We Want the Funk

A Battle We Fight To The Grave

From the Series: Cykofian Coils (2020) Image Description: Black and white photograph of cryptographic cornrows and a coiled Cykofian artifact made of aluminum wire hanging from a pierced ear.

“Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave. The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of a sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair.” 

— Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970), pg. 83

And we run, run, run as far away from the edges as possible. The dance with desire is a dangerous one and whether or not that is fact or fiction doesn’t matter at the end of every nerve blaring alarm. The mile markers have disappeared, turn back now or else.

Everyone’s “or else” is different but it’s the biggest fear of all. The funk. The Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples. That all too wild, irresistible sound that calls you home as the world calls you mad. You’re almost there but the mile markers have disappeared and we’re worried, worried, worried that danger is just up ahead.

Make no nevermind, the fact or fiction, that we’ve cleared paths longer than this one. No matter the story, we’re just re-tracing our footsteps, forgetting what the trees looked like in this part of the forest.

Named 2024, where the whole world hopes a black woman will save us from fascism we’re all complicit in. This part of the forest looks new but the old growths mirror the repeating reality of this present moment. We’re surrounded by ancestors, both young and old, human and nonhuman. The wild eyes are the mile markers. The people are the mile markers.

Love is the mile marker and we’ve walked this path before. We’ve danced with the funk and invented liberation like it was yesterday. We’ve walked this path before, there’s just an understory of new growth that makes it feel like we’re lost. Trusting the path is there, we keep walking and dancing with the anxious blares. Clearing ground for others to join us once more. 

Inside the funk our breath is the backbeat. In a gesture too generous, we remember we have the power to weave them both together — love and fear — into a new sound, into a new way, into a new world.

And this becomes the battle that we fight all the way to the grave.

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Seeda School News

🍁 The Fall 2024 Retreat is now in session! Check out the Are.na board Valerie Andy made to mark this ancient beginning. In Week 1 we remembered our desire, in Week 2 we are mapping our Creative Ecosystem and charting pathways for returning to ourselves inside the wilderness of uncertainty.

📚 Every month inside the Treehouse features a new Dispatch Workshop sharing spells and strategies for creative marketing and list building. November’s Dispatch Workshop is titled “Queer Your Education”. Inside we will practice decolonial methods of learning and unlearning. We will also create our own syllabi for seasonal, self-directed study. We will look at ways we can use the seasonal syllabi framework to inform our weekly dispatches, engage our creative community and commit to a cadence of research. Treehosue members are invited to join us on November 5th, 12PM EST.