Free. Real. The Opposite of Violence.

Vulnerability Vigil
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
5-6 pm
Pandora and Broad St, Victoria, near the rainbow crosswalks

I've written about this before. I'll be brief.

Maybe you understand or have an inkling that our old structures are not working. This includes cultural ways of being that, because that's the water we swim in, are largely invisible to most of us.

I have been using the spacious form of performance art for more than 10 years to present a non-violent, non-rhetorical, feminine, indigenist, healing response to an insane world.

A Vulnerability Vigil is a ritual; it's about being the change; it's about being an ally; it's art. Doing vigils (and the Human Body Project) continues to be the only sane response I have.

Yes, it's small. It could be big. Consider holding a companion vigil. Consider joining me.

http://www.humanbodyproject.org/p/vulnerability-vigils.html

Facebook event

Skin in the Game at the Victoria Fringe Cancelled and Vulnerability Vigils on hold

UPDATE: Skin in the Game at the Victoria Fringe cancelled.

I'm very disappointed to announce that I've had to cancel Skin in the Game at the Victoria Fringe.

A little about what's going on in my vulnerable human body/self right now.

I share for many reasons and, yes, I do realize my truth can be interpreted as "unprofessional." 

One main reason I share is to stand in solidarity with others who struggle invisibly.

In late July I was walloped with severe depression. The worst in more than 15 years. I have dealt with depression my whole life pretty much but mostly I have dealt with it spiritually and, I'll admit, by isolating and just fucking functioning.

The work of the Human Body Project has been in some ways an outlet for me to work with my depression. But I am at the point where I have an intake booking with a psychiatrist because, after more than 15 years of not trusting pharmaceuticals (my previous experience has been bad), I'm going to give it another try.

I crashed. I still managed to finish two classes, probably taking 3 times as long as usual to get my marking done, my head was so messed up. I did not tell my students or the people I work with. I'm a contract instructor.

While that was going on I menstruated for 10 days straight. Did you know it's quite normal for menopausal women to bleed buckets for 10 days? I didn't either, but it is. Menstruation has been extreme for me my whole life.

I have rarely mentioned this to anyone. Menstruation is "private."

Then, as that was tapering off, I began to be ill with a stomach illness. I have been experiencing incredibly severe nausea, coughing, and exhaustion. It's been going on for more than a week. My competent, kind doctor has me doing several tests. 

I am so ill I can barely walk around my house. So I can't show up for the fringe and Vulnerability Vigils are also on hold.

Tasha

Skin in the Game 
At the Victoria Fringe
Wood Hall
907 Pandora
Fri, Aug 28, 7:15
Sat, Aug 29, 4:15
Mon, Aug 31, 7:30
Tue, Sep 1, 6:00
Sat, Sep 5, 12:15
Sun, Sep 6, 2:45

As a student of pain, Tasha Diamant devised a performance and activism project to inquire into the origins of disconnection. Purposefully creating space for vulnerability, Diamant is now in the tenth year of her ongoing Human Body Project, for which, among many other things, she shows up literally and emotionally naked in performance and in public.

In this new show, through improvised facilitation, story telling, and disrobing, Diamant has a lot to say and reveal about the body and embodiment in a disembodied culture. Spoiler: she gets dressed at the end.

What audiences and reviewers have had to say about the Human Body Project:

“I am not sure what this exquisite piece of ‘art’ is but it’s all yours. Thank you so much, you have empowered me so much.”--note left by audience member

“You hit the tear ducts. BOOM like a bullet.”--note left by audience member

"….the experience is both powerful and empowering, pushing participants to question their own physical, psychological and social positions. The result? Both humbling and inspiring, The Human Body Project urges us to recognize the power of a single human body.”--The Ubyssey

"This is the most relevant and powerful work at the Fringe and Tasha Diamant is deserving of a full audience every night.”--Monday Mag

“The Human Body Project impacted me. Please go see it. It’s the definition of sincerity.”--note left by audience member

"I dug it. The Human Body Project slowed me down, and all sorts of stuff about shame, safety, and joy came up... Naked, emotionally and literally. Simply audacious.”--The Georgia Straight

Recent article in the Victoria Times Colonist

Link to Skin in the Game Facebook event

Tickets, program information, etc: victoriafringe.com

Transcultural Communication/Rescue Work in the Americandreamocene Epoch

I walked along a short forest path into my work today sobbing (I am a contract instructor at Royal Roads University). I arrived where the buildings are and stopped. 

My life and work in the Human Body Project parallel each other. I am not comfortable explaining to anyone why I am sobbing. I am not comfortable explaining why I need to do this work. In the same way that I am sick of research, I am exhausted by explaining "why" this work is necessary or "why" I feel raw.

We live in the Anthropocene Epoch, which I often think of as the Americandreamocene Epoch.

