ALL TOMORROW'S FLOWERS

tending grief in LA & a love letter to Fariha

Ello Wizards!

Tomorrow I’m in LA holding a grief tending space with some total baddies, including

Fariha Róisín

who has been a dear friend for a long time, though this is our first time “working” together - exciting! If you’re in LA I’d love to see you <3

Below you will find some more details about the event, ticket link and a lil love letter I wrote to Fariha in preparation…

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Dear Fa,

I am so excited to come to you in Los Angeles this week, the place where somehow you’ve found home at a time of such unscrupulous homelessness - spiritually, actually, in every sense, for so many, and then some. I’m so curious to watch you there, in this miracle of place and earth and safe or safe enough. I’m coming to you from New York, the city we met in but that only I still love. A first love, the kind that fucks you up forever, becomes a sort of catacomb. We learn to live alongside ourselves, don’t we?

I want to find home like you have, have paintings and stuff, but I stay restless, scattered and scared of money. I can’t put all my eggs in one continent let alone a goddamn basket. And you know, recently I've felt a kind of divine pleasure about it. That for whatever stupid reason, I was given a life that allows me to fly between nests like a fucking bird, if only with their grace.

My depression does not generally allow for me to look deep into the future. Sometimes love coaxes me a little in that direction, but even then, I tend to get vague, shadowy vignettes - a rose garden, a hospital bed, a stage - kind of like I’m cucking myself at my own life. I’ve always felt very in tune with the precariousness of it all. Never understood how people can eat while watching the news. A Sensitive Child™. If you can’t love me now, don’t love me later. If you can’t spend me now- actually, you can spend me now. Spend me now!!! As love rolls over into grief, its magic flipside, I forgive myself for not being able to see past the end of the day. I promise myself it’s better this way, that I will fight harder and more recklessly in the dark. That in narrowing my workable timespace, existential dread will just have to be filtered out. 

Last time I saw you we wrote prayers under a New Moon on a ripped up Jehovah’s Witness Leaflet (sorry Jehovah, we were in a haunted airbnb in London truly doing the best we could). I was done after a couple sentences, something about learning to receive in the midst of life events that had calcified me shut. I can only make one wish at a time because any more would dilute the power of the original one. You disagreed, and I watched as you wrote pages, so present with the task, so abundant in wanting. I like to go deep but always near enough the surface to crack a little joke, show a little arse. You disappear under the ripples, you become them. How do you trust that you will always resurface? Do you? Trust? Resurface?

Sometimes swimming in grief feels like it might be a fool’s game. But that is of course the Capitalism Barbie in my own brain gaslighting me from the truth, that it is the only way to swim in love, and baby, it’s free! Thank you for swimming with me. For emulating, in friendship, the honesty and attention of grief. For making space for it, always. For knowing that grief is heavy for a reason. 

Yours,

Ai

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all tomorrow’s flowers:
blooming under the heat of empire

On Thursday 5th December, please join Aisha Mirza, Discostan, Fariha Róisín, and Habibah as we come together to hold our collective grief via an evening of music, discussion, embodiment and ritual. Despite it all, the seeds of resistance are warmer than ever, are ours to nourish and sow. Grief tending is a precious part of this process and we invite you to come alchemize with us.

There will be readings and a conversation about grief from Aisha and Fariha, listening sets from Discostan and Aisha as well as a dhikr with Habibah, who will utilize Sufi chanting and visualization as she guides us on a journey from the material reality to the worlds of the heart and the soul. This will be a night of remembrance and grounding.

Arshia Fatima Haq (@arshiaxfatima) is a multimedia artist whose visual and sonic work draws deep from her Indian Muslim origins. She is also the founder of @discostan, which envisions transnational solidarities from northwest Africa to southeast Asia and their diasporas.

Fariha Róisín - (@fariha_roisin) is a culture worker, educator and writer. They have written several books including Who Is Wellness For? and Survival Takes A Wild Imagination. They are a member of Writers Against The War on Gaza.

Habibah (@habibahbeads), born & raised in Damascus, Syria, is a Sufi spiritual guide & healer, a calligrapher, a poet, and a performer.

Aisha Mirza (@uglyinahotway) is a writer, musician, artist and community organizer. They are also the creator of misery (@miseryparty), a mental health org and sober party for QTIBPOC based in London.

This event is open to all ages. Sliding scale, $10-30 suggested donation. 50% of proceeds will go to mutual aid in Palestine and Kashmir. Please note Scribble is a sober space.

tickets here :)