Last night was the first session of Brilliance Remastered’s newest and most experimental webinar intensive: SPILL. We experimented with sinking in, visualizing what we are immersed in, releasing, remembering the ground, examining lit candles that have already burned out on altars to our fears and more! The participants in the Spill webinar are going deep together and designing alternative intellectual projects and they are bringing along what Audre Lorde calls “the non-european consciousness” (some other people call it the subconscious mind) to transform everything. All of the activities in the Spill Webinar are based on an oracle text of freedom scenes I wrote, drawn from Hortense Spillers’ asides in the crucial literary critical text Black, White and In Color. Our closing group poem last night draws on the phrase “quirkiness of conception” from her introduction to her enduring book of essays. What if you were having your best idea yet all day long?
Update: 10/21/16 If you want to sign up for the next Brilliance Remastered Intensive, here is some information about the Black Boundlessness Intensive.
quirkiness of conception
(excerpt from Spill by Alexis Pauline Gumbs)
the first time i thought of you, you were swimming, towards you, through me. first time i thought i was drowning in a world that needed you in it or it would disappear. first time i knew you existed the rest of the history of the world popped like a bubble unready unworthy and my body wanted only future, only you. the first time i felt you move we were deep underwater under something built to keep us under and i couldn’t see anything but i understood there was something above everything. above everything despite everything i would find fresh air and breathe again. above everything despite everything i would free you. my best idea yet.
my best idea yet
by the participants in the Spill Webinar
waking up when i wake up, my best idea yet
letting happiness lead, my best idea yet
daring to hope, my best idea yet
curious my best idea yet
seeking spirit guidance, my best idea yet
believing in believing, my best idea yet
experimenting with being present, my best idea yet
loving this being, my best idea yet
appreciating being alive and in this body, my best idea yet
listening to my body, my best idea yet
full belly breathing, my best idea yet
being well, my best idea yet
sitting on the floor, my best idea yet
dancing, my best idea yet
praying before responding to emails about money, my best idea yet
listening to the whispers of ancestors, my best idea yet
choosing, my best idea yet
touching the water, my best idea yet
hugging my loved ones, my best idea yet
nurturing intimacy, my best idea yet
allowing myself to be understood or mysterious my best idea yet
honoring my brilliance and everyone else’s my best idea yet
surrendering to the creative processes, my best idea yet
writing what I want to write, my best idea yet
teaching who I want to teach, my best idea yet
learning, still, my best idea yet
cultivating my ability to stay if i want to, my best idea yet
leaving if I want to, my best idea yet
making time for pleasure, my best idea yet
going to sleep when I am tired, my best idea yet