With the mid-afternoon sun streaming in through the windows,Tanya and I set ourselves up among the soft blankets and plush pillows on the floor and began this first recording. Using two mediocre mini mics, we talk about some of the reasons we started Flow.
This project was seeded while we were driving across Turtle Island from so-called Vancouver to Tio:tia’ke (Montreal), shedding our skins and sensing into some new (but yet unknown) form. As we travelled across the continent by car, we felt as though we were moving through the bardo, that space between the death of the old and the birth of the new.
Flow is a creative journey with no known destination, more of a playground than a routed map. It is us trying to weave in some of the lessons we harvested over the last several years. I wager that for almost everyone across this beautiful planet, the pandemic served up some harsh truths and realizations, forced transformations and ruptures in the illusion of certainty. What to do with all those teachings? All I know, is that there is no going back to what was.
Through Flow, we hope to produce and share creative content that is vulnerable, emergent and comes from our hearts. We’re using this platform as a way to experiment with loosening our grip on control. In a way, this is a pilgrimage back to ourselves – a practice of deeper listening, reignited curiosity, and trusting the process. The practice of going into the dark emptiness of the un-manifested and stewarding what wants to come forth. How terrifying! I feel grateful to be doing this in the company of one of my best friends.
At the center of this creative process is prioritizing our comfort and ease – we are both spoonies and the needs of our body-minds are leading the way.
When our body-minds say no, we listen.
When they say stop, eat, hydrate, rest – we listen.
This means sometimes we have a day of work planned, but instead we end up stretching, lounging, eating yummy food and massaging each other. Ahhhh, the luxury of friendship and care work!
With this project we are following the flow – it’s too exhausting to be swimming upstream or flying against the gusts of wind all the time.
Like so many of us out there, Tanya and I were burning fast and furious in our past projects. Although it was glorious and spectacular, it also hurt us. Now it’s time for a slower, softer approach – with each step of our journey, we ask ourselves what we need. We trust in the pace and flow of our brilliant body-minds. We trust that when we create in alignment with our biophysical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs, we will create in a more meaningful and impactful way – for ourselves first and foremost, but also for others.
In this way, Flow is a push back on the sly and ever-present pressure of productivity – that buzzing urgency that lives in our body-minds. You know the one… the pressure to make and do something yesterday. The pressure to create something beautiful, perfect, worthy in the eyes of the other. This is a major gear in the machine of capitalism, an algorithm in the program of white supremacy. This productivity pressure is hard-baked into our being. It is in our bones, we inherited it. We are swimming in the matrix of colonial culture. I’m not sure I will ever be free of it in this lifetime.
We expected our first release to be an article and video about conscious partying and the ritual use of psychoactive substances. It was going to be a Halloween special –because partying is so exxxxtra around this time of the year, and the veil between the worlds of the living and the spirits are vapour thin. Can parties become ceremonies? Can we consciously enter trance states and live for a brief moment in another world of possibilities? Can we descend into the cracks of Empire, catch a flash of freedom and let it seep into our nervous systems? Can we bring it back to the consensus reality and let it support the radical work of solidarity and mutual aid, of care work and healing?
But that is not what happened. We felt resistance when we tried to dive in, and instead it felt right to start with this podcast, video and short text. So, Flow is a mystery in many ways – we have no idea what will emerge in the coming months and years. We will let it evolve, grow and pass on at the pace and in the way it wants to. It cannot be contained; we are surrendering to the movement of liquid, to the currents of wind.
But there are a few things we do hope will happen with Flow:
- To be inspire and be inspired
- To create connections with other beings doing radical, daring work on this damaged planet
- To explore the intersections of magic, ecology, activism, and art – and tap into the activity, growth and decay that is happening at these meeting places.
Having the freedom to create in alignment with our body-minds is not always possible under capitalism.
We are grateful for the GODBERD platform for offering us a chance to create freely and be compensated. This is a platform for creators of all kinds, to express themselves and be part of a growing community. There are opportunities for musicians, makers, inventors, innovators, crafters, writers, sculptors, poets, and anyone else who feels the creative urge and the desire to express it.
Both Tanya and I are also helping GODBERD blossom into something. If you have interest in contributing, please get it touch with us!
So with that, I will sign off and let you enjoy the video and podcast introducing Flow if you feel called to it.
Wishing you a deep breath of fresh air to keep you buoyant today!
- Autumn Zephyr.
