Something is always composting

practicing dying a little bit all the time

Being on the other side of a big project, I’m sitting in the satisfying afterglow of nurturing creative work I’m really proud of with collaborators I love. It both parts celebratory and grief-filled. The ephemeral nature of performance, of gathering people, it’s here and then it’s past. The build of energy and effort comes to some kind of peak. As process-oriented artists, we know it’s just one part of the whole thing. But still, there’s a very real release and a void, a shift of schedule and priority.

Of course it feels like a little death. Death brings up a lot and can feel like dramatic comparison, but as an artist with a healthy amount of existentialism, I’m owning my dramatic deep well of feeling. (queue summertime sadness - it’s really a banger)

musings from someone who attended our performance experience last Saturday

In a workshop I took recently, the facilitator said something along the lines of there’s always some part of our lives that is composting. It’s an eco, poetic way of saying, not everything is going to feel perfect all the time. Or, something is always dying and that’s okay.

One project comes to an end, space emerges to rest and integrate

Growing towards a new chapter, laying to rest an old one

Job satisfaction bursts forth, a relationship composts and shifts

Obsessive thinking about some perceived problem subsides, back pain picks up

This is the sweet, sticky wholeness of life. Something is always composting, and it’s an illusion to think otherwise. 

What does it feel like to always be dying a little bit? To always be composting?  Perhaps not as terrifying as it sounds? Because we’re already doing it, it’s happening whether we give conscious thought to it or not. 

I’m paying attention to the little deaths and curious about making space, making friends with them. No sense avoiding the inevitable. I’m tired of trying to do that. 

offer my fingernail clippings to the earth

surrender to corpse pose on my floor

give away clothes and let go of things I used to like

lay to rest old stories about myself I used to believe

compost composition in the late sun made from fruit I shoulda eaten

Experiencing loss this past year, I have to give myself time to metabolize, remember, and connect to it. Because damn this fast paced modern life will have you on to the next and forgetting what you ate for breakfast or that your grandpa and a dear friend died this past year. Keep going, keep going, keep going. 

I know that the world, life never stops, and my desire to slow things down can be conflated with a desire to control a situation. Listening to a podcast last week, Bayo Akomolefe reminds us that we must slow down, but we don’t stop. Life is movement. 

There’s movement in a pile of compost: the break down, the wiggle of worms, the release of heat. It might not look like much on our time-line, but it moves. We move, even when we’re sleeping. Breath, blood, muscle, and cells are in continuous movement. It’s not mine to control, but to allow. Resisting it is exhausting. 

Something is always composting
Trust this as a baseline expectation 
Trust my capacity to ride it
Wiggle in the dirt
And sprout new life
Again and again and again

Movement begets movement
Life begets death begets life

What’s composting in your life? Is it colorful, stinky, fresh or almost dirt already? do you need to take it outside or is it keeping good company in your kitchen? maybe it needs a good stir? have some seeds sprouted from it?

xo

em