dreaming our futures
dream archive
songspell for weathering a flare.
video description: a songspell ripples and envelopes, cozy and warm, co-crafted and cast in care-filled crip community for dreaming our futures + embodying our dreams. we’re dreaming of weathering a flare. soft blurs of green and golden fabric (shaped into alexa dexa’s bed opera costume by Rebirth Garments) shimmer and slowly shift with the peach pink of alexa dexa’s body in motion. our libretto, co-crafted by all, floats to the top. sound descriptions by Hayley Ku’unani float to the bottom within brackets. all text is handwritten by alexa dexa, half-script scribbles and etches. sounds are shared by alexa dexa and their toychestra, our gorgeous crip community, and live electronic processing in maxmsp.
we’ll move slowly into our co‑crafting our songspell together time. so ‑‑ what i’m gonna do is i’m just gonna be shuffling my dreaming our futures + embodying our dreams oracle//composition deck. and i’m just gonna be thinking about what a good theme or sort of dream sentiment for this time for us in this space might be.
and if that resonates with you, that’s so fantastic. you can totally dream around this. and if you wanna dream about something else together, you can bring that energy as well. i just like to think about this as like a little ‑‑ just a little gathering point.
okay. so the card that surfaced for us says weathering a flare. to me it’s got like a little mountain or boulder shape that’s kind of in a bright pink and then a bunch of smaller same shapes as little lines in different blues and purples and so they are sort of like squiggle mounds that come up and around and down again. then off to the right-most portion of the card there’s like a glitch color spectrum almost like if you were looking inside of a spectrometer maybe and you saw the colors of the frequencies, different frequencies and just like lines and sort of spikes in different sections.
and so weathering a flare, for me what’s coming up with this is like a little collective moment, or just like what i think about, you know, when i think about weathering a flare is . . . finding a soft space to land or finding a softness in the hardness that’s being pushed up against or maneuvered through. through the edges that are sort of harder to move or to adjust or to shift, finding, finding a softness, finding, finding a space to land or a space to curl up around . . . for comfort. really emphasizing whatever makes this space and this time as comfortable as possible. knowing that even though the edges are hard and potentially difficult to manipulate or to move or to shift, that the weathering will shift even if it’s not doing it now.
and so what i’m gonna do is there’s a little spell poem to go along with that so i’m just gonna search for that in this guidebook here. okay. so this reads:
weathering a flare
going at my bodymind’s pace
in no hurry – on crip time
giving generously
to the needs that surface
so i’ll read it again and it says:
weathering a flare
going at my bodymind’s pace
in no hurry – on crip time
giving generously
to the needs that surface
i feel like with what folks have been saying and sharing about today, there’s a lot of resonance for me in the ways that folks have been sharing that they’re giving, what they’re giving to themselves, how they’re moving with the needs that are surfacing for them. so i think that’s a little ‑‑ that’s kind of a sweet echo. or even just a moment of like affirmation of yeah, it’s worthy and wonderful for your efforts to move in the directions that you’re moving them in. but yeah. what i’m gonna do is i’m gonna write down here “giving generously to the needs that surface” and then i’m gonna write down just “weathering”. if there’s any message, any spell, any dream, any wish either around the idea of weathering a flare or ‑‑ and a flare can be anything. it doesn’t necessarily have to be – like traditionally for me when i think about a flare, i’m thinking about in my bodymind, i’m thinking about with my chronic illness – it’s flaring.
but it could just be, it could be anything. it could be any circumstance. it doesn’t have to be specific to that narrative if it doesn’t connect. so if there is any sort of anchor message that you want to remember and dream with in our time together and into the future, anything that you want to sort of remember and bring forward with you, you can either unmute to share it by speaking aloud or type it up in the chat. and i’ll write it down so that we’ll be co‑crafting this songspell together.
giving generously
to the needs
that surface
weathering
hours melt
in my bittersweet
sick bed
pain sparks
and cracks me open
a tender wishbone
bodymind
i am so grateful
that i am able to
weather my flares
with a loving community
within myself
and no longer
in the hands
of those who
denied my pain
ride the wave
remember there is a
beginning
middle
and end
let momentum
and not effort
guide you
through the peak
who knows what’s
on the other side
exacerbate / make
these terrible thoughts
worse / ocd is hell
in the darkness
i try to remember
the light
the colors
the joy
waiting out
the suffering
i exist and laugh
with others
we do not
have to be
alone anymore
wisdom in the pause
in resting
in surrendering
to stillness
as the wave
peaks overhead
the rusty aurora
of winter weeds
the damp funk
of new growth
cramps and burning
pain sears into my center
periods suck
slowly seeking serenity
a salve to achy stuckness
the inner furnace
singes the surface
but i breathe deeply
until it passes
i breathe deeply
until it passes
it passes
weeding the yard
it passes
it passes
it passes
sound description by Hayley Ku’unani.
[gentle hums and whirrs stir the sonic scene of this months songspell]
[delicate percussion builds and bounds beside the bells and chimes]
[harmonic keymonica drones (like mini accordion for the mouth) paint upon the casting of songspell libretto unfurling and unfolding]
[hands rubbing against each other]
[purrrrrs ripple into the mix]
[layered humming and vocalisations take the floor with releasing sighs of bodymind]
[alexa dexa serenades the sonic landscape with the beginning of our libretto]
[a chorus of vocals and purrs and looped textures delay and decay to weather flare]
[maxmsp magic introduces and loops the collective sound making into an etheric aura of dream space]
[affirmations of gratitude chant and charm]
[serenades of libretto shift and layer, energy in motion]
[grounding rattles of percussive pills pop into perfect place]
[echoes and reflections of vocalisations bounce and bubble to the surface of the soundscape]
[atmospheric textures collage and collaborate in nebulous orbit]
[angelic vocalisations ascend and descend into the mix of maxmsp, swelling and swirling]
[gentle libretto wishes and wisdom pour poetry to potency and potential]
[arcs of ahhhhh plateau panned to the right]
[tinkering textures rattle and ripple, pills patter]
[indistinct textures rain and crinkle the collective weathering, transmuting conscious recognition to deep feeling]
[the libretto cycles and carries the weathering flare]
[shimmy rattle sounds paint and pulsate]
[a cascade of clapping builds momentum]
[soft plucking of the thumb piano marks melody amongst the textures and manifestations]
[a mystical moment ensues, the reversals and and repetitions of maxmsp reinforce collective care]
[remember… there is a beginning, a middle and an end]
[almost as if a penny drops and circles, the spinning sonic sensations teeter at the top of the mix]
[swellings of vocals gently gather and grow]
[sibilant sounds hiss and kiss the collaborative soundscape]
[gasps and breaths press into the portal of weathering]
[vocalisations of the libretto whisper and and sing into songspell serenades]
[tinkering fingertips tap against a ceramic surface]
[pittered pattering motif re-enters the sonic space]
[reverb swells and delays alongside the resonant drone]
[‘we do not have to be alone anymore’ affirmed and received into collective dreaming]
[gentle bells break the layered vocalisations of collective power]
group portrait <3
