"Ten thousand unexpected responses"
Trickster resistance
Stories are much bigger than ideologies.
—Donna Haraway
One creates not to maintain the status quo but to truly see beyond this time and this world and then to release fresh vision.
—Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The women and gender queer folks I know are making art. Some of us are artists, and the studio is part of daily or weekly life. Some of us would not call ourselves artists, but one of our first responses to the horrible US election news was to get out some art supplies—clay, paint, pencils—to make something. To stencil chinoiserie on the basement walls. To bake bread. To paint on canvas. To write poems. (If you think you see yourself here, dear reader, you do.)
We are also calling our circles. Meeting. Planning. Sharing food. Seeking solace. Speaking our fears. Honing our resolve. Thinking up strategies. Sharing joy.
Look, I’ve also eaten a generous quantity of mini Hershey’s chocolate bars.
My friend Perdita Finn, wise woman, woodwitch, wrote the following on her Facebook page yesterday, in a post titled “Against Hope” (emphases mine):
My primary problem with hope is that it limits us to imagining only one possible scenario or unfolding, the one we are “hoping” for. Hope focuses our eyes, and the prodigious powers of our imaginations, on a singular outcome that we think might make us feel better. I hope nothing bad happens. I hope the good guys win. I shut my eyes and I hope it all works out.
Right now I think we need to put hope in a basket in the back of the closet and start opening our eyes and using our imaginations.
We need to imagine the worst. The very worst. What are all of the ways the current situation in America could go wrong?
Someone said to me recently “Trump won’t be able to deport that many people” as if that was a hopeful reassurance. My response was to say, “Imagine what he will do instead. Look to history and see what he might do. Read some dystopic fantasy novels and think about what he might do.” How is Trump possibly going to deport all of these people? Don’t hope he won’t or hope he can’t. We need to imagine what he will do instead. Because these people are capable of ripping children from their parents and putting them in cages.
We need to imagine the worst because they are already planning for it, I assure you. We need to imagine all the different scenarios that might unfold in our country and our communities and we need to imagine a thousand different ways to protect the vulnerable. We are going to have to cultivate bigger, wilder imaginations than the monsters. What if?
There are those on the front lines of helping others who are already doing this, but we are going to need a collective imagination to meet this moment that is miraculous and magical. Because not only do we need to imagine the worst that might happen, we need to imagine the unexpected avenues and paths, the trapdoors into other scenarios, the sneaky solutions, the sleights of hand that upend the story, the stories that startle us, surprise us, and make us shout with delight at how everything ultimately works out.
We need the day dreamers, the tricksters, the artists, the rascals, the wonderers, the psychics, the visionaries, the singers, the storytellers, and those that can conjure gold from straw and straw from shit. We need the dandelions to show us how to plant our seeds in concrete and turn a wasteland into a field of flowers.
Hopium is a drug that dulls our imaginations. And we need imagination right now. Big imaginations that are a step ahead, at least, of the monsters. Because there are monsters in our midst right now about to be unleashed. We need to imagine the worst things they might do . . . and imagine the ten thousand unexpected responses and maneuvers and scenarios with which we can respond.
You’ve probably heard people say—perhaps you yourself have said, as I have: “Maybe it won’t be so bad. Also, we are completely fucked.”
Perdita:
You can read more of Perdita’s wonderful writing on her substack, Take Back The Magic.
I’m going to start gathering resources to feed our collective imagination. Resources for, if you will, the trickster resistance.
Here are a few ideas; I would love to hear yours.
Necessary authors:
Octavia Butler
Ursula Le Guin
bell hooks
Donna Haraway
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Lidia Yuknavich
Sophie Strand
Books:
The Fifth Sacred Thing, Starhawk
Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown
The Way of The Rose, Clark Strand and Perdita Finn
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nahesi Coates
Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
The Ogress and the Orphans, Kelly Barnhill
Important note: Both Coates and brown have publicly expressed views about Israel that cross the line, in my opinion, to antisemitism, and I am deeply disappointed by that. The books I include here do not express this antisemitism. I know that profound advocacy for Palestinians does not, and ought not, entail anti-Zionist or antisemitic views. Resistance to authoritarianism has always, and must always, include Jewish people.
Brilliant.