I didn't know from anthropocene or transcultural/indigeneity when I started this project almost 9 years ago. All I knew was pain and urgency in my being and body. In my opinion, the reason the Americandreamocene Epoch continues is because we, the humans continuing to create it, live in our heads because it is too painful to feel what is in our emotional bodies. This neverending justification cycle of "why?" (a head question) is about avoiding vulnerability, which equals feeling, which equals pain.

But here goes again with another explanation. When I say that I have come to think of this work as a form of transcultural communication, I am validated by my own personal understanding of how vulnerability and indigeneity relate, which in different ways I have written and spoken about.

Also, the last indigenous tribes on earth are extremely vulnerable. At the same time, the whole human tribe, while continuing on the destructive course of the industrial-domination-masculine energy paradigm is extremely vulnerable. This is not a coincidence. 

We can talk about windmills and recycling, for sure, but I believe the only way we're going to move forward is if our brains change from ego-based, self-protected beings to cooperative, compassionate beings. I am a fully indoctrinated ego-based, self-protected being so the pain I face letting go of that enculturation is visceral and extremely challenging. It is also the essence of my work.

I am also validated by the crossover between my work and the work of a UN-based organization which has invited me to go on an intervention excursion to help preserve an indigenous tribe in Panama that has had little contact with modern civilization. This note below is about that group trying to develop Culturally Sustainable Tourism in that area and other culturally sensitive areas:

Indigenous cultures are endangered worldwide. It is their contact with modern civilization which is triggering the processes threatening their survival. With every traditional group that vanishes, valuable knowledge is being lost. The few indigenous cultures left on this globe are far to precious to be exposed to disintegration.

If you want to maintain your decision to visit an indigenous culture, we would like to ask you not to import some of the elements of the dominant civilization which might cause irreversible damage. Primarily, the design of the body is concerned. Please make sure you only cover those parts of the body which are traditionally covered, i.e., restrict yourself to covering your loin. Women are urgently asked not to cover their breast during the visit as the import of the breast taboo is a crucial factor in the destabilization of indigenous cultures. Please refrain from wearing a watch, and if you need glasses, please try to replace them by contact lenses. With regard to gifts, it would be very helpful if you avoid everything that could lead to dependencies. You are kindly asked to integrate yourself as much as you can in order not to be an "alien object." Even if you find that external influences have already reached your host culture, please do not use this as an excuse, but rather take the chance for "rescue work" by practically showing your respect for indigenous traditions.

So, one way you could think about the Human Body Project and #VulnerabilityVigils is a form of rescue work showing practical respect for indigenous traditions. 

A European Academic Who Works in the Area of Indigenous Rights Writes

I received this letter from an academic working at a European university on April 24, 2014. 

I felt very excited by the contact because of the work he is doing with indigenous people and his understanding of how my work connects with his.

To put it succinctly: Indigineity=vulnerability. Literally, as in indigenous cultures everywhere have been and are being devastated. And in the sense that many indigenous cultures accept vulnerability as a way of being and are thus able to respect the vulnerability of nature, children, emotional beingness, etc, whereas showing up naked and vulnerable goes against every tenet of civilization.

His modified letter is below.

Dear Ms. Diamant, 
   If I understand you correctly, you see a connection between nudity and the wellbeing of the planet. 
   This is exactly one of my positions. I am a cultural psychologist, [affiliated with an internationally recognized dept. of indigenous rights, teaching in Europe]. In my classes, students not only receive theoretical input, but are trained to be naked, before they are allowed to participate in excursions to indigenous peoples in Africa or other places. Each year, we spend one week in Geneva, where we attend the UN session on indigenous rights, with accommodation at the local naturist resort. 
   The situation of indigenous peoples is very serious. They are very much exposed to globalizing influence. Their cultural identity is being criminalized, they are being forced into clothes. This goes along with a loss of their closeness to nature. We are witnessing this planet to be covered by destructive global culture. 
In our work in the fields, we try to counteract these processes. When we visit indigenous peoples, we take off our clothes and thus communicate our acceptance and respect of their traditional appearance. Humankind has been naked on this planet for thousands of years. This is species-appropriate for Homo sapiens. By forcing humans into permanent disguise, psychological mechanisms of deprecating nature are being triggered, including the disapproval of the natural human being. 
   I would very much appreciate future cooperation. 
With kind regards, 
A European academic

I asked if I could share his writing on my blog and he said yes but that I would need to make him anonymous because at the institution where he is a professor and researcher his employment and tenure have been threatened. "They are looking for reasons to get rid of me. They even presented a fabricated letter of someone, who did not even participate in the field training, to impute base motives to the fact that nakedness is part of the preparation for excursions to indigenous peoples." He had to pay thousands of euros to a lawyer to save his job. Not really surprising, but sad.

