“I validate the idea that survival is the ultimate act of creation in a world that has reduced us to fascist arithmetic, of being a quantitative statistic, not a human soul. So we still found a way to care, love, and create - isn't that art? I teach people to decipher the art that they’re already doing, recognize the artistry and the everyday miracles of life around them, and create from that place.” This week we immerse ourselves in the aforementioned call to recognize the myriad of creations all around us from guest ALOK, who guides us in an ever-expansive dialogue around spiritual wellbeing, the importance of creative literacy, and the tremendous freedom that awaits us when we make gender unknowable.

We begin our conversation by foregrounding the importance of moving out of the paradigm of understanding trans and queer as something that is exclusive to the body. Instead, ALOK shares how challenging the gender binary is not only in service to our collective wellbeing but is a reverential offering in acknowledging our true celestial expansiveness that has been dimmed under binarism, heteronormativity, and colonialism. Caught up in a society that is so quick to demonize and vilify, we think about what questions we must ask ourselves to begin knowing our spirit. What does it mean to recognize genuine authenticity in someone else? How does that challenge our own understanding of the totality of our being and how we are able, or unable, to articulate that?

ALOK shares the connections between a lack of spiritual practice and the conditions for violence, reclaiming artistry from industry, degendering fashion, the capacity of our emotional immune systems amidst transformation, and the life-sustaining work of discovering one’s ancestors, not biological - but emotional, as in those who have come before us and bore witness to the same aches our hearts know today.

ALOK is a gender non-conforming writer and performance artist. Their distinctive style and poetic challenge to the gender binary have been internationally renowned. As a mixed-media artist Alok uses poetry, prose, comedy, performance, fashion design, and portraiture to explore themes of gender, race, trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017) and Beyond the Gender Binary (2020).

♫ The music featured in this episode is “An Sí Gaoithe” by Soda Lite, “Spirit’s Cradle” by Rising Appalachia, and “Grow” by Lady Moon & The Eclipse.

Episode References

“My Body Belongs to Me, Not Heteronormativity'' by ALOK

“Call Me They” by ALOK

“Queerness Is Why I Live” by ALOK

Gloria Anzaldúa

James Baldwin

Susan Sontag

Audre Lorde

Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling

ALOK’s Recommendations

Beyond the Gender Binary by ALOK

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