WALKING THE RIDGE OF THE EXTINCT VOLCANO

Dear L.

I have been reading a book that talks about making kin- oddkin, rather- as a way to move through this crazy time we’ve been plopped out into.

Kin, the author says “is a wild category that all sorts of people do their best to domesticate. Making kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin and genealogical and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible. Who lives and who dies, and how, in this kinship rather than that one? What shape is this kinship, where and whom do its lines connect and disconnect, and, so what? What must be cut and what must be tied if multispecies flourishing on earth, including human and other-than-human beings in kinship, are to have a chance.”

I feel these questions here- with the desert, with the eight of us at Drylab. I feel them when I wake up and someone has already prepared little cups full of chopped strawberries and dates, roasted seeds, soy milk and honey. I feel it when we’re working to fix up the property, when we’re getting our water, when we’re around the fire at night. When someone takes the time to catch the crickets and the moths that have made it into the trailer, and place them back outside. I felt it this morning, all walking the ridge of an extinct volcano to watch the sun rise together.

I am thinking of you, dear oddkin.

xx Jack