Here is a portion of my reply:

   I think nakedness and vulnerability are inherently related (in what I call global industrialized culture or, simply, civilization).
   To choose vulnerability at a time when humans are so very vulnerable appears to our culture to be a paradoxical stance. 
   I.e., how can being naked and allowing oneself to be vulnerable be empowering in a culture in which the foundation is domination (over less fortunate people, animals, nature, feminine energy, women, children, etc.), a culture where we all are taught to disconnect from heart and fiercely guard our authenticity?
   I seek to "be the change" by showing up the way I believe we need to show up to survive.
   As a reluctant academic, I am always enraged at the amount of wankery in research: disembodied ideas while the world is being destroyed. Perhaps you can understand? But that's our culture.
   I'm not sure how much you've looked at my website but, for one thing, I do a Vulnerability Vigil every month, where I stand naked on the street shielded only by a sign (a gesture of gentleness to those who are deeply affronted by nakedness). This month I used the extinction symbol on my sign.
   I've written extensively about why I do the project, but the extinction symbol says it without words. In my estimation, we are beyond the "postmodern," our mutually assured extinction, to me, is post-everything: post-art, post-pursuit of happiness, post-democracy, etc. Almost nowhere in any of our cultural discourses have we remotely caught up to the reality. 
   I think of my work as indigenous, but even that is problematic. Because I am white and of European descent, I am not "allowed" to appropriate that label. But what I'm doing came a) from an ability I have to listen to my intuition and body/heart/soul and b) is deeply related to how indigenous people have lived for millennia.

I feel like I am a reverse anthropologist, taking cultural excursions into my own culture with some of the p.o.v. and beingness of a traditional indigenous person. A fraught position to be in, needless to say.

Reflections on Extinction: Or what does standing naked on the street have to do with Earth Day?

"And there you have it...: consume, screw, kill. The Homo sapiens way." 

This is Daniel Smith in the May 2014 Harper's magazine summing up the key problem in Elizabeth Kolbert's book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. 

In my own way, I have also diagnosed this problem, hence my non-violent direct action/social media/performance project.

Consume, Screw, Kill: The origins of today's mass extinction is a great article that is, unfortunately, only available to subscribers. I haven't read Kolbert's book but I regularly follow her work covering the "ecological-degradation beat" (Smith) in the New Yorker. 

As Smith puts it, "five times in prehistory things went truly pear-shaped for the living." E.g., in "explain it to me like I'm a six-year-old" language: when the dinosaurs all died, that kind of thing. The five past mass extinctions took place over tens of thousands of years. The sixth extinction refers to the one we're creating right now. Apparently it'll only take us a few hundred years to finish up.

Smith: "The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based organization that monitors the conservation status of more than 71,000 species lists nearly 30 per cent of them as threatened... The widely agreed upon benchmark for a mass-extinction event is a loss of 75 per cent of the planet's bio-mass... if the IUCN's assessment can be taken as a guide to the future—and few doubt that it can, unless extraordinary political and economic measures are taken—the Big Five could become the Big Six as early as 2400 AD."

Through Smith, I also learned of the twitter feed @extinctsymbol: "This symbol represents the extinction crisis. Please create it wherever you can to raise awareness of the rapidly accelerating collapse of global biodiversity." 

Here's a selection from today's feed:

Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is completely out of control

The Ridgway's hawk is a endangered species. Island of Hispaniola. 

Human life expectancy linked to extinctions 

Extinction crisis: rising sea levels will submerge thousands of islands

I also learned about a Swedish geneticist, Svante Pääbo, who is working to identify a "madness gene." Writes Smith, "Kolbert takes great pains to point out there is something innately immoderate about Homo sapiens."

I don't disagree but I feel the need to add: a) there exist many innately gentle people; b) "indigenous" "matriarchal" societies have existed (some still do) whose people live much more in tune with nature and cause minimal damage; and c) there also exist people, like me, the @extinctsymbol people and many others, who are purposefully working against this immoderation.

I read an article like Smith's and I look at the world surrounding me and I do see insanity. How do people care so very much about getting rid of their muffin tops or what's going on with the Real Housewives when, um, more important things are going on? Why are people confused about why I'm compelled to do what I do? 

My own understanding, though, is that people aren't so much insane as repressed/oppressed and desirous of comfort. 

Currently the most harmful people on the planet, North Americans, are, by and large, non-violent, law-abiding and tolerant. They are also relatively well-informed (most are, on some level, aware of the basic dire facts) and, still, mostly uninterested in going beyond how they have been trained to behave. The disconnection between knowledge and taking responsibility exists because of what I think of as tribal forces. I.e., my take on tribal behaviour=repressed/oppressed+desirous of comfort.

The whole law-abiding, non-violent, tolerant thing has its points, for sure. But it is based on a trust of/deference to a not-to-be-too-closely-examined-or-questioned "them," which unconsciously becomes a this-is-how-we-do-things (as opposed to we-do-this-because-otherwise-we'd-probably-get-fired-and/or-ostracized), aligned with a handy access to private property (unless, of course, you're homeless or poor, which, needless to say, means you're invisible to the tribe) where one can shut the door on most intrusions. (The fact that so many, once inside, are stuck in their own addictions and/or family dysfunction is related, but another story.)

