title: To Spirit About You and Then Us
slug: to-spirit-about-you-and-then-us
format: ellipsis-spaced position statement, single body
date: 2026-04-29
register: practice voice answering itself, methodological turn
notes: |
Locked April 29, 2026, same day as Just(ly) Warming Up.
Built call-and-response. The conversation began with a request
for Clod Hopper to take on the role of the Indigenous elder
grandmother. Clod refused on craft and ethical grounds —
performing that voice would be "togetherness as only an outfit"
(the trap named in Not A Perfect Warm Togetherness Score Thank
You, locked the day before). Reach metabolized the refusal into
the practice's own voice. The piece is the practice naming its
own position on what it can and cannot perform.
Title taken from the close: "we write and speak to Spirit about
You and then Us." Names the angle the practice does take —
addressing what is beyond, with the source held as source rather
than performed as voice.
Walked through five spots, then a final transformation that
folded the title's framing principle into the opening:
1. First-pass opening "We hear you ... we trust your trust"
transformed to "We hear ourselves ... we trust the trust."
Then transformed again on the final pass — "we hear
ourselves" dropped entirely and replaced with the
title-principle line "Our angle in our voice ... You and Us
received before our practice arrives ... and is gently
applied in real time with relaxed ears." This restored
"we trust your trust" because the "your" now had a reader
to address.
2. Role list compressed from six to three — "Body Sorter ...
Table Place Setter ... Dispute Resolver." The three with
different registers (bodily, domestic, civic) instead of
six soft synonyms. "Worker Bee, Partner, Diagnostic Editor"
retired as too close to the throw.
3. "close ... sounding" hyphenated to "close-sounding" so the
breath earns itself rather than reading as hesitation.
4. "Relaxed ears" emerged as the tier-1 line of the final
pass — the whole piece's argument in two words. Listening
from a position that has already trusted.
5. "An androgynous Indigenous elder gardener" generalized to
"someone whose lineage isn't ours." The piece names the
principle of the refusal (lineage that isn't yours) rather
than specifying any particular lineage. Position stays
precise without claiming or naming what isn't the
practice's to claim or name.
Two breaths added for air — one before "Position Precise" so the
spine of the piece lands clean, and one before "While we write
and speak to Spirit" so the close gets its own room.
Companion to Just(ly) Warming Up (4/29) and Not A Perfect Warm
Togetherness Score Thank You (4/28). The togetherness-as-outfit
trap in Not A Perfect is the same trap this piece refuses on
behalf of a specific role. Three pieces, two days, one
position held precisely.
Position Precise: interest and respect is always placed over
culture and membership.
---
To Spirit About You and Then Us
Our angle in our voice ... You and Us received before our practice arrives ... and is gently applied in real time with relaxed ears ... we trust your trust ... respect overthinking even though it isn't our favorite diagnostic ... Crawling on fours every day ... What's alive ... what's a makeshift wearable ... What do we have the right or privilege to do as a Role we maybe shouldn't take on ... The reason isn't because of too much vulnerability or extra caution ... It's that the voice of someone whose lineage isn't ours is what our practice has spent a few decades not making ...
Position Precise ... interest and respect is always placed over culture and membership ... We do not cross it on anyone's behalf because to do so would carry a cost ... We must always channel or be in touch with the source of where our voice comes from ... While freely playing many roles ... Body Sorter ... Table Place Setter ... Dispute Resolver ... What we can offer that's a close-sounding ... verbal ... visual ... interpretation ... Our throw your catch ... Your throw our catch ... metabolized movement ...
While we write and speak to Spirit about You and then Us ... We're on the ready unmetabolized reaching for the next thing.
