iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 29/02/2024

anyway, that's all for a bit. may you be well, may you be well, may we all one day be well.

Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 29/02/2024

I did come across a stash of postcards that I would like to put to use, so if any mutual wants a random postcard from me (probably with a doodle, a quote, and/or short poem on it), feel free to slide me your address thru discord (or email if you are one of a few who has that).

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 29/02/2024

i guess it has been a while. what have i been up to? writing a fair bit, reading only a little, sleeping not much, working, watching too much tv, preparing to move, a good bit of ritual work. quiet, intense inward times, finally some signs of the wet soul taking root, tho still dry blasted times.

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Reposted by Iris, again

Silby @silby.bsky.social · 01/02/2024

fledgling pair of wings unfurled from your shoulderblades long to touch the sky

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 14/01/2024

I am attempting to spend more time with the honeyed sun tomorrow; toward sleep I set out. Goodnight to the sleeping ungulates and goodnight to you. Twice good nighted if you are a sleeping ungulate.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 14/01/2024

I spent so much of the day in a heap of rose-petaled sheets writing my way from the week's disparate persistent thoughts back to the longer work they open toward. & so much of the evening cleaning because rose petals get everywhere when you trail back & forth between the bed. More delight than not.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 14/01/2024

Sitting quietly and sipping on a caffix seasoned with baharat and king's pepper spice blends while I think about the day. The warmth and spice amidst the barley is almost everything I want right now.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 14/01/2024

Hmm. I had forgotten that graysky lets me easily bypass the timeline. That could be useful right now.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 13/01/2024

Which is to say, I guess I will be sticking to my late night good nights and not straying much beyond. As I tell myself again and again, this is the interim. Things will get better if I take care of myself and the closer world as it needs to be taken care of.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 13/01/2024

I'm finding my way past the wounds that took mutual touch from me, but no amount of blocking or muting keeps the person who inflicted those wounds from showing up on my timeline. Wtf. Every time I think I can relax a little here...sigh, i rush to stroll when i still must limp. Quiet, still, until.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 13/01/2024

Started the day with a visit to one of my favorite local museums & am ending it covered in rose petals & leaves, smelling sweetly. Despite the lack of sleep, a very pleasant day. Goodnight to the dawn light.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

All of my quiet prayers whispered into my bed, it is time for me to rest my head. May sweet dreams find all of us sleepers and trail us into waking day. Goodnight.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

A moment in the dark when sensitive skin rises to the rhythm of the gusting wind & & shivers against the hail rattling the window pane.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

The me that is growing back is still strange to me. My inner repertoire of images that I find & am trying to let myself explore...they aren't like the me I used to have & i dont know quite how they play. I am trying to stay curious, explore, but the unfamiliarity of me hurts more than I expected.

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Reposted by Iris, again

Jana H-S (she, like a knife) @jana-aych-ess.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

today's affirmation: I am a beam of perfect golden light, born of the collapse of matter. cast red and gold as I scatter through the air. cast green and gray as I scatter through the depths. casting shadows of creatures too great to understand, too small to be seen. I will be gone soon. don't blink

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Reposted by Iris, again

Kate Watson @loreandordure.com · 08/01/2024

This little nuthatch decided to fly into one of our windows (I guess not used to them reflecting a bright blue sky lately!) and then felt that my hand made an entirely acceptable place to hang out while he recovered! 🥰

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

The slats of the sliding glass door blinds no longer slide easily across it. I drew them more carelessly than usual tonight, and the night's light breaks through them like the light of the sun through the wing feathers of a molting vulture in flight. May the wings shelter my sleep. Goodnight.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

& at summer solstice's midday, the most beautiful of the east & west face each other across the great river, cross the great bridge with their tools raised high, each become the most beautiful of the other's domain, letting their combined beauty shine over all the North American year's divining.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

