UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies (E-Journal - York University)

It is never dark here. We know shadow and grey, but not pitch or black

Williams, Felicity

Itis never dark here. We know shad-ow and grey, but not pitch or black.
Sunlight drains from the air; fire on
the horizon melts and the flame dif-
fuses into a nebulous twilight. Dusk
dies but night,
by Felicity Williams under a Toronro
moon, IS not
dark, is not
silent. There is
only phospho-
rescent orange,
reflected off the
cover of clouds, and the hum of
street lamps like a chorus of electric
crickets. Night is a bad copy of day;
the hydroelectric gods play Ra in the
city streets throughout the midnight
hours, There are no stars and no won-
der in Orion's canopy; the broken sky-
line is littered with concrete towers,
whose fluorescent eyes never blink
and never sleep. We are the children
of Prometheus; stolen fire lights Out
way through the inexorable rush of
business day to business day. There is
never dark and never rest.
Truth in
the Dark
Epiphany comes in the middle ofthe night. When I cannot see my
hand in front of my face, flooding
furious light rushes my reason. I find
the dark in Mana and night in Mali. I
receive vision in Africa and light in
Mana. The walk from the squat pot to
my room is long at three am, the
malarial mosquito's witching-hour. I
swat at this and that in the obscurity,
breathing the fear of my colonial
predecessors. I trip over roots in the
ground and trowels carelessly aban-
doned from the day's work. The air is
thick with sweat and thin with silence,
broken only by the stirring of a kid at
his mother's side and the ceaseless
croak of frogs in the rice paddies
nearby. Here the senses perform an
intricate dance, where sight and sound
and touch must learn their own steps.
There is a new rhythm here, a new
balance, a new song; as I negotiate the
path back to my room, I am aware of
the land's poem.' It reveals itself in
straw brick buildings and corrugated
tin roofs; in tall grandmother trees
whose wisdom matches that of the
stars; in heat and humidity that trick-
les in a salty tear down the back; in the
gende and precious breeze that cools
the flesh; in the sound of my own
footsteps on the earth and through
the grass; in the sleepy stalls and ani-
mals within; in the wisps of cloud that
race between the earth and sky, lit up
like ghosts in the moonlight. The
moon transforms the lightless land.
Where it is not, it is urterly dark. As it
rises, it casts shadows on the dirt and
the walls, giving enough light to usher
me back to my bed. It is as silver as
the sun is gold, giving light enough to
dream and to sleep. Here there is dark
and here there is rest; under my mos-
quito net I drink deeply of both in the
hours before the first flame of dawn.
Every Thursday in the village ofMana, the people meet to pray.
They gather in a shadowy, lantern-lit
church, light sparkling in their eyes
and white smiles like each star reflect-
ed here on earth. The room fills with
the words from the book, the low
voice of pastor Damy Traore uttering
words from his heart, his struggle, his
toil in the fields. Then comes song,
cooled down from youthful ecstasy to
prayerful murmuring in the sleepy
glow of the lantern. Voices ebb and
flow in cadence, unity somehow clam-
oring in dissonance. Turning to
prayer, they all speak at once. There is
beauty in the microtonality of their
prayer, light refracting and flashing off
every hope and grief lifted in faith and
solidarity. Here there is not one voice,
but many voices; there is not one
prayer but many prayers. All these are
received by one who listens and
responds; herein lies cohesion and
harmony. I do not understand the
words in Bambara, but I can decipher
the spirit out of which they flow. It is
a privilege to be in their midst.
Night in Mali is a mirror reflectingmy own light and darkness. My
faith and failure are laid bare before
me. Here there is real darkness; here I
gain real vision. I come from a place
that is built for me to forget the hap-
piness and truth I see here. I come
from a place that would rather I
believe in the misery of the third
world, and the mire of poverty.
Visions of despair flash across my tel-
evision screen, to keep me believing
that I am happy because of what I
have, rather than who I am. The peo-
ple of Mana have taught me that my
people suffer from the worst kind of
poverty. We have neither light nor
darkness, only a bad copy of both.
We do not even know that our lives
are counterfeit, that our spirits are
starved for the glow of the church on
Thursdays. Compared to the neon
streets of Toronto, its dimensions are
deep as hope is wide. It is never dark
here, nor is it ever really light.
Notes
1. AJ Purdy, "Return Journey", Naked with
Summer in Your Mouth (McLelland & Stewart
Inc., Toronto: 1994).
4 UnderCurrents Volume 11 Opposite page: Pristine, by Adrienne Blattel


