From Shit To Grit
Here we find ourselves again, at the end of our calendar year. Alongside any tender or disappointed feelings at this “ending”, the responsive body ecology highlights that this calendar marker is actually one of many ongoing endings and beginnings. Bodies have had much to grieve not only in the past few years but throughout our human history – and in typical RB fashion, we grew curious about this process and identified our collective need to SHIT! Our new blog space offers a deeper dive and exploration about what it means for us to be in the transformative process from shit to grit. About how we can feel into our own cyclical biological optimism that honors our shit as the compost that fertilizes the soil and potentiates the necessary life force to keep going. We hope you enjoy diving deeper.
On the Surface…
From → “From” as the conditions of our ancestors and your body, from the dark space of the womb into the unbearable light of your existence. But what if we could feel into a story of our futures and remembered that we were land, air, water, animals, plants, and stardust?
Shit → Shitting is a body-based metabolic process of releasing waste from our body, and in to an intentional space where it can become food/fertilizer for transformation. It is the vulnerable act of ridding harmful toxins from your being. This is body’s discernment system.
To → This ‘to-ness’ is the labor, the effort of leaning into and toward the muscularity of action. This is the inspired place that puffs up our chest and leads our mighty hearts into rites of passage that embolden our bodies into warriors and love ninjas.
Grit → Grit is courage and resolve, creativity and ingenuity. It is both the work, and the benefits of that work, THROUGH the work. Grit is born from the friction and back and forth…the rubbing, grinding, the transforming of plant to food…from earth to body…the refining process.
Dive Deeper…
From →
There is so much fromness, so much history that informs our current state of being.
– From is the histories that inform our present and future. It is cultural, of the land, of space-time, of the stars. From is both the immediacy of events and conditions that lead to a history of oppression, white supremacy, misogyny, sizeism, shape-ism, colorism. And also a deeper, more rooted from, of the land, air, water, animals, and spirit.
– From a history of oppression and white supremacy.
– From the white man’s violent greed which stems from his fear of his most pathetic fragility.– From the enslavement and incarceration of those who do not agree to the white standard for existence.
– From a history of America but certainly not the actual biology of our bodies. What if our bodies were biologically wired for nonviolence, for love, for sexual pleasure and reproductive freedom?
– From the understudied Bonobos and the over-glorified chimp to human studies…we have a closer DNA link to bonobos than our aggressive cousins the chimpanzees. We are perhaps actually evolving from a community of LOVE and anti-violence like the bonobos. They are matriarchal and led by the female with the best personality and best ability to groom, soothe and offer sexual pleasure. Bonobos resolve tensions and threats of violence with nervous system soothing and reproductive liberation. (from this other evolutionary option)
– From compost as much as water and light
– From the conditions surrounding your birth
– From the conditions of your ancestors, our ancestors
– From this paradox and dualism of the reality of our conditions and the truth that it does not have to be this way. That it’s not just blind hope, we can look to its evidence within indigenous communities of the past and present. —- (dive deeper into word hope) So often we are told that hoping for a more loving world is idiotic, that it is at odds with reality. That the truth is our nature is one of supremacy, of violence. That as human beings, killing and conquering are an inherent part of who we are. As I look at the landscape of our current “reality” what I see is much of visible humanity at odds with a deeper truth. So many of us feel deeply IN us a need for belonging, love and one-ness that has gone neglected, brutalized. Is that desire for loving, and belonging not ALSO a reality? Our current space of existence is one informed by a series of violent acts in the evolution of humanity. Yes, This is reality because yes, it happened, yes, it is happening, and yes, it continues to affect us. But what if we felt into a story beyond the immediacy of our hurt?
– From An Alternative evolutionary option, One that’s longer lasting.
Shit →
The metabolic waste making as a filtration immune process to differentiate between nutrients and waste. To discern what is natural versus what is synthetic
– Shit as a substance is the waste created from what we’ve ingested (our fromness).– Shit as a PROCESS, is the releasing of this waste from within, to outside of our body/mind/spirit, and into an intentional space where it can become food/fertilizer for transformation.
– We must not be afraid to shit. Our collective health is dependent on it.
– Shit as waste
– Shit is a metaphor for adversity and stress…it’s the hunt for food in barren conditions, or the lack of financial resources to meet your needs and desires, it’s knowing you want and need to care for your body but do not have health insurance or have a deductible so unreasonable that you pay for health insurance that does not insure your health. Can we as a society recognize this way of being as waste and find a way to use this energy to transform and birth a new reality?
– Shit is being expected to be exceptional but not being given the space to LIVE the mess and learning it takes to gain mastery and expertise in what we’re doing.
– The shit is emotionally extortive transactional relationships that are founded on reward/punishment models as incentive-based learning. This denies us our dignity in the practice of trial and error. This is learned and reinforced in the American education system.
– The shit is being overwhelmed. It’s the too much, too fast, too impossible to achieve. Its the fear that if we fail we have given someone, or in our overwhelm- a sense that it's everyone we have given a reason to love us less. And if we think we deserve to be loved less, to be loveless, we will do everything and anything we can to protect ourselves from this mortal wound. This fear of a ‘mortal wound’ can either lead to being held captive by emotional extortion or it is possible it is the mutual vulnerability that could lead us towards an agreement to never use love as a weapon.
