When it’s so clear about what matters, everything comes into focus. Every emotion and interaction is heightened from that lens. Leaning into that clarity in my body has driven me to a place of Liberatory Mania, which is inspired by ismatu gwendolyn’s iconic essay There is No Revolution without Madness.
This morning I was thinking about how I feel like I’ve been unmasking so much recently. I’ve always had the feedback as a younger person that I was chill and easy going…the older I get the feedback is far from that. I mostly get adjectives like intense and a lot. Having been conditioned to wanting to be the chill cool girl, leaning into being me is not as easy. I mean - I am cool, but not chill haha.
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I feel like I’ve lived in dissociation for most of my life - in a daze - out of my body. I actually used to open my meditative workshops with that statement, which I’ve been teaching since 2014. In hindsight, even with my awareness about my trauma and relationship with my body, I have been in that daze for so much of it. Constantly in a state of fight/flight/freeze. Swept away with capitalistic dreams and visions.
Now that I’m here. 200 days from October 7th 2023. The clarity is truly maddening in a world that gaslights me that I can only care this much, because life goes on. But life can’t go on - my life can’t go on, because I see so CLEARLY I can only be free if Palestine is free. If Congo is free. If Sudan is free. If police and prisons are abolished. If the whole damn system burns down. All the meantime, it feels like the majority of the world is looking back at me like I’m the delusional one.
Jokes on them, because I admit to this kind of mania. The kind that believes that we can bring forth change within our lifetime. The kind that can imagine so far into the future that it informs my daily decisions. The kind that can somehow tap into true love and true hope in this horrifying reality. The kind that wakes up from the individualism and embodies collective forward momentum towards liberation for all.
It’s completely unhinged in the context we are in.
And my ancestors are cheering.
So my Liberatory Mania feels like this high frequency buzz in my body that’s concentrated in my throat center more towards my back - and it expands from there. The energy is HIGH. It is almost feels like it wants to boil over. It is a mixture of pure motivation for a liberated future, righteous rage, desperate love, and deep set grief. And somewhere in there is laughter, play, and levity. Somehow!
I asked two comrades to describe their Liberatory Mania and here are their responses:
Emma: “Tingling energy, whiplash, not wanting to sit still, urgency.”
Jenin: “Buzzy, stimulated, I grind my teeth alot I think, the conviction, rage, deep love, grief, quad of feelings, focused and perhaps a little obsessed. Oh and my sense of bodily needs such as eating, sleeping, drinking water, giving my brain a break are totally all absolutely off. But somehow…I’m not burning out. I get exhausted af, but it’s not the same burnout I’m used to when in corporate land.”
Emma also mentioned how connecting with liberatory community furthers the feelings of isolation from friends/family/coworkers - which then amplifies the feelings of Liberatory Mania. And I relate! The clarity creates a very sad division.
I wrote this poem last holiday season about how stuff has lost its spark. So many things I used to care about has lost its spark. In a way, I love it. It’s healing and dismantling capitalism and supremacy. In another way, it’s f*****g sad, because having clarity means that the truth of suffering and injustice is that much more blatant. But that’s the only way towards collective liberation. Seeing and believing truth. One of the few thing that brings me that spark of joy is yelling on top of my lungs with fellow comrades and disrupting business as usual. That’s fucked up honestly. I’m thankful…but it’s still fucked up.
My heart is feeling so many things being out of dissociation and out of the capitalistic daze. My heart is very full of hope and in so much pain for where we are. It’s so much to hold, but it’s been comforting to be around community that feel the exact same. We all are in Liberatory Mania…thank goodness.
What does Liberatory Imagination spark in me today?
The state of ease and peace in my body when everyone is free. When we have abolished cops and prisons. When we have established land back. When we have put care systems in place. When transformative justice and healing is in global practice.
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