LIVING
i like taking pictures too.
check out my portfolio here.
Why Love Is Our Most Powerful, Lasting Form of Activism
By Courtney E. Martin
We are so often wide awake about the decisions our elected officials make in the political, public realm and so asleep about our private choices. Our relationships can be sites of radical transformation but are so often soporifics. They have the capacity to tilt the whole world in the direction of ingenuity and kindness, and yet we are so often looking outside of ourselves for the tipping point.
Who you love and how you love them is as much a statement about your social conscience -- perhaps even a far more accurate and moving statement -- as the letters you write to Congress or the votes you cast. It is harder to be good to someone else. It has the potential to make them be good to others. And others are the fulcrum of social change.
Reflections on ritual, commitment and partnership are quite radical in a world that is pushing you to link your love to a market, spend conspicuously, be a celebrity-for-a-day no matter what the cost, call it quits half the time. Muting the cacophony of outside propaganda about love and weddings -- and listening to your own inner answer -- is incredibly difficult and also morally necessary. What promises do you want to make in what ways before whom?
…what kind of relationship do you want to be in? What sort of partnership will push you to be your best, freest, happiest self? It is not just a matter of reversing roles or reacting to those models you have seen before, but wiping the slate clean and then imagining the most humane and transcendent of possible unions. How good could your love be? How fortifying? How honest? How can you create a love that reflects your values instead of parroting the culture's bottom line-driven definitions?
Anyone who doubts that our most intimate relationship can also be the site of our most impactful activism need look no further than the second wave of feminism. A generation of women insisted that the personal was the political, that they would only be in relationship with those who respected their full humanity, and we -- their daughters and sons -- are engaged in far more fair partnerships as a result.
bell hooks, the guru of love as revolution, wrote: "The moment we chose to love we begin to move towards freedom." I think she's wrong, but not by much.
It is the moment we critically and consciously choose how to shape our love that we move towards freedom. It is a critical response to our commercialized culture of romance, a rejection of that which feels outdated, a vision of a more inclusive, more authentic, more liberating relationship. In fact, the moment we choose to shape our love is the first, most critical step in shaping the whole god damn world.
"I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."
this song moves me.
pink floyd, led zep, bjork, liz phair, ella fitz, etta james, mos def, tina turner, jill scott, erykah badu, beck, ARETHA FREAKIN FRANKLIN, van morrison, my morning jacket, feist, peter gabriel, annie lennox, citizen cope, bonnie raitt, coldplay, sublime, mary j, frank sinatra, jay z, xavier rudd, paul simon, the stones, the dead, tupac, massive attack, missy elliott, lauryn hill, hendrix, madonna, brian ENO!, sinead o'connor, the chieftans, tons of enya, underworld, dj shadow, TRIBE, paul oakenfold, ani difranco, underworld, 311, gypsy kings, blur, old pearl jam, old soundgarden, john brown's body, perry ferrell, keane, OLD MICHEAL JACKSON, courtney love, WINEHOUSE god she's talented i hope she doesnt die anytime soon, john mayer, ray lamontagne, ALICIA KEYS, the black crowes, biz, ben harper, bela bleck, MARLEY, burning spear, prince, pharrell........
INTO THE WILD omg amazing. trainspotting, walk the line.
my new favorite photographer.. but really an old one that i just forgot about. i love weegee:
"may happiness
pursue you,
catch you
often, and
should it
lose you,
be waiting
ahead, making
a clearing
for you."
-a.r. ammons
"boy" by roald dahl and everything else he's ever written, anais nin all the time and then over again, tao te ching, johnny cash's autobio, catcher in the rye, rikle, anne sexton, henry miller, hunter s thompson, sylvia plath, john irving, thoreau, john updike, dh lawrence, bukowski, whitman, ginsberg, flannery o'connor, ee cummings, rumi, osho, the bible, tibetan book of living and the dead, michelle tea, waldo frank, edward dahlberg, joyce carol oates, margaret atwood
THE AMERICAN INDIANS
especially sitting bull:
"I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say."
"Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit."
"If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it."
"It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land."
"In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly."
OSHO
"don’t try to force anything. let life be a deep let-go. god opens millions of flowers everyday without forcing their buds.â€
-osho
ANAIS NIN
"as soon as i left you, my darling, the whole world swung into a symphony."
-anais nin
"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."
-anais nin"
BARDOT
"I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals."
-bridgette bardot
"I don't really think about anything too much. I live in the present. I move on. I don't think about what happened yesterday. If I think too much, it kind of freaks me out."
-pamela anderson
PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE ME:
(i like this art)
david doubilet
underwater photographer
one day i want to BE him.
or just do what he does.
maxfield parrish: