Sacred technologies
Whose technologies, and why?
Story
This is an essay of not-knowing. A collection of descriptions and questions, of reaching toward and not quite arriving. Of opening doors and leaving them ajar.
I say this up front so you know. The path might be like a labyrinth: doubling back on itself, arriving at the center only to lead back to where we started. Or like a spiral, or like a lake.
I say this up front to give myself permission. To enter where I am called. To leave when it is time. To go where I need to go.
So you have permission, too. To scroll, dip, skim, delve. Where and when you feel called.
~~~
Yesterday, I went in for a pap smear and a mammogram.
The cis women doctors, nurses, and technicians were kind and honest. But as they poked and prodded, contorted my body against the machine, squished my breast between plexiglass, and instructed me to hold my breath, I thought (as others have): this technology was created by white cis men.
I understand these procedures have saved countless lives. And if my own life is saved, I will be grateful.
Yet I knew as I lay there with my feet in stirrups that my dignity and sovereignty were secondary, an afterthought in “the battle” against cancer.
~~~
I am tempted here to explore the metaphors of war that have been the mainstay of cancer discourse.
And to delve into why there has been so much focus on battling cancer, and so little on identifying and ending the poisoning of our bodies and the Earth, which lead to cancer.
But others have written on both these topics.
I’m still thinking about whose technology and why.
~~~
I once heard the poet Natalie Diaz say we are nature’s technology. I think that’s what she said.
It was during a virtual reading, early pandemic, and I’ve never found any reference in her writing about this.
But I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve tried to understand it in my body.
Or, maybe I know it in my body already, but my brain teeters on the cliff of understanding.
I understand plants, stones, water, trees, and mushrooms as manifesting the life force of nature. I understand this as nature’s technology
I feel and know some ways in which we, humans, do the same—manifest the life force. Praying, writing poems, creating community, loving deeply and profoundly.
But what about dumping plastic in the ocean? Creating artificial intelligence? Extracting and burning fossil fuels toward the extinction of most life on this planet?
~~~
I have been reading aloud this passage from Poetry as Spellcasting to audiences, in person and virtually:
Human language is transmitted socially, yet the words we speak and write begin in the most intimate and most uniquely creative corners of our psyches. What we think and believe lives in internal language before (and regardless of whether) we utter a word.
Is this internal language the most elemental aspect of nature’s technology in humans?
I think of it as a sacred expression of ourselves. Not ourselves as individuals but ourselves as a form of consciousness connected to all other forms of consciousness.
I think it is how we understand ourselves and the world around us before it is mediated—warped—by the forces and pressures of human society (nature’s technology gone wrong?).
If humans have this internal language, I think other beings must as well. Hazel, my dog, stretches her belly across the cool wooden floor next to me. She pants into the fan. I know she has an understanding of herself, in her body, in this world, connected to other beings, other consciousnesses.
A sparrow lands on the railing outside my window, their bright eyes alert. They cock their head, listen for what I cannot hear. They make some kind of internal calculation that I will never know, then fly off. I think they are inside their own language, inside nature’s technology.
~~~
One definition of “technology,” according to Merriam-Webster (in both the Collegiate 10th edition on my bookshelf and on online) is: “a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge.”
If we (living beings?) are nature’s technology, what task are we accomplishing?
Life, I think.
Living, growing, becoming. Celebrating the miracle that is our every breath and heartbeat. Cherishing all that is pulsing with life.
~~~
I recently listened to this conversation between On Being host Krista Tippett and technologist James Bridle. Early on, Bridle expanded on a phrase used by evolutionary scientist Lynn Margulis: “everything is equally evolved.” Bridle said:
Everything has been on this planet for as long as everything else. Everything has been in this universe for as long as everything else. Nothing is more evolved than anything else. Everything has been evolving for the same length of time. Everything has been becoming for the same lengths of time.
As nature’s technology, we have all been becoming, together. I feel this truth in my body.
I am not more evolved than the echinacea that blooms every year in the same spot in my garden, not more evolved than the mice I catch in my kitchen and release in the cemetery, not more or less evolved than the orcas teaching each other to protect themselves.
Not more or less evolved than the stone along the river, nor the lichen marking the stone, nor the mushroom growing at the base of the oak next to the stone, nor the poison ivy climbing the tree trunk, shiny and green protecting themselves and the space around them.
~~~
I am using human technology—language—to try to express nature’s technology, to express the sacred language inside myself, connected to all other forms of consciousness, equally evolved.
It feels clumsy, awkward. Like using broom handles to knit the finest lace. (I’m noting the technology of the metaphor, the potential gendering of these human technologies.)
Perhaps the bridge that connects these two technologies (human and nature) is poetry. Sacred utterance, song, dance.
The more I think and talk about poetry as spellcasting as I have been doing these past few months, the more I am convinced it is the simplest of things. And also, as these things are, the hardest to access inside human society and its pressures.
The return to our internal language. A return to play, to ritual. Translating our inner knowing as it is connected to all the knowings.
Maybe it is something I will always fail at. But it feels important to practice.
~~~
There is still the question of human technologies that, to me, feel directly opposed to the sacred, to life, to thriving.
Technologies of war, yes. But also all manner of technologies designed for “progress,” which now we see and know and feel are harming us and so much of life on earth.
And now, generative AI, which mimics our language and our creativity, but without the internal language that connects it to consciousness. Another technology created inside capitalism by cis, het, white men because it’s possible, because it is fun for them, and because it makes them money—without meaningfully engaging in profound moral questions around whether they should do it, just because they can.