For me, the absolutely most painful and difficult part of doing the Human Body Project is the feeling of going against my tribe. Without going into detail, I have experienced painful ostracism and I know I also self-ostracize a lot of the time to avoid re-experiencing it. Going against my tribe is why I feel so desperately nervous every time I post a blog or show up on the street for a vigil. I'm writing this the day before I will be doing a vigil and I am feeling very alone.

I've said this before but if I could do what I really want to do (fucking bliss schmiss), I'd be running around naked throwing eggs at everything except kids and trees. I'd start with my own fucking split-level suburban "glass house" and my gas-guzzling Honda Odyssey. I'm as complicit and corrupt as every other adult person in this culture. But, dang, my own kids live in that house and drive in that vehicle. Holy fucking paradoxical stuckness! No wonder my egg-throwing project hasn't started yet.

So when Smith refers to "extraordinary political and economic measures" I do not feel very hopeful. Because extraordinary measures require extraordinary behaviours and extraordinary behaviours tend to be taboo and the clever consumer tribe is not only behaving very much as it should, they have set it up so perfectly that even if a member intentionally misbehaves and wants out, it's quite possible she still has to live in a bank-mortgaged, electrical-heated, split-level, suburban house and drive a gas-guzzling Honda Odyssey (and send out desperate messages on social media from an iMac...)

Invitation: tomorrow's Earth Day Vulnerability Vigil is from 5-6 pm on Blanshard St between Finlayson and Tolmie across from the Mayfair Mall. I'm always grateful when people join me. 

Congress for the Humanities Presentations (Apparently I'm an Academic)

I am presenting four times during the academic conference for the Canadian Society for the Study of Education at the Congress for Humanities and Social Sciences, held at the University of Victoria this year.

My first presentation is tomorrow at the Arts on the Edge pre-conference hosted by the Canadian Association for the Study of Women in Education (CASWE), the Arts Researchers and Teachers Society (ARTS) and the Canadian Association for the Study Of Adult Education (CASIE).

Here are my presentation times and co-presenters.

Theme: Challenging Borders and Boundaries 
Saturday, June 1, 2013
11:15am-12:30pm
Art Gallery of Victoria
Downstairs Gallery 1

Sex worker as funny, tongue-in-cheek and political, while doing gender headstands. 

Lisa Ordell

Using the Vulnerable Self: Performance Art, Activism, and Experiential Education for Cultural Change 

Tasha Diamant

Girls making Media Leah-Anne Ingram

“Edgy” Research – Forward thinkers in CASWE (Panel)
Monday, June 3, 2013
11:30am-1:00pm
University of Victoria
MacLaurin Building D107 
Chair: Lisa J Starr (Victoria), Sarah Bonsor Kurki (Victoria)

Panel of CASWE award winners share their findings from research informed by 

feminism/gender/gender expression, and how it advances the field of women in education.

Tonya Callaghan (Calgary), Tasha Diamant (Royal Roads), Nané Jordan (UBC)

Addressing the Challenges of Post-Secondary Education (Canadian Association for the Study of Indigenous Education)
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
10-11:15am
University of Victoria
MacLaurin Building A195

Multi-paper session

First Nations "Way" at the U: Painful Dilemmas Tasha Diamant (Royal Roads)

Exploring intergenerational trauma as a factor in Aboriginal post-secondary 

students’ progress Rainey Gaywish (Manitoba), Elaine Mordoch (Manitoba)

Using the Arts as Pedagogical Instruments (CASWE –Crosslisted with ARTS)
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
10-11:15am
University of Victoria
MacLaurin Building D107 

Multi-paper session

Chair: Alysha June Sloane (Manitoba)

Theatre of the Commons Alysha June Sloane (Manitoba)

Explaining the Human Body Project By Way of a Letter to My Children 

Tasha Diamant (Royal Roads)

Pedagogy and Parallax: The narrative canvasses of a Clothesline Project

Patricia Louise Maarhuis (Washington State), Pauline Sameshima (Lakehead)

From the Heart Press Release: I am honoured to be part of this production

The press release for From the Heart is below. I am honoured to be a cast member and involved in the development of this production.

An innovative community dialogue project inspired by Paulette Regan’s bestselling book, Unsettling the Settler Within.

---

From the Heart: enter into the journey of reconciliation is a new theatre production about
transformative stories that have moved non-Indigenous people to see their relationships with their Aboriginal neighbours in new ways. This won’t be anything like an ordinary play.

Starting on June 12, in a temporarily vacant 14,000 square foot store at Uptown Mall, audiences will be invited to explore a vast, beautiful labyrinth made of hundreds of doors and windows, fabric, and paper lantern lights. In the nooks and alcoves along the way, they will encounter scenes, songs, and shadow theatre performances all created by a culturally diverse cast of 30 Victoria area residents who range in age from 18 to 80.

From the Heart is produced and directed by Will Weigler in partnership with VIDEA: A BC-based International Development Education Association, and the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria. The project was inspired by Paulette Regan’s bestselling book, Unsettling the Settler Within.

