The Ebb and Flow of Liberatory Practice
Meena Malik, guest editor
This piece was written over several months. Part I and IV were written in June, when I was clearer on my path. Part II and III were written in the fall and winter, when I was more in a reflective place. I decided to share all these pieces as a set, because each of them are my truths and represent contemplations that have come to me from different stages of my liberation journey.
Part I: Boundaries and Being in Relationship
Prentis Hemphill says “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” I have been reflecting a lot on this idea of boundaries, which is something that is needed in order for me to be in good relationship with people I need to stay in relationship with for many reasons. But is difficult.
We do not exist independently, like a floating cell, we exist interdependently, whether we like it or not. Our decisions impact others, and create rippling effects. I don’t say this for you to think that you need to think about others whenever you make decisions. No, you should make decisions based on your own needs and desires, however, you should be very clear where your boundaries lie, whether it is a physical limit, mental limit, or emotional limit. You should know where your breaking point is and you should know what is healing for you. And according to that, identify your boundaries and communicate it in a way that works for you. Then, when you are approached by someone to make a decision, you can make it according to your needs. That way you can make the decision to show up as your full self, your best self, which is what you deserve and what the other person in your life deserves.
Why is this a focus, now? To consider these truths — our independence, our limits, and what is healing for us — is to establish a foundation for healing ways of being in relationship with each other. What is that, exactly? To free ourselves from the possibility of all of this, so that we can be our full selves in each place that we are. This to me is liberatory practice.
To the artists I invited to share their work as a part of this series, I asked them to share what a practice of liberation looked like, for them, at this point in time. Understandably, liberation practices won’t and can’t stay stagnant. They will shift in form, in scale, in shape and size, in vibes, in so many other ways. I wanted you, readers, to receive a glimpse of this moment in time — where folks are in their liberation practice. It is not linear. There are iterations, ebbs and flows, slow moments and fast moments. There is joy, there is struggle. It is personal, and it is bigger than personal. It is in the community, at our organizations. I want you to see it in all the different stages and scales.
“Understandably, liberation practices won’t and can’t stay stagnant. They will shift in form, in scale, in shape and size, in vibes, in so many other ways. I wanted you, readers, to receive a glimpse of this moment in time — where folks are in their liberation practice. ”
Part II: The Possibilities of the Unknowing
To be honest, I am in a murky place these days, about the conception of liberation and the steps to take towards a more liberated world. There was a point where I was more in my knowing. It was only few months ago, but things feel differently right now.
It is a hard time to be writing this, because I feel like I don’t have anything profound to say. I am in an opaque place, like when the marine layer is coming on and I look at the lamp or the traffic light and see a haze in front of them. Nothing is clear. I don’t feel like I know anything. There are times I feel like I know things. I don’t know everything, but I know enough to move forward. Right now is not one of those times.
When I am ungrounded and unsure, I notice I am also willing to rely on my community for resources. I am able to receive a lot of information and wisdom. I am open to receiving all of them, hungrily, because I feel like it can offer grounding. Instead, it gives me more opportunity to dig into things more deeply and find other things I never knew were there. It gives me the possibility of thinking differently or seeing from different angles.
I believe in the ebb and flow of our wisdom and our work. I think we are meant to go through these cycles of conviction and doubt, grounding and ungrounding, knowing and unknowing. I think we are meant to open ourselves to the wisdom that exists around us so that we can build pathways together, suffer together, be in joyfulness together. (How can I be in a place of knowing alone anyways?) It is so interesting to be in this limbo space, of no clarity in my knowing, and yet find myself also in a generative space. It is a space of new insight and an encouragement to lean into my community.
I guess this is the ebb and flow of how we navigate our thoughts and feelings. I guess this is part of the journey, to be in a place of unknowing, open to so many new possibilities and ways of living. What is the problem with unknowing? It feels ungrounding. It feels murky, but none of that is bad, I think. When I am high, I see halos around lights. What else am I not seeing in my regular overly busy life? I don’t know.