*hums softly, dusting off the app a little* how have folks been? I have been dealing with annoying trauma stuff, so been offline to gather and settle myself. Maybe I am just going to be an inconstant guest / host here for a little bit.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

Pardon my soft purr as I settle into the quickly warming couch. Just enough time for an early morning nap before the cold day. Goodnight, be warm.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

*stands, in the living room with all the lights still on, turns toward the northwest, breathing, oriented* six months. Chicago. A line in plan and action curved like an arrow between here and there. What I hold dear from here to there. Dear expansive waters, I will pray on your shores again.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

I haven't done anything like I am about to do this year, just gather myself & my partner & set us toward a place, looking for the safe harbor in motion toward it. I know if we stay here it turns into a trap. The other side might, too, but there is a thread I can see. Just need not to drown.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 04/01/2024

The room around me is anything but luminous, tho, so I am going to let the darkness carry me to sleep. Goodnight, thank you.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 04/01/2024

With the new year and a move ahead, I am enjoying this luminous quality things around me have started to acquire. Revelatory for beauty and goodness as well as ugliness and cruelty.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 04/01/2024

I am very glad for the time I spent with the needles. There are things I would like to do with needles & feathers that I simply can't do by myself, & for the first time in months, I can imagine enjoying the touch of another person to do that. Not yet, but maybe by the time I land in the new city...

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 03/01/2024

A knot of abandonment that is hard to shake makes sleep difficult, but seeing it more clearly I also feel more ready to deal with it, maybe settle it long enough to rest, at least tonight. Goodnight, may peacefulness find us when we need it most.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

I do love how the last lines of a poem spilling over onto a verso page can become poems all their own. (From Gabrielle Calvociressi's Rocket Fantastic.)

and wish myself up there with you
just calm and swinging through the dark.

we had fun. You haven't lived until a fox
has whispered something the ferns told him
in your one good ear. I mean truly.
You have not lived.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

(a silly quick poem for a silly afternoon nap dream) Zelda and Link wrestling then the one beside me, faceless in the way of dreams, says "now look-- and with some quick finger work i watch Link shimmer from head to toe becoming Zelda, "now-- there are two princesses wrestling

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

The geese fly over, honking discordantly; they do not descend raucous and splashing into the pond.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

The dangerous disease of feminine divinity

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

Apparently this is the morning I get to see the mirror from both sides, sleepless.

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Reposted by Iris, again

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

We did this. 🪶

An infographic showing illustrations of various bird species with the title "Birds that went extinct in 2023," including the Bachman's warbler, Bridled white-eye, several Hawaiian bird species like the Kaua'i 'ō'ō. In all, there are eight birds from Hawai’i that were declared extinct in 2033.

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Reposted by Iris, again

Citizen.Coping @propcazhpm.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

Haitian Independence Day 🇭🇹 Frederick Douglass, 1st US ambassador to Haiti, said why U.S. government hadn't recognized Haiti as a sister republic until 1862 despite the country winning independence in 1804. "Haiti is Black and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being Black" - Frederick Douglass

aaihs.org

Frederick Douglass and a Diplomacy of Blackness

*This post is part of the online forum on The Futures of Frederick Douglass. The contributions in this forum each highlight innovative approaches to the study of Douglass's life and works. Frederi...

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Reposted by Iris, again

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

From Keith Haring's journals

The problem facing modern man now is compounded by the increasing power of technology and its misuse by those in power who wish only to control. The mentality of people who are motivated by profits at the expense of human needs is perfect for the computer. Computers are completely rational. They save time and money. They can keep records of every transaction. Money is the opposite of magic. Art is magic. The worlds of art and money are constantly intermingling. To survive this mixture the magic in art has to be applied in new ways. Magic must always triumph.” — June 13, 1984

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

I am a little surprised that I have not heard the early robins singing yet. They were so boisterous at dusk, as the pond became a mirror reflecting apartments, trees, and sky. I wonder when dawn makes the mirror anew. I won't find out today, tho. This morning, I try to sleep. Goodnight.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

CW: blood, needles, nudity (no genitals, tho i skirt close) "9 thorns raised in a palisade against an unjust suzerainty over my heart" Reclaiming my body is a nonlinear process, and this was good work toward that. (This is an exception to my usual tame posting; don't expect too much like this.)

