is to be done to it.

This is the pattern that starts the weaving of my open research journal, a way to do new-old-emergent science, transparent and embodied, my situated response-ability.

It is also a writing exercise to make my research legible, supported by the Feliz Feliz writing workshop. This is not a stable chronological journal, the texts will change as we collectively edit them. Old, new, emergent, the kairos time. Thanks to them.

Open threads

:cyclone::tanabata_tree:.

4

## of march, 2024

My back hurts. My sister the witch says that it’s because my ancestors are pulling me. That I have to turn around and tell them: Chill, ancestors. Don’t pull, I’m here, doing the work.

The work is to heal a trauma that is intergenerational, intercontinental, interspecies. It’s a lot, and it hurts, so chill, I’m here going slow.

Remembering my ancestors from Asia, I started sleeping very close to the ground.
Remembering my ancestors from the Americas, I started to pray in every full moon.
Remembering my ancestors from Africa, I started to dance with the monster.
The monster is the science of my ancestors from Europe.

Bayo Akomolafe tells a story about Èṣù, the trickster in the cosmovision that Bayo inherited from his Yoruba ancestors.

One day they saw a slaver ship coming close to the coast, and Ogun, the orisha of war, organized an army to intercept them. Èṣù got in the way of this army and made them all to fall asleep, allowing the invasion of their land and the slavery of their people. Èṣù traveled to America as a fugitive in the ship with slavers and slaves.

This is a story of pain that comes from before. I see Bayo rewriting it, helping me to see the importance of those who inhabit the crossroads. This is a dance of contradictions. Bayo feels it on his body, he looks behind, cries and makes an offering. He teaches me to thank Èṣù for the creolization of the american continent. Èṣù brough this dance to us.

These contradictions live on my body. They hurt. I turn around and see the Buddha, Èṣù, Carl Sagan, Pachamama. This is the crossroads of the 4 directions and the 4 colors that my ancestors prepared for me. Their lives inform mine. I don’t walk alone, we are all dancing with the monster.

Open threads

:pirate_flag::lab_coat:.

5

## of april, 2024

The thing is that it is hard to be a human.

Wake up every day, show up at the table again and again and again. It’s heavy for me.

Now I’m starting to think that maybe it is not that my back hurts. Maybe, this is how it feels to be human. And maybe, I was so distracted before that I didn’t know how to feel.

One day I fell on the grass, and I couldn’t wake up any more. Every time I tried to be in my body, I could seat, I could kneel, and I would fall again. Every time the ground would receive me with a lot of care, so I stopped trying.

I started to caress the grass, and the grass started to caress my hair. The ants were passing over me to go wherever it is that they were going. The fairies came close with curiosity, and when they saw that nothing weird was going on they went back to dance with the trees.

I melted. Humus in the forest. Friends, family, little buddies from the kindergarten, mates and cryptobros, leave me here. You go, I’m good here. I feel a lot. I feel everything.

It is getting dark. I feel the forest, it is hurt. The ants put on a brave face, get up, everything will be ok they say. The fairies are making a ritual to remember all those who are no longer here. They help me remember my ancestors. They tell me the story about the day they met for the first time here in this forest. That was a weird day. They ask me if I know what’s going on.

We go to the whiteboard and I draw a cartesian plane and an exponential growth graph. I explain to them that if in the x axis we have time, in the y axis we have at the same time the economic progress based on accumulation and the insatiable consumption of everything and everyone around us. The graph is growing too fast out of the whiteboard. The problem, I think aloud, is that humans are eating the cows. The problem, I conclude, is that instead of seeing the problem, humans are trying very hard to increase speed and productivity so they can kill more cows.

But cows are sacred, they are our friends.

Now we are all crying. We don’t know if everything will be ok. I cannot breathe. My older brother comes close. He is 8 years old, and he has this mix on his face that shows a lot of love and no patience at the same time, because he will have to take me back to our grandma’s house, crying again. She will hold him responsible for everything and she won’t let him go back to play with the fairies.

I know this is heavy for you, he says to me. And he makes me see my hands and my arms. I see how weird they are, with veins and bones, scratches, moles, hairs and wrinkles. We are little monsters, he says. Strong and fearless. We will wake up and explore the dark forest.

Open threads

:cow::hugs:.

6

## of november, 2025

One day not long ago, because these stories didn’t happen a long time ago, one day not long ago the entire human modernity collapsed. There was fear, isolation, desolation. Death went to visit every modern city.

I felt so confused. I don’t live in a modern city, and in here I see that death just happens, all the time, in the never-ending cycle of life. I see that life is relation, to share and to remix with all and with everything. I breathe and I inhale the air of others, I sneeze and I give my water to others. I eat food so that one day I can become food. Very good food, healthy food. I didn’t understand what was happening to those civilized humans wanting to become immune to the world around them. They are severing their relations. They are weird.

We are weird in here too, but that’s not enough reason for importing their panic, I think.

Going down the mountain was cancelled, normality in there became apocalyptic. Going deeper into the mountain became the only way. Live was thriving in the deep forest. Unbothered by the machines and their violent predators, all critters were so loud and visible, and strong and alive. They were calling, come and dance with us, it’s safe again and we miss you. When confused, it’s time to get lost.

Rebecca Solnit said that when empire’s debilitating monopolies on life are suspended, we are free to live and act in another way. She wrote a book on how to get lost. She said that to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. To lose myself while I know where I am. To lose myself as a conscious choice, to surrender.

Getting lost was not easy because I was scared to never come back. I had always walked the predefined linear trail, with a clear north. I always want a hot shower, a hot tea, and a warm bed. So I read and then I walked. I walked in circles for days, letting go of myself, and then I started to remember, slowly.

It is easy. I now remember to look back every now and then, and to look back on every fork. I remember that the way back doesn’t look at all like the way forward. I remember to ask for permission before every step, to accept guidance, and to trust my intuition.

Now I can wander to get lost in the normal, in the modern. To find cracks, to make space, to build refuge. Now getting back is a dance to avoid all the traps of the known and the knowable. Walking without a north I see a map that is very other, a compass that points to other places, places that speak other words. That’s where we meet, that’s how we care for our relation.