“Many of the cast members were drawn to the project as a way to deepen their own understanding about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit experiences in this country, and then be able to create a theatre performance that would let them share with others what they discovered,” says Weigler. At the end of the show, in the ‘heart’ of the labyrinth, everyone is offered tea and an opportunity to reflect on the experience in conversation. The community cast hopes that From the Heart will entertain, inspire, and encourage thoughtful dialogue.

The cast developed the show in collaboration with Director Will Weigler, Kwakwaka'wakw
performance artist and poet Krystal Cook, and singing and movement coach Bisia Belina. The labyrinth was co-designed by eco-architect Mark Lakeman and tensile fabric architect Mar Ricketts.

“This project is an example of many people in a community coming together to make a difference,” Weigler adds. “First Metropolitan Church offered us workshop space to create the show, and Uptown Mall is hosting us during performances. Many individual tradespeople, professionals, businesses, and organizations have all stepped up to lend a hand when we needed it. It would not have happened without them.” From the Heart is a pilot project here in the Greater Victoria area; the organizers plan to create a ‘how-to’ book on the process so that other communities can produce their own versions of the show throughout Canada and globally.

From the Heart received funding from the BC Arts Council, Vancouver Foundation, Vancity, the CRD, Hamber Foundation, and many individual donors.

…What if we were to offer the gift of humility as we come to the work of truth telling and reconciliation? Bearing this gift would entail working through our own discomfort and vulnerability, opening ourselves to the kind of experiential learning that engages our whole being— our heads, our hearts, our spirits.

—Paulette Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within

WHAT: From the Heart: enter into the journey of reconciliation

WHEN: June 12–22 & July 3–27. Performances are Wednesdays through Saturdays.

Show times: 7:00, 7:20, 7:40, 8:00, 8:20, 8:40.

WHERE: Uptown Mall Upper level (Blanshard St Entrance)

DIRECTIONS: Southbound on Blanshard/Pat Bay Hwy just past Ravine Way, turn right at the Uptown Mall entrance by the RBC and up the ramp. At the top, veer to the right and look for the From the Heart banner. From inside the mall, take the escalator, elevator, or stairs to the 4th level and walk north until you see the Banner.

TICKETS: $10. Price excludes service charges. Call TicketRocket at 250-590-6291, or purchase online http://ticketrocket.org

#END#

MEDIA CONTACT:
Will Weigler (Producer/Director) at will@videa.ca or 250-382-7324
OTHER INTERVIEW CONTACTS: Co-facilitator Krystal Cook 250-386-0570
Cast member Patty Bleumel 250-382-8717 
Cast member Susan Belford 250-508-6233
QUICK-LINK REFERENCE MATERIALS:

Creative team: http://www.from-the-heart.ca/about/creative-team 

Cast and crew list: http://www.from-the-heart.ca/about/cast-and-crew 
This press release: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_JANorU2N75dUJkZU5HTm9kMG8/edit

Lucidity is an Impairment: Reflections from a Fancy Resort

"One of the most effective devices is to encourage debate. But, within a system of unspoken presuppositions that incorporate the basic principles of the doctrinal systems, these principles are therefore removed from inspection; they become the framework for thinkable thought, not objects of rational consideration."   Attributed to Noam Chomsky

Because of the kind generosity of my husband's employer, I find myself at a very high-end, immersive luxury resort on the Mexican Riviera. This is a place we could never afford ourselves. Like my husband says, maybe we could throw caution to the wind and scrape enough to pay for the room, but then how would we eat? And we couldn't bring our kids, who were not invited this time around either.

Not only do we have a beautiful, exquisitely designed, completely detached and private, oceanside suite with huge patio and our own small pool (well, it's bigger than any hot tub I've seen, but you can't quite swim in it, but it's lovely for cooling down), but our meals at three different excellent restaurants with food as well-prepared as any I've had at high-end restaurants in big cities like New York, are completely covered. This incudes alcohol and I can personally say that the mojitos here are beyond delicious.

The resort is on something like 50 or more acres and we have bikes at our disposal as well as golf cart "buses" that drive by every 4 minutes. There are two pools, but by pools I mean stunningly landscaped and designed outdoor spaces with huge water features to swim in. I know that designers and architects have words for these kind of spaces. I don't have the vocabulary and I am not writing this to promote or critique the place so I won't name the actual establishment. 

The whole design and landscaping and "experience" is beyond anything I have ever encountered. The grounds between suites, for instance, are designed with plants, of course, and spaces with sand and rock; the sand is raked regularly so that a ripply design is always part of the look. At night, the whole place is lit beautifully, including what seems like thousands of torches and various types of candles.

Every single person who works here is sincerely friendly and eager to please in fluent English. Having spent part of the day yesterday in the actual nearby town, I can report that this attitude is a corporate rather than a local trait.

This place is not just an exemplary business case, but a design marvel, a customer service model of excellence and maybe even a work of art.