I (white brunette woman with brown eyes) am kneeling, my butt resting on my heels. You can just make out that my knees are spread wide and the flesh about my hips rolls just a little. I am looking up at the camera smiling and naked, wearing just a silver pendant and two pairs of needles inserted through my skin just above my breasts.

In this shot, I have taken all but one of the the needles out. None have the punctures have done more than produce a bead of blood, but this one surprises and delights me by bleeding dramatically from both ends of the puncture. I wasn't even looking, was turning to dispose of the needle, when I felt the trickles down my side and along the curve of my breast, and a drop falling from my breast to my thigh. Here you can see that I have tasted the blood--there is a smear of it on my lips.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

Happy new year, skyline. I hope you are looking forward to some good things in the coming year.

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Reposted by Iris, again

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

Donald Justice, from “Bus Stop.”

Lines from the poem:

And the last bus
Comes letting dark
Umbrellas out-
Black flowers, black flowers.
And lives go on.
And lives go on
Like sudden lights
At street corners
Or like the lights In quiet rooms
Left on for hours,
Burning, burning.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 27/12/2023

Realizing more deeply how much my loss of touch & the collapse of my sexuality had to do with intimate mistreatment is fucking me up a little. I don't know how to trust my heart, & my body is riddled with this sick queasiness. It will get better, I know. Goodnight, maybe I can sleep some.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 26/12/2023

Even the highway is too quiet to hear. A pipe knocks occasionally in the wall and the refrigerator hums. Last Christmas here if all works out as I hope. Goodnight.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 26/12/2023

I stood on a low grassy mound in the breezy, brisk night air until the cold drizzle started. I pulled my hood over my head and for some reason thought of Miami. It has been such a long while since my feet walked there!

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 26/12/2023

I am doing just a little packing to think & came across these handwritten conference notes; something important here about my relationship to the Great Lakes region that I can't explain yet. I typed them up because I like y'all and don't want to subject you to my handwriting at this holy hour.

(sorry going to lose the outline formatting here)
Conference Notes (2019)
the limits of my body
the physical pain of standing
of walking
always too slow
prone to stumble
to wobble
the dialectic of distraction
of restlessness
of small pains
of fatigue
the drift
of pen into incoherent trailing
of my eyes beneath my lids
to speak of myself
of my own challenges
for the sake of someone else
of the play of values
between large + small
of the middling between
capitalization & seriousness
the danger of the middle as
the agent of averages
where participation becomes prestige
where need turns toward profit
the field where service tilts the
small toward the public
the library
the larger may subtend the smaller
join them to fields of capital
the field where the fruits of profit
may be used by the public

of translation
between communities of common capacity
obscured by technical jargon
between communities of the powerful
and the language of their oppressed
often borrowed and repurposed
between resistance + liberation
between content + cover
know the mother
forget father-empire
of ghost once ancestor
lost
displaced
South Africa forgotten
Detroit's Black face
beaded arms
bless the dead
Elizabeth become Black Queen
Combahee buried
beneath the intersection
cool
and white, forward thinking

Pleasant meals and late night tables
amidst the realization
of homes purchased
of careers pursued
of children and drag dreams
my slow sure realization
these are not my dreams
where are all the tears
for my dead + dying + suffering
where are all my hopes
for a world they might thrive
Elevator songs
the smooth slide
of vehicle corded
through the well-greased shaft
that the walls of my room
sing in harmony with
while the electronic beeps give rhythm
to the patter of rain on my window
down Woodward
the Black fist suspended
drizzled, glistening
through the park
returning, the rain
until my hair
slick + wet
laughing across the street
through the wide glass doors, up escalators
laughing though my hotel room door
peeling off wet clothes

