Defined: To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Invitation
All that you touch
You Change
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God is Change.
– Octavia E. Butler
When we look at the world, it is difficult to ignore the terror, destruction, violence, grief, sorrow, and fear. Living in these Queer/Trans, Black, Indigenous bodies, we feel these things viscerally. As an old world crumbles before our eyes, as we process through the grief, the violence, the fear, what then becomes possible?
This has always been our way. Remember?
Remember the alchemical magic of Ballroom.
Remember the alchemical magic of cuisines of the Global South.
Remember the alchemical magic of Voodoo, Santeria, and Ifa.
No matter our suffering, we cannot help but create space to sing, dream, chant, and play together. This ineffable creative spirit is the bedrock of our survival. When they gave us scraps, we prepared them with our love and Transformed them into a feast. When they took away our gathering places, we gathered under the sycamore trees, in basements, and warehouses. When they gave us their religion, we freaked it and made it our own. All that we have touched, we have changed.
We have been changed by community. Changed by love. Changed by trust. Our creativity is the bedrock of our Transformation and by extension a Transformed world.
What can we create in this time? What is the crude material through which we can co-create a new world?
Can we take the crude material of our relationships to create new ways of relating that would have us moving at the speed of relationship, at the speed of trust? Can we take the overgrown, unkempt flower beds in the vacant lots that scatter our city blocks to create sanctuary and provision for ourselves? Can we take our meager wages and create abundance?
The answer has always been yes. Remember, you are only God playing make-believe with yourself.
Care Reflections
What has changed you this year?
What have you changed by your touch?
-Images & Writing By Vic Collins