I am extremely grateful to Dave's employer for such a generous gift. I am also grateful to my husband who received this treat as a reward. And I am grateful to my kind parents for looking after my children while we are away. I'm also grateful to all the kind, hardworking people here. I'm just really grateful to have a space to be idle and take in the beauty and the sun and the swimming. One of the greatest pleasures of this trip is not having to worry about cost. The other, especially for me, is to be able to exist for a few days in an almost decision-free environment. It is a gift and a rest.

But me being me, I will commit some sociology (as per the remarks of our country's dear leader) and express some of my sadness.

One thing I notice about most of the American women at this resort is the way that femininity is expressed/suppressed by will. There are very many worked-out/starved-thin women here. Almost every woman here wears insanely high heels. They are also very smooth. In my usual pathetic and futile way, I decided that my act of decolonization would be to come here unshorn. I have not waxed my legs or shaved my armpits (never in my life have I been able to wear a heel over one inch). I also don't have a worked-out/starved thin body but my body is relatively acceptable for a place like this. 

My act of flat-footedness and hairiness has gone unnoticed, I would say, because as a woman of 51, I am a fairly invisible person in this milieu. The ladies here are not all young, but many are and the ones about my age try way harder than me.

Almost everyone that is a client is white and American. No shock there. There are also a few Mexican people but they are whiter Mexicans. I have seen two black people, a few Asian (perhaps Chinese descent) people (who could be American or Canadian or from some Asian land), and an extended family from perhaps India. The people with the most blatant non-acceptability seem to stick to their private spaces. 

There is a young couple perhaps in their early 30s maybe even just late 20s; I imagine that he is a Mexican gangster and that she is a Mexican prostitute. She has a surgeon-made face and melon boobs, he is really muscular, wears muscle shirts with skulls on them. They are Latino-looking with dark hair and extremely deep tans. But I heard them speaking with British accents! They go to the pool but kind of stay off to the side in a cabana. The first night I saw them, only Dave and I were at the pool and they were making out. Ew.

I see gay guys at dinner but not at the pool.

A really obese Mexican guy and his stunning wife or girlfriend do hang out at the pool. She is gorgeous but I don't peg her as a sex worker because she is so effortless about it. I had never seen an obese lady by the pool but I've seen some on the golf carts and at dinner. Today, however, an obese black lady in a long dress made her way to a beach chair, but chose to sit in an out of the way area, staying in her long dress.

I saw a couple holding hands on the beach, him about 60, her about 30. Ew. Not at pool.

I think of Foucault's picture of the disciplinary society.

I am uncomfortable here. Ha ha. Like I'm comfortable anywhere. But I find it difficult to simply settle into letting the legions of kind people wait on me. This place costs a small fortune. I have no idea how the kind people get paid but I can tell you that the same waiters and hostesses who smile at you at night are also there first thing in the morning.

I've been reading one of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels, which I highly recommend. The Nazis. The Communists. The French Nazis. The CIA. That is probably the order of worst to even worse. Quite the history lesson.

In North America we labor under the mythology (Chomsky's "framework for thinkable thought")  that everyone gets a fair chance. Besides pretty much ignoring the history of First Nations people and the slave trade, not to mention the legions of poor immigrants who upon leaving grinding poverty/starvation/war often found/find grinding labor and poverty/poor social and labor conditions. 

Still, we've exported the idiotic myth and the general population of the world hopes to have yellow brick roads in the form of big houses, stainless steel appliances, boobs and cars. I teach within the post-secondary system where somehow, even though most jobs exist in service and retail at close to minimum wage, we tell our students they will have a chance on the job market. I'm not saying some don't find rewarding jobs, some do, but wouldn't it be better to focus on less magical thinking?

The reason people (especially people who believe they are entitled) don't like to "commit sociology" is because it's fucking sad and it forces us to look at our relationship to power and by power I do not mean some abstract concept, I mean violence and domination. 

Marx made some good observations about the balance of power, Stalin used Marx insofar as the ideas were useful to his holding onto power. The German people were fucked after the first world war. Gangsters eventually ruled, allegiances shifted, Jews were a handy scapegoat. It is sickening to imagine how the people of Germany could let what happened happen.

It is even more sickening that in our culture we do not ever, NOT EVER, have to imagine what happens to the many invisible people who are affected by our industrialized way of life. NEVER. In my opinion, what we are is worse than Nazis. Most people in Western culture have no idea about the way--often violent and exploitative--our objects arrive on our store-steps. More people die from poverty every year than were killed by the Nazis.  But what I would argue is worse, is that the deaths are invisible.

I did not think my way to this realization. As Chomsky observes, our culture does not allow for thinking such thoughts (Rule No. 1: downers not allowed). 

I felt my way. 

Facing my pain, labelled as illness and mental illness, over DECADES has led me to be able to understand that my pain is for the deep, worse-than-Nazi shit we have created. 

I believe, more than men, that women are in touch with their sensitivity and compassion. But through the willfulness required to be literally on our toes, always sexually attractive and, most of all, not taking up too much space with our bodies, we lose touch with our sensitive spirit or suppress and deny it. I thought and often still fight beliefs that I am crazy and ugly and ungainly. I am undeniably always awkward. I can write and profess and present better than I can show up day to day.