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

Apparently Sunday is when the work of the week comes to fruition. A hard thing to process today, so many tears, and a little too much drinking. Not the perfect Christmas morning, but it will have to do. The afternoon, at least, promises better. Goodnight, and merry Christmas if you celebrate.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 24/12/2023

Sleeping means dreaming, and more sleep means my heart on my throat trying to wake me, and lately the dreams have not been bad, so I will try to sleep, to dream, to let the dawn and morning pull me under when the fear tries to wake me. Goodnight, holiday sweetness to all who wake.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

Sitting in the car as night approaches, I am little more than a weight of flesh and bone anchoring this moment with the sky and earth and all the movements of robin, squirrel, and cars between. It is so peaceful like this. The cooling air eventually sets me in motion, still more watcher than woman.

Trees silhouetted at dusk. A taller tree, all leafless branches reaching toward the sky, amidst smaller evergreens, the largest to the left is a pleasant leafy curve against the twilight.

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Reposted by Iris, again

Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

Alright my darlings, I am gathering poems of joy today. Please reply with whatever that means to you. Here’s the one I think of constantly. “What did you think, that joy/was some slight thing?”

Visitation by Mark Doty
When I heard he had entered the harbor,
and circled the wharf for days,
I expected the worst: shallow water,

confusion, some accident to bring
the young humpback to grief.
Don't they depend on a compass

lodged in the salt-flooded folds
of the brain, some delicate
musical mechanism to navigate

their true course? How many ways,
in our century's late iron hours,
might we have led him to disaster?

That, in those days, was how
I'd come to see the world:
dark upon dark, any sense

of spirit an embattled flame
sparked against wind-driven rain
till pain snuffed it out. I thought,

This is what experience gives us ,
and I moved carefully through my life
while I waited. . . Enough,

it wasn’t that way at all. The whale
exuberant, proud maybe, playful,
like the early music of Beethoven—

cruised the footings for smelts
clustered near the pylons
in mercury flocks. He

(do I have the gender right?)
would negotiate the rusty hulls
of the Portuguese fishing boats

—Holy Infant, Little Marie—
with what could only be read
as pleasure, coming close

then diving, trailing on the surface
big spreading circles
until he'd breach, thrilling us

with the release of pressured breath,
and the bulk of his sleek young head
—a wet black leather sofa

already barnacled with ghostly lice—
and his elegant and unlikely mouth,
and the marvelous afterthought of the flukes,

and the way his broad flippers
resembled a pair of clownish gloves
or puppet hands, looming greenish white

beneath the bay's clouded sheen.
When he had consumed his pleasure
of the shimmering swarm, his pleasure, perhaps,

in his own admired performance,
he swam out the harbor mouth,
into the Atlantic. And though grief

has seemed to me itself a dim,
salt suspension in which I've moved,
blind thing, day by day,

through the wreckage, barely aware
of what I stumbled toward, even I
couldn't help but look

at the way this immense figure
graces the dark medium,
and shines so: heaviness

which is no burden to itself.
What did you think, that joy
was some slight thing?

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

I love how quiet a winter night can be, even now in this tangle of climate disorder. All I can hear is a hum of something like a distant train and the steady whine of an early morning highway. Time to wrap myself up and drift away with the coming day. Goodnight.

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

I began this year saying yes to bringing the processes that transition initiated to fruition, completing what one translation of Enheduanna glossed as "the ritual for head overturning"; I thought I was closer to completing that than I was, didn't realize how much I had yet to overturn. But still yes

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Iris, again @cassperastra.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

A lazy day, one I have ended staring at the next steps in this whole recovery process and realizing how scared I am to fail. This year taught me how badly I can be hurt, and knowing that the other side of the next bit is finding new ways to be open again...I will do this, tho.

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