I guess it is more like the moment I was in and where I was then and I am here now, exploring and investigating. What an interesting place to be and interesting even more that I am so aware that this is the stage that I am in. How beautiful and also how unsettling. Maybe the question isn’t why do I feel unsettled by this but instead why is unsettling a bad thing? It is a moment of new discovery, opportunity for exploration, with no ties to any ideas or concepts. A time to explore my curiosity and imagination by accessing my community and resources. How would we grow if we don’t go through these moments of unsettling and discomfort? Is this what discomfort feels like? I guess I’ll learn to lean into the discomfort of my unknowing, because this is my learning edge.
It feels untenable to consider liberation, and also it feels like learning it.
Part III: Care to Me
Care to me is — for myself it looks like taking care of my full being. Eating healthy, not overeating, but also enjoying food. To sleep well and enough. To do Zumba and BollyX and walk a lot to keep the body healthy. To care for my heart by nurturing relationships, cultivating and practicing grace for myself, trying to continue centering practices not because of a routine, but because I know it helps me when things are hard. Care for my mind is to continue to read, learn, absorb, and practice. There is nothing one cannot improve at.
Care for others, I suppose, looks different per person. Whatever they need, I try to do. To gift things (which is one of my love languages), to spend quality time together, to talk deeply and remember what they said. Take things seriously when they express their needs.
The work of care, I believe, is part of liberatory practices. Care has the potential to establish new relationships, new kinds of knowing, new forms of accountability, new paradigms. Care can also require a different sense of time and a willingness toward vulnerability that one may not be fully prepared for.
I enjoy receiving care and learning how to more directly ask for it to connect with my own needs. Nobody can read my mind, of course, but isn’t it enough — and satisfying — to live in a world where you know what you need, that you can know how to ask for it, and, what’s more, you receive it when you ask for it? Isn't that what we need in this world? Isn’t that what we need for building new ways of being in this world?
I think, for me, we just need more of that in our relationships, whether it is personal or business, familial or professional. If we can all do this better, our relationships will be better, too. The first step is to be able to determine your own needs. And if you’re not used to that because of your traumas and conditioning, then you have to work through all of that noise to find it for yourself first. From there you can communicate it. What is it that I need in order to thrive? How can my community help in assisting me, supporting me? Some shapes or characteristics of care, I imagine, cannot happen in every circumstance. So, with shared consent and talking it through with each other, there will most certainly be multiple versions of care that manifest. And that is good. We get to learn more about each other in that process. We learn what our needs are, what our values are, what we can be flexible about, what we cannot compromise on, what we can work on to be more flexible. That is the work of care. That is what care looks like to me. And in a way, it is work, but love work. It requires intention, transparency, and communication. It is also essential to liberatory futures.
“I invite you to think of where you are in your life in your relationship to liberation. What is most important to you? What are the powers that you hold? Where are you powerless?”
Part IV: An Invitation
I invite you to think of where you are in your life in your relationship to liberation. What is most important to you? What are the powers that you hold? Where are you powerless? We cannot tackle all at once, this massive system of inequity that we have built over generations. So break it down, and see - what do you want to start shifting in your life, in your home, in your work? Where and how do you want to find healing? What needs healing? Find it, and join the movement. Become one of the fractals and join the movement towards collective liberation.
* Fractal is a concept introduced in "Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds" by adrienne maree brown.
Stay tuned to explore the full series
The Process of Liberation is Slow
Adrian Anantawan
On Being
Rebecca Mwase
New Moon Reflections of Liberation
Shey Rí Acu Rivera Ríos
NOT STRANGERS TO ART
Daniel Alexander Jones
Please Take Your Time
Ruyta Iwashita
Unrestricted and Flowing & Adaptability
Tina Calderon
Paviinokre
Jess Gudiel
Liberation is Within Oneself
Samuel Valdez
Practicing Aliveness
UnBound Bodies Collective
COVER ART
Roots + Futures courtesy of UnBound Bodies Collective, one of the featured contributors to this series. Photo by Lauren Miller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meena Malik (she/her/hers) is a recognized vocalist, arts consultant, and cultural organizer, who is known as a mover and shaker re-defining what community engagement and conversations around equity in the arts look like. Formerly as the Senior Program Manager of Theater at the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), she managed the National Theater Project (NTP), a grant program that supports the creation and touring of devised ensemble theater work. Meena organized and led “Beyond Orientalism: The Boston Forum” in October 2017 and is a co-founder and steering committee member of Boston’s first API (Asian Pacific Islander) Arts Network.