The culture of sexualizing women is directly related to the culture of domination and crushing of spirit and heart. 

What would be nice would be if human beings let go of the magical thinking/masculine-energy idea of power-over and give in to their natural ability to feel empathy and thus look after each other. But that would require vulnerability.

And, as my friend Susan Belford, who is a therapist, says, in this culture "our behaviours and personality come from a place of needing to protect ourselves from awareness of vulnerability and, so, we're so busy acting against vulnerability, it's just not something we can even see."

And, so, we live on a beautiful planet, separated from our true natures, willing to let it all be destroyed for "fun," a few baubles, and a dream of security.

Is it nice to come on a trip to a beautiful resort in Mexico and have delicious food and be waited on? Yes and no. Lucidity is definitely an impairment.

Naked Stand-up Tragicomic: A Human Body Project Video

Naked Stand-up Tragicomic: A Human Body Project Video (5 minutes, 2013)

Tasha Diamant will present the The Human Body Project off-fringe during the 2013 Victoria Fringe, August 22-September 1, 2013, and at the Vancouver Fringe, September 5-15, 2013.

"Here's what's 'wrong' with me. I was born into a world where people don't look after each other or even see each other. I always felt it and was never okay but I fully believed what I was told. That I needed to "be successful" and "pretty." I knew I should figure out how to fix my bothersome self. I tried harder to do that than anyone I've ever met. 
One day I realized I was done. The only thing that will really fix me is living in a world where people choose love over ego/domination. It's super easy. Kids know how to do do it. There are lots of reasons why we've ended up training ourselves backward and I could say more about that but one thing I've noticed is that no matter how much 'research' there is, not much changes. 
Our work is in the emotional realm. I happen to have 'expertise' as a super-sensitive emotional being who has survived! I am not an addict, a suicide, on the street, or crazy. 
I do not thrive and I often struggle to function, but I am here doing my job. 
This shift won't happen in my lifetime but I am doing everything I can think of to make it happen. I feel defensive because who I am and what I know is easily and often dismissed because it makes people uncomfortable. 
I honour myself and I honour all of you who honor your own sensitivity and, I'll say it again, vulnerability is the only way forward."     Tasha Diamant

"Because of all the horrible things that humans have done in anger, anger has been given a bad name. But it is a legitimate emotion that signals that someone has been violated. 
It's time we raised healthy anger back to the rafters of acceptability, and worked together to clarify a way of expressing it that both holds everyone safe AND allows us to honour its inherent wisdom. Not abusing self or other, but seeing the feelings all the way through to the healing and lessons they contain. 
This means not doing the forgiveness bypass--pretending to forgive before we have organically moved through the feelings. Feeling, expressing and healing first."     Jeff Brown

"It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions--you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism."     Noam Chomsky

Honouring the Energy Shift... What I Burned, What I Planted

To honour the powerful energy shift that I feel privileged to be a part of at this time in human history, I burned what I want to release from myself and the world on the night of December 21-22, 2012. And, on the day of December 22, 2012, I planted what I want to grow in myself and the world.

For the rest of my life on the planet, I pledge to use my power to do whatever I can to help us make this shift from separation to unity and love. This is why I do the Human Body Project. 

What I burned. Plus: striving, trauma, martyrdom and separation. Ba-bye.

 I planted these:

Planted in the earth. Plus: fun, laughter, gratitude.

Planted this too. Plus: Human Body Project. Grow!

Reflection on 1st Nations "Way" at the U (Dilemmas Galore)

As I write, my heart aches. Literally. I have a sensation in my heart centre area that feels both like the skin has been ripped off and like I've been punched or a large object has landed on me there.

I mention this as I finally take some time to reflect on attending the most recent Tse Tsa Watle Speakers Series meeting at Royal Roads University (where I teach in both the School of Communication and Culture and the International Study Group) because my own sensitivities are directly related to the dilemmas of Tse Tsa Watle.

What is Tse Tsa Watle? 

In the Cowichan language, RRU publicity materials say, it means "coming together to help one another." As a person who has attended a couple of Tse Tsa Watle meetings, I see it as a place for holding a space for aboriginal ways of being (i.e., "coming together to help one another") within the institution. The meetings take place once a month for 2 hours.

Dilemma: how does the aboriginal way exist in a monthly 2-hour meeting that is optional for people to attend? How does "coming together to help one another" look in an institution that only works in blocks of time dedicated to specific purposes, which are created in a complex and not very transparent political environment and are completely dependent on budgetary constraints? 

A grave, humble woman, Dr. Pakki Chipps, spoke to us about plant medicine. She spoke about ethnobotany as well as her knowledge from her First Nations family. She told us that much of what she knows cannot be shared because the understandings of working with plant medicine are passed down through families and the knowledge is considered private and sacred; sacredness, privacy and efficacy are related. She also told us that her family (and other First Nations people) worked for centuries in a practice where living with, knowing about, and using plants is gentle and completely connected.