English

Truth in the Dark

Keil, Roger

Furthermore, autonomist Marxists
have argued that the cybernetization
of capital will not usher in a leisure
society, but will instead encourage an
enlargement of the work realm. They
claim that labour displaced from pri-
mary and secondary industries would
be reabsorbed by "the tertiary, quater-
nary, or quinary sectors as farther and
farther flung domains of human
activity are assimilated within the
social factory."lo Cybernetized capital,
through the commodification of
expanded and novel realms of human
activity, can maintain wage labour,
"incessantly recreating its proletariat,
unless it is forcibly interrupted by the
organised efforts of workers to
reclaim their life-time."11
Work Abolitionism
More radical than the Marxistfuturists are those who advocate
the abolition of work. Believing that a
"job" signifies a dependency relation-
ship disguised as independence (the
"freedom" to consume), work aboli-
tionists call for workers of the world
to relax. They gleefully reject what
they call the Leftist mantra of full
employment, which results in further
integration of the working classes into
capitalism through preservation of
jobs at all costs. 12Abolitionists draw
on traditionally anarchist or libertarian
sensibilities that move beyond the
reductionist contortion which has
equated work with jobs. Instead, they
emphasize creativity, self-determina-
tion, and conviviality of relations.
"Jobs" are seen to restrict peoples'
capacities to care for themselves and
those within their communal/ecologi-
cal groupings, and are therefore reject-
ed as a basis for radical activist con-
vergence.
Work abolitionism suggests a move-
ment simultaneously "of class" and
"against class", i.e. against the com-
modification of creativity and per-
formance. The category "jobs" speaks
to the compulsory character of
involvement in capitalist produc-
tion-production enforced via rela-
tions of economic and political con-
trol and power. In order to receive
sustenance in a capitalist system, peo-
ple must sell themselves. This is the
imperative of wage labour: work is
not done for its own sake but for sec-
ondary effects, such as wages, which
are not characteristic of or inherent to
the work itself. In other words, jobs
form a condensation point for com-
plex relations of power around the
trading of time for money, or what
Zimpel quite poignantly refers to as "a
transaction of existential absurdity."!'
Jobs are characterized by an extension
of organizational control over people:
"employees" signify a system of dom-
ination practised through forms of
discipline which include surveillance
and time-management. The regimen-
tation and discipline of the job serves
to habituate workers to hierarchy and
obedience while also discouraging
insubordination and autonomy. Jobs
as regimented roles replace direct, cre-
ative participation and initiative
through arrangements of sub-
servience. Bob Black argues that
employment is capital's primary and
most direct coercive formation; one
that is experienced daily.
Marxists might object that work aboli-
tionism does not necessarily trans-
form capitalism. After all, even some
nee-liberal post-industrial theorists
write about the "abolition of work"
and they see it as the result of the
application of innovative technologi-
cal resources within capitalist rela-
tions-not as a destruction of those
relations. At its most dramatic, the
Industrial Ecology, by Roger Keil 19UnderCurrents Volume 11


Industrial Ecology

Blatrel, Adrienne

"Come Part Mental" by Floria Sigismondi

Blattel, Adrienne

Pristine, Cycles

The map systems of the Western world have their origins in geometric grids developed to chart the Heavens-the starry abode of divine rationality, and of perfect order

Leech, Angus

Notes on Etching Heaven: A Fact and Fiction Expedition to the Cosmogony of the Map

Last night the sky opened wide to surround me and my soul leapt up to greet it.&nbsp