– Shitting and releasing our (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, systemic, and societal) waste is a vital aspect of being healthy.
– Shitting is a process for transformation.
– Shit is not the failure of your body but the byproduct of pressurized time and a lack of space (BE REAL about what it takes to be you in your own process).
– Shit is dysregulation in time and space is when there’s the most stress and deregulates all these natural processes – what are the features of our American Condition that promote constant hurdles in truly processing, digesting, etc. — What are the conditions of space-time – What do we mean by space and time – spaces with a lack of access to food, support, etc – time that doesn’t allow for the body to eat and digest a meal, etc
To →
as an action of conscious agency both individually and collectively to generate resource, maintain, and sustain proper conditions for human thriving
– To an indicator of space and direction…to establish a transitional space with a direction for connection. A position of space that wants to move into a relationship with something else.
– To and from are interlinked…just as history and future are intertwined…just as ancestors and descendants exist within each other…so does to-from, they have to co-exist to exist at all…just like humans, the planet, our histories, our dreams, our futures
– this ‘to-ness’ is the labor, the effort of leaning into and toward, the muscularity of action to bring forth change. This is the aspirational goal, the inspired place that puffs up the chest and leads your mighty heart into the rites of passage that make your body that of a warrior.
– To is the shift from chimp behavior to bonobo behavior.
– To is having the courage to be brave. What if muscularity comes from the adrenaline that comes from fighting? What transforms fear into courage? That is being brave. You cannot be courageous or brave without being scared shitless. You are not brave if you have no fear. There IS a risk, but you do it anyway because you believe in your capacity.
– To is dynamic and not hierarchical. There isn't a preference, it's a towardness. A collective action. A bodied commitment to be here together. Knowing what it takes by resourcing your whole body. The capacity. The TO is not positional. TO is that capacity to feel both a survival instinct, to run, freeze, and engage in self-protection. Yet still have the fortitude and agility to move with dignity. TO is acknowledging that being alive is a process. TO is ongoinness. A PROCESS of being human, a PROCESS, of knowing, a PROCESS, of forgetting. A PROCESSNESS A PROCESSNOSITY.
– TO-FROMNESS: what if we could include the natural rhythm of body, along with the calendar, along with industrial time, along with creative modalities. Reclaiming digestion and shitting and actully slowing down and ackowledging. I GOTTA POOP BEFORE I GO TO WORK. How many kids stress their bodies out because they need to get to school on time. We measure time inappropriately, it has no biorhythm, just industry.
– To is a process of fully acknowledging our body as biological. This is something that's so severed hijacked or industrialized. What would it be like if we considered doing more things that were genuinely biorhythmic? What if TO acknowledged that businesses needed to conduct things based on biorhythm? That TOness is the action of being led by the body and its resilience?
Grit →
– Grit is courage and resolve, it is having the courage to be in a long enduring process, and the resolve of the magic that comes as a result. It requires a certain faith and trust that perseverance and effort over time will bring forward a rich deliciousness that could ONLY be attained through time duration, commitment, consistency, patience, and hard work. Grit is creativity and ingenuity. It is both the work and the benefits of that work, THROUGH the work. Grit is born from the friction and back and forth…the rubbing, grinding, the transforming of plant to food…from earth to body…the refining process.
– Grit requires faith, releasing the attunement for instant gratification. Trusting that duration, consistency, patience, sweat, and work, create magic.
– Grit is the beauty, effort, and time we see in so many of black and indigenous ancestral cooking, slow durational food, stewed meats, grits, pernil, grinding masa. All ways of cooking developed with intention, creativity, love, sweat, and patience.
– Grit is a direct reference to resiliency. It is Black joy, Indigenous joy. The ability to take bare materials and create beauty through durational experiences.
– Grit is Resiliency that includes failing.
– Grit is the safety of trial and error without punishment.
– Grit is accepting when we’re wrong and saying I’m sorry. Shit, scars, and sorry’s are all grit.
– Grit is rebellious, muscular, rhythmic, and patient.
– Grit is the image from The Woman King- when the young warrior takes her sword to the river to find the perfect rock smoothed enough by the pounding of the current to sharpen the edge of her blade. She uses friction, grind, heat from the stone to metal, and her physical power at the exact time water runs along the edge cooling it, and hardening it so that the next strike/grind shapes the precision of the blade. she prepares for a battle that will lead her people toward their own liberation.
– Grit gives people a toughness that enables them to persist —through passion, effort, and integrity— and even succeed — in the face of adversity.
Interact
How else might you describe “from “ “shit” “to” “grit” ?
What is it like if none of these processes are more / less importnt than the others?
How do you feel each of these processees in your body?
What is the timing / pacing like?
What might it feel like to honor the full pacing of each process?
How do you practice loving like gravity throughout this transformation?
What kind of love and support do you need / can you offer body/bodies?
***repeat all questions with “from” “grit” “to” “shit”
