Design Studio 1 - Manifest¶
Prompt¶
Write a manifest: what do you care about, what drives you crazy, what makes you dream, etc.
My Manifest: La vie est belle, le monde est fou.¶
In no particular order:
Micro-grids. Handstands. Capoeira. Music. Making Music. Micro farming. Urban farming. Composting toilets. Attention and focus. Presence. Languages. Learning languages. Juggling. Backflips. Learning new skills! Swimming. Water cycles. Swimming. Laying naked on rocks. Interfependance. Food. Cooking. Creativity. Painting. Playing. PLAYING. Laying on a beach. Reading. Solar energy. Solar cooking. Low tech. Micro-loans. Information wars. Blockchain authentication. Emergency shelters. Tiny houses. Tiny house towns. Diasporic Kibbutzim. Kombucha. Pickles. Running a cafe. Running retreats. Green walls. Microgreens. Working with what we have vs. overthrowing the system. Bidets. Bioactive toilet paper. Nuclear power. Dancing. Flexibility. Mobility. ADAPTABILITY as the root of mental health. Mass migration. Water purification. Biofeedback. Neurofeedback. Neuroplasticity! Breathwork. Can the we control the autonomic? Rituals & rites of passage. Manna Bars. Microbiome. Connection and Touch. Micronutrients. Poetry:
Dance Class¶
For a moment or two
I knew
The feeling of
weightlessness
Of utter disregard
For the eyes outside
My own
If only for a moment
You taught me
To love is to live
And to live is to
Let yourself die
In one hundred
Little ways
Each day
So when you dance
You’re not weighed
Down by the thoughts
You don’t need
It’s better to walk
on the beach
by yourself
or in good company
and throw little rocks
onto the sand
in front of you
and watch the water
wash them away.
Toni¶
Four years ago I sat in my living room
staring at my mom.
Her black and gray mane of hair laid silently
with a purple daffodil behind her ear.
Four weeks earlier we had been dancing
in the same exact room,
in the same exact spot,
Sans medical equipment and hospital bed.
The floor still remembered our steps.
And I could see her swaying side to side,
Spinning in circles while her dress
Tried to keep up.
Four years ago I sat wondering
if I had ever seen my mom so still.
She paraglided over the French Alps.
She biked the Great Wall of China.
She belly danced through medical school.
And here she was,
Silent with the weight of death on her eyes,
Beautiful as always.
Persephone returning to the garden of Hades.
Four years ago I sat and prayed
that I would never forget the touch of her hand on my shoulder,
that I would never forget the sound of her voice
echoing through the house,
that I would always remember her smile.
The further one gets from death the more it feels
like a postcard.
The more it feels like it came from somewhere far away,
by a hand other than your own.
With a message written in ink that stains your fingers
and the fingers of its author.
Every once in a while I take the postcard out of my drawer
and stare at it silently.
It’s written in a language I can’t understand.
On the other side of the postcard is a picture
of the waves washing away the shore,
and if I look close enough
I can see something written in the sand.
It’s almost been washed away,
but I can still feel the touch of her hand on my shoulder.
Ambrosia¶
There is nothing more satisfying
than sitting
on a chair that is a tree stump
on a sandy road in southern Mexico
and hearing the machete
rain down upon the coconut’s husk
while the sun boomerangs its ultraviolet
rays at your bare skin covered in
drying salt and a sprinkle of sand
and you’re handed the cold coconut
in exchange for thirty pesos,
the last in your pocket, but it
doesn’t matter as the sweet juice
pours into your open mouth.
Laws of Nature¶
You’re either eating or being eaten.
You’re either fodder for the communal bonfire,
fuel for eternal entropy, or you’re
breaking down raw matter for protein synthesis.
The snake eats its own tail not for the taste,
but because there is no other food in a vacuum.
Are you the mouth or are you the tail?
Perhaps we’re both at once.
Agents of destruction constructing new horizons
from the ones that slowly rotate out of view.
Fill your stomach and let us take a bite.
This manifest reflects my current interests and will evolve as I continue my journey in the MDEF program.