Bouman, Majero

- lady dancing with the moon woman who sprinkles the night sky with stars -
Last night the sky opened wide to surround me and my soul leapt up to greet it. My body shell watched and waited silent-
lyas this earth's brilliance dripped into its cavity, gorging its awareness. It was then that you slipped by, caressing my heart
with sweet splendors, and my soul reached out to meet you. We danced above the cedars high, carving light waves into
the sky. We settled on rocks cascading into water soft, as the setting sun
swallowed us whole. My peace, this is a song for us, sounds which nourish
our paths and source: the singing of hump backed whale rocks masquerad-
ing as loons who sound like coyotes echoing through watery distances, voice
upon voice lifting the call. And the waking night shimmers, its grace sur-
rounds us. We awake renewed, whole, alive-deep breath waiting. We are
inspiration.
by Majero Bouman
It is the sixth day. We are spending it on the island of bays. The landscape
is rich with softly shaped stone which has been braving the elements since
Precambrian time. They are scratched and scarred by the passing of glaciers
from the last ice age. Black, brown, white, yellow, green. Trees root right into the stone, cracking and splintering it, the
bark almost indiscernible from the rock into which it has delved. There is very little soil-just lichen growing thick and
bouncy. The leaves of the few deciduous trees are turning color and falling. We've missed the blue and raspberries, but
there is juniper about, some daisies, water lilies. When the sun shines it is hot and friendly. Cloud cover is welcome after
its presence; the rain, thunder and lightning haven't been violent. The wildlife-the landscape-is incredible. I've never
been to lakes so big, dotted with beautiful islands, with no cottages, no motor boats, next to no people. We spend naked
days under the sun and in the water, taking up and taking in space which is almost too much to bear. Bald eagles sit upon
high crags and on the top-most branches of dead trees, taking great leaps into the air to be caught up on 6 feet of wing
span and glide away. Loons-I feel I now understand their call, which is not to be lonely at all but to echo across the
waters in chorus with countless more, howling laughing and singing the sun to sleep. Great blue herons soar across the
water and tree tops effortlessly. A moose and her calf swam across the narrows coming right toward us, their big ears
flapping in communication, to come out just ten meters down stream. Upon the rocks of the islands are fish bones, the
remnants of eagle meals. The spine vertebrae are the size of a fox's, the teeth a centimeter long, jaws almost as long as
my hand! It's ALIVE here. Even the rocks sigh with the passing of the wind. There is water and land and water and
land such that one can no longer be certain of what is surrounding what. The rock I sit on is the very crust of the earth.
I feel its age, its weight, the heavy passing of time, the sublime perfection of ever-movement, ever-change. No thing is
still here. No, no thing is still except the soul at peace. It is this peace which draws me toward people I love. It is this
peace which I experience in embrace: quiet, still, infinite. We are of a piece, we are whole in one another and with we-
earth. We are here, created and creating, becoming, reflected and reflecting. I am overwhelmed.
a letter from
Quetico
Provincial Park
I could be preparing for school, reading course material, learning words and theory with which to arrive well armed. But
I am here letting my soul breathe, allowing my feet to walk we-earth in simplicity, for this is what I most need to take
with me: simplicity, inspiration and life, instead of grandiose and complex statements constructed such that not many can
know what I mean. We deal in communication and exchange sweet sister. These are the riches of this world.
Opposite page: Untitled, by Tema Sarick UnderCurrents Volume 11 15


A Letter from Quetico Provincial Park

The subwayCrowded subway carMass packed humanityCarefully avoiding human contact while pressed together,A mockery of an intimate danc

Kennelly, Jackie

Trans/itions

As human society struggles to adjust to a growing variety of ongoing changes, understanding how human society adapts to challenges has become a vital avenue of research

Newman, Rob

Ripples in the Stream: Social Transition and Self-Organization

and we waited all summerfor him to arriveand we smelt blossomson the quiet breezes of summerand we feastedon yellow zucchinis and breadand we thought of those in bedwho were dreaming of their destinies unboundedand still no sign of hi

Young, Ryan

Anned & Untitled

Huh, Jin

I- trains
The subway
Crowded subway car
Mass packed humanity
Carefully avoiding human contact while pressed together,
A mockery of an intimate dance.
• •mons
We sway in rhythm
To the dik dik diking of the steel tires on rails
A push and surge
The exodus replaced by the inflow
People busy with their day
Ironic
The pressed flesh, frantically impersonal
Denying the interconnectedness of all things
Our underground bubble
Tunnelling through the streets of Toronto
Beneath the rapping strides of city dwellers
Pretending they are alone.
I take it as a challenge
To elicit a smile from some passerby
Wonder, beneath my daring act,
How long before I, too, refuse to look up,
Refuse to meet the eyes
Of those who pass me by
I could get lost here, in this city
This Mega-city of 4 million souls.
I could lose myself in the invisibility of being face to face
With a stranger on a subway car
Who doesn't see me.
It would be frighteningly easy to disappear.
Trans
by Jackie Kennelly
30 UnderCurrentsVolume 11
II- stations
Does it strike anyone else as STRANGE
I want to turn to the person beside me,
Or proclaim to the crowd lining up
Docilely, complacently, for the bus to shuttle them away-
Does it strike ANYONE else as STRANGE
That NO ONE is talking?
All York students, all going to the same place
And no one says a word.
Neither do I, though words burn within me.
Untitled, by Jin Huh
III - locations
The silent bus roars past stretches of strip malls
A sign reads International Women Free Dances Every Night
I ponder this strange mix of words
Free Dances for International Women?
Women-Free Dances for Foreigners?
We arrive on campus: where are all the people?
Vast expanses of blank land,
Devoid of movement.
Plunge into the mall
-yes, there's a mall on campus-
To be accosted by the student body.
The sheer presence,
Buzzing humanity
Fills the artificial commercial space
Designed for consumption.
Can I possibly survive two years of that bus ride
And the presence of that mall
Without losing some essence of myself that presently stands
appalled?
UnderCurrents Volume 11 31


Not a member yet