Undrowned: Black feminist lessons from marine mammals

Full PDF here: https://www.are.na/block/15795461

“Listening is not only about the normative ability to hear, it is a transformative and revolutionary resource that requires quieting down and tuning in.” (p.17, listening)

“Dolphins use the fat in their foreheads to modulate their biosonar listening, which sounds about as elegant as what I do with you.

Sometimes I feel like I’m communicating with you underwater. The impact of what I say outlives what I learned by saying it. And the ambient noise grows louder and the ocean is heating up and I need you to know where the bottom is, what will feed us, how close are the sharks. Sometimes my best guess echoes back to me like a slap in the face and I remember I know nothing. This fat forehead needs you and all your guesses too in this dynamic space. Which is to say

I am humbly listening and I am learning to take responsibility for my frequencies.

**

I can lower them to reach you. I can reflect before I speak out. Echolocation is not the same as mind-reading. Some of this magic is just the complexity of being a mammal alive in sound. I can hear what I cannot see yet. I can make a whole world of resonance. And live in it. Swim through it. Reflecting you. Whistle, click if you can feel that I am here.”

(p.19, listening)

“Western scientists have classified the leaping of tūpoupou in three ways: horizontal, vertical, and noisy. Noisy means you land on your side, on your back, on your belly; you rise up, toss and turn, and for a moment, when you fall, the ocean is a drum. And someone is listening, because how you move, how you land is a sign of the weather to come.

And you rise up. And you fall loudly. And you toss and turn. And something about this climate makes you sick, doesn’t it? And I am listening too. Because of what you do and its direction. How you fall and the sound. Where you go and how quickly. These tell me something about what is coming in a sky I can’t see yet.” (p.21, listening)

“BREATH IS A PRACTICE OF presence. One of the physical characteristics that unites us with marine mammals is that they process air in a way similar to us. Though they spend most or all of their time in water, they do not have gills. We, too, on land are often navigating contexts that seem impossible for us to breathe in, and yet we must. The adaptations that marine mammals have made in relationship to breathing are some of the most relevant for us to observe, not only in relationship to our survival in an atmosphere we have polluted on a planet where we are causing the ocean to rise, but also in relationship to our intentional living, our mindful relation to each other… May our breathing open up to the possibility of peace.” (p.23, breath)

“As the Weddell seal grows she will shed her fur, become sleek. She will feel completely at home in the ocean she avoided. She will see and feel things no other mammal has felt. But right now she is coughing and spitting and clinging to what she has known. She feels like she is drowning, but she’s just meeting herself again for the first time. Love to all my parents and the push of the universe for laughing at me. Thank you to those of you who have pushed through portals already, even out of this life. We can move between worlds. Thank you for those of you living and evolving, the vulnerability of your newness is an example to us all. Thank you to those who hold me accountable, who expect me to be who I need to become. Thank you for ignoring the lies I tell myself about myself. Even in my resistance I am grateful for you all. For the love you are teaching me, deep, Black, and full. For the nurturance, push, and example. What you learned by facing your own death. What you learned in your drowning is my breath.” (p.25, breath)