Dilemma: in our culture (enshrined by universities) where everything (literally every thing) is separated into ownership structures and legal entities and categories (and roles and disciplines and departments) so we can pronounce it known and knowable and then act, how can we learn from a culture of "being with," in which sacred and science are the same thing?

In RRU publicity material, Pakki Chipps is described as a woman with a BA, MA, PhD and "a status member of the Beecher Bay First Nation on southern-western Vancouver Island, with Danish and Illulisaht (Greenland Inuit) ancestry. Her doctoral degree in Education/Curriculum and Instruction concentrated on curriculum development, educational technology, multimedia development and environmental studies, specializing in ethnobotany. She taught environmental studies at UVic and returned, two years ago, from teaching in Greenland for two years." This accomplished woman, when I asked if there was a way for my children to learn about being with native plants, answered that she likes to speak at schools and only asks for gas money.

Dr. Chipps spoke about how residential schooling caused a near complete breakdown in passing on of traditional plant knowledge, not only through the disconnection of elders and younger people; but also simply through lost knowledge of locations; and through loss of plant habitat caused by development, introduced plant species, and such. A woman at the meeting who seemed to have a role within the university kindly offered that perhaps there might be a way for Dr. Chipps to contribute to creating a native plant garden at the new First Nations building on campus. That woman suggested that such a tangible project could be a prospect to receive funding.

Dilemma: how can we benefit from the wisdom of people like Pakki Chipps when we are forced to only consider "tangible" advantages?

Dilemma: what "purpose" would a native plant garden on campus serve? (I suggest that it could only exist as a simulacrum, a fake exhibit that could never be used as a source of plant medicine.)

My heartaches, as I'm writing this, are intense. My experience of listening to Pakki Chipps was a dialed up version of my everyday paradox-holding existence. Both times that I have attended Tse Tsa Watle, I have felt, beyond these dilemmas which I have illustrated above, an even bigger elephant in the room: pain. 

While Dr. Chipps told us stories and shared information about plants, every remark she made touched on the destruction of aboriginal people, ways, habitat, and wisdom. Not because she made a point of doing so but because she simply spoke knowledgeably, honestly, and matter-of-factly about plant medicine. There is no way to discuss plant medicine and leave out the rest of the devastating historical picture.

But, in a culture where compartmentalization is not only the norm but the ideal, it is a simple matter to leave out pesky emotion-charged information. I'm not saying that discussions of colonialism or feminism or cultural criticism, etc., don't take place. I am saying that slotting discussions into those categories might be a simple and effective way to neutralize and minimize the pain of such discussions. I'm also saying that our culture's slotting of these difficult discussions somehow renders them nonexistent in huge areas of discourse. 

Dilemma: when what we know and discuss and learn is disconnected from feeling and when painful and harmful practices are discussed without being felt, how does this affect our humanity?

For myself, I struggle being on the earth. I have done since I have been a conscious person. I have worked on serious physical health problems and emotional pain for decades. The pain I feel is directly related to the sadness of aboriginal history. I have come to understand that my being cannot reconcile living in this world of denial of harm and perpetuation of domination.

As an academic and as an artist, my work in the Human Body Project is about where my healing intersects with world healing: vulnerable body=vulnerable planet. My work is challenging, difficult to categorize, and experiential. There is no space for commercialization or self-advancement. Like Pakki Chipps, I'd share for gas money.

Tse Tsa Watle, as an entity in the university, is challenging and difficult to categorize. For me, it is experiential in the sense that the intention of sincerely holding the space for "tse tsa watle," the concept, allows for an experience that moves beyond the disciplines.

Dilemma: how much difference can the Human Body Project or Tse Tsa Watle or Dr. Chipps's teachings make? We share the same problems of lack of funding, low audience, and almost no place within the ownership structures, legal entities, categories, disciplines, departments, etc. 

My own feelings about this situation are not positive and rageful. And I haven't even addressed my own dilemma of understanding myself to be a woman with indigenous wisdom, who happens to be white. Still, I am grateful that Tse Tsa Watle exists and I am grateful to Dr. Virginia McKendry, Greg Sam, and Bill White who are the actual people holding the space (there may be others that I don't know about). I'm grateful to Dr. Chipps for sharing herself and her knowledge so heartfully.


Dr. Chipps's website is chamasart.com.

Watch a brief video presentation describing various aspects of the Tse Tsa Watle project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATTSOfJB4YM

All past full-length Tse Tsa Watle presentation videos may be found here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5D128D35C65E8DE4&feature=plcp and http://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalRoadsUni

View an award-wining video essay created by an RRU BA in Professional Communication student team in regard to the TTW project: http://vimeo.com/44170189

Read a story RRU's Community Relations people did to celebrate and acknowledge the students' work and the TTW initiative: http://www.royalroads.ca/news/coming-together-interdependence