I cannot help but be wary of this technology created by humans who most likely have been separated from their internal language, from the sacredness of life and nature for too long. Technology made in their image, reflecting their ideas and worldviews.
~~~
Sometimes, technology stops becoming a way of accomplishing a task. It becomes something that exists for its own sake. An endless, self-replicating loop.
That’s how I feel about social media. And most of the internet.
That’s some of what people fear about AI.
Maybe that’s what happened with humans.
~~~
I admit I don’t know much about generative AI.
(I know I am now pulled into learning about it because it can do some of the work I do to earn money. A story as old as the industrial revolution.)
But from what I think I understand, the inexpressible is illegible to AI. Our internal language—for now?—cannot be searched, processed, and reconfigured by ChatGPT.
AI may perfectly approximate spiritual language, and it can write all manner of bad poetry. But its products are not actually expressions of the sacred, of the unknowable, of what lives inside of us before language. There is no there there.
~~~
I don’t want this to be about a war between human technology and nature’s technology. Especially if Natalie Diaz is right, because then what would it be? A civil war? An internal battle? Maybe.
But if not war, what could it be? A calling in, a coming together?
~~~
I want ever widening circles of love and connection. I want the sacred and the profane playing and praying at the edges of knowing.
~~~
Liminal spaces are where I have always found myself and where I have found myself.
Despite all that has (and has not) happened since March 2020, this historical moment still feels like a portal. A threshold. A space on the edges of becoming. A way to evolve into a different way of being.
~~~
I think sacred language, our internal language and knowing can be the building blocks of technologies that will tip us into the world we all deserve.
Technologies created by those with the least power and privilege in this society. Technologies of survival and thriving. Technologies that facilitate deeper community and sharing, and technologies that begin with profound respect for life, dignity, and sovereignty.
I know it’s happening right now. Through poetry, in code, as machines being built in suburban garages by kids who insist on a future. Whispers of ideas on podcasts and radio waves, circular essays, the chatter of toddlers learning to play together. Dough kneaded by knowing hands and slapped into perfect circles between calloused palms. Gardens tended to in the desert. Evolving in ways and places I cannot imagine.
Remembering our original purpose as nature’s technology.
What are the rituals, practices, and organizing we need to bring all this forward?
Starlight
A prompt
If you have a copy of Poetry as Spellcasting, I suggest “Writing to your Absent Presence” on page 29.
Otherwise, or in addition, try this prompt.
For three, six, or nine days (or whatever works for you), gather images from your dreams and your waking life. Use the simplest technologies: books, prayer, sleep, paper, pen.
Before going to bed, read a poem or a passage from books you love.
Invite your ancestors, Spirit, or any other forces/energies that you pray to or petition to help you access your internal language through dreams. (If you’re interested in getting support from plant allies, the episode “Sleep as Spellwork” from The Herbal Highway podcast has tons of great information.)
Keep a notebook by your bed and pen by your bed. When you wake up, write down or draw images or fragments you remember or think you remember.
During the day, be attentive to images, phrases, colors, sounds, tastes, textures, or ideas that catch your attention, especially if they resonate with your dream images. Keep the same notebook handy, and write these down or draw them.
At the end of this period, look through what you have gathered.
Arrange them in a poem or an art piece. Meaning is less important than sound and resonance. Push your language to the edge of knowing. Play. Welcome what arrives, even if you don’t “understand” it.
Revisit this piece in another three, six, or nine days. What has changed? How have you changed? What do you do now?
Stargaze
What I’m reading and listening to
Welcome Our New A.I. Overlords. I loved this episode of Imaginary Worlds about how U.S. history filters into how Americans are thinking about A.I., and what the real concerns around A.I. actually are (hint: they involve the people, not the A.I.)
The Democratic Dilemma of AI: Navigating Ethical Challenges for Political and Advocacy Campaigns. I found this article useful in thinking about the role of AI in my communications work.
Two Sinéad O’Connor links, both by the brilliant Hanif Abdurraqib: Sinéad O’Connor Was Always Herself, and this Instagram post.
Two Barbie links: Barbie climate propaganda and Protest Barbie.
Starshine
Announcements from the Starlight & Strategy community and beyond
A trusted colleague shared this fundraiser for women street vendors in Sudan. The funds go to worker cooperatives to provide food, hygiene, medical, and other basic needs for the vendors who can’t afford to stay home while war rages in their country.
A project dear to my heart is Brew & Forge, an organization that brings artists and organizers together to “brew & forge” radical change. I’m organizing a funders gathering on September 12 to raise money for the next Witches & Warriors retreat, and everyone is invited.
I wrote about queer magic for North Atlantic Books’ June newsletter.
I’m offering a workshop for the QTAPI community here in Boston, through the Asian American Resources Workshop on August 19 from 1-3 pm. Stay tuned for details either through AARW, or on my Instagram.
And finally, keep an eye on the Boston Book Festival, coming October 14. Jane Wong & I will be leading a generative, poetry-as-spellcasting workshop toward abolition.
Do you have an event, a book, an album, a gallery showing, a theater production, an action, a rally, a fundraiser, a retreat, a podcast or other artistic/spiritual/activist announcement you’d like to share with this community? Send it my way!
Thank you for reading to the end! I’m taking a summer break and then working on other projects in the fall, so I’ll be back in your inbox on the full moon and lunar eclipse on October 28. Until then, may you have ample access to your internal language and life-giving technologies.