Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Lee, Nicole Yung Sin
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Drawing from the autobiographical context of impossibility to know and understand a suicide loss, this writing traces concept-based (Bal, 2002, 2009) paths for personal becoming. The work entails an exploration of what it means to cultivate a relationship with the unknown. It illustrates a four-movement conceptual framework inspired by a meditative square breathing exercise: the unknown, attunement, presence, and home. The framework offers a structure to brave the chaotic, tumultuous unknown with the goal of finding peace and equanimity. Though this writing outlines a series of paths, journeying through the square demands individuals to repeatedly meet, adjust, and transform themselves in the process. Navigating the four movements encourages one to live life as a constantly emerging and unfolding revelation. The author makes her journeys in relation to academic, artistic, curricular, pedagogical, and personal inquiries and practices, using methodological compasses of living inquiry (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Meyer, 2006, 2010; Springgay et al., 2005), specifically a/r/tography (LeBlanc & Irwin, 2019; Springgay et al., 2008; Triggs & Irwin, 2019), currere (Pinar, 1975, 2004), and contemplative practice (Garbutt & Roenpagel, 2018; Kumar, 2013). The conceptual study of individual movements develops in tandem with an artistic practice, including walking, divination, conceptual art, and textile installation work. Each turn of the framework inspires considerations of the self amidst affective, temporal, spatial, spiritual, and relational entanglements with(in) the world. This tracing demonstrates how attuning to the good, hauling in the world, being at home in it, and crossing into the unknown again are lifelong processes much like breathing. With every conceptual turn, the author faces important lessons of living with an ethos of abundance, of reaching for the beyond with faith and persistence, of worlding while holding fast to ethics and love, and of stepping forward with courage-vulnerability. Transcending the original context from which the author writes, she discovers how mapping life’s challenges along the square propels movement through thresholds. Individuals can be on the path of many squares at once. Each presents a curriculum that teaches and provokes, opening one up to the possibility of living an artful, purposeful, and meaningful existence.
SQUARES FOR BREATHING, BECOMING, AND BEHOLDING: CULTIVATING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNKNOWN by Nicole Yung Sin Lee B.F.A. (Visual Arts Studio), York University, 2012 B.Ed., York University, 2012 M.Ed., York University, 2016 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Curriculum Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July 2021 © Nicole Yung Sin Lee, 2021 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Squares for Breathing, Becoming, and Beholding: Cultivating a Relationship with the Unknown submitted by Nicole Yung Sin Lee in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies Examining Committee: Rita L. Irwin, Professor, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC Supervisor William F. Pinar, Professor, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Hsiao-Cheng Sandrine Han, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Susan Gerofsky, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC University Examiner Marla Buchanan, Professor, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, UBC University Examiner Jorge Lucero, Associate Professor, School of Art & Design, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign External Examiner iii Abstract Drawing from the autobiographical context of impossibility to know and understand a suicide loss, this writing traces concept-based (Bal, 2002, 2009) paths for personal becoming. The work entails an exploration of what it means to cultivate a relationship with the unknown. It illustrates a four-movement conceptual framework inspired by a meditative square breathing exercise: the unknown, attunement, presence, and home. The framework offers a structure to brave the chaotic, tumultuous unknown with the goal of finding peace and equanimity. Though this writing outlines a series of paths, journeying through the square demands individuals to repeatedly meet, adjust, and transform themselves in the process. Navigating the four movements encourages one to live life as a constantly emerging and unfolding revelation. The author makes her journeys in relation to academic, artistic, curricular, pedagogical, and personal inquiries and practices, using methodological compasses of living inquiry (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Meyer, 2006, 2010; Springgay et al., 2005), specifically a/r/tography (LeBlanc & Irwin, 2019; Springgay et al., 2008; Triggs & Irwin, 2019), currere (Pinar, 1975, 2004), and contemplative practice (Garbutt & Roenpagel, 2018; Kumar, 2013). The conceptual study of individual movements develops in tandem with an artistic practice, including walking, divination, conceptual art, and textile installation work. Each turn of the framework inspires considerations of the self amidst affective, temporal, spatial, spiritual, and relational entanglements with(in) the world. This tracing demonstrates how attuning to the good, hauling in the world, being at home in it, and crossing into the unknown again are lifelong processes much like breathing. With every conceptual turn, the author faces important lessons of living with an ethos of abundance, of reaching for the beyond with faith and persistence, of worlding while holding fast to ethics and love, and of iv stepping forward with courage-vulnerability. Transcending the original context from which the author writes, she discovers how mapping life’s challenges along the square propels movement through thresholds. Individuals can be on the path of many squares at once. Each presents a curriculum that teaches and provokes, opening one up to the possibility of living an artful, purposeful, and meaningful existence. v Lay Summary Drawing from a suicide loss, the author explores what it means to cultivate a relationship with the unknown. The work illustrates a four-movement conceptual framework inspired by a meditative square breathing exercise: the unknown, attunement, presence, and home. Conceptual study of each movement develops alongside an artistic practice: walking, divination, conceptual art, and textile installation. The framework offers a structure to brave the chaotic, tumultuous unknown with the goal of finding peace and equanimity. The journeying author faces lessons of living with an ethos of abundance, reaching for the beyond with faith and persistence, worlding while holding fast to ethics and love, and making crossings with courage-vulnerability. Mapping life’s challenges along the square propels movement through thresholds. Each square presents a curriculum that teaches and provokes, opening the possibility of living an artful, purposeful, and meaningful existence. vi Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Nicole Y. S. Lee. vii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary .................................................................................................................................v Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... xii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. xiii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... xiv Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xvi Prologue: 3 Moments .....................................................................................................................1 Week 1: Final Hours ................................................................................................................... 1 Week 2: The Price of Remembering ........................................................................................... 3 Week 3 Onwards: Putting Fragments Together .......................................................................... 5 Tumbling Questions .................................................................................................................... 7 Preparatory Meditations ...............................................................................................................9 111 Beginnings | Linking Autobiography with Research ....................................................... 9 Grief Work and an Aesthetic Orientation ........................................................................... 9 Story and Truth ................................................................................................................. 12 The Work .......................................................................................................................... 15 222 Relationships | Philosophy and Methodology ................................................................ 19 Phenomenology and Hermeneutics................................................................................... 19 Living Inquiry ................................................................................................................... 22 viii 333 Sacred | Methodological Compasses.............................................................................. 25 A/r/tography ...................................................................................................................... 25 Currere .............................................................................................................................. 28 Contemplative Practice ..................................................................................................... 30 Slow Scholarship .............................................................................................................. 32 444 Wisdom | The Square ..................................................................................................... 35 Breathing Life into Form and Structure ............................................................................ 35 The Square: Death, Equanimity, Stability ........................................................................ 42 555 Change | Accompaniments and Tensionalities of Being Human ................................... 46 And .................................................................................................................................... 46 The “And” of Stitching Together Multiple Realities ........................................................ 48 Embodiment of Tensionality in the In-Between ............................................................... 50 Inhale for 4 | The Unknown ........................................................................................................54 0.01 Concept: On the Unknown............................................................................................ 54 Defining the Unknown ...................................................................................................... 54 Questions from the Unknown ........................................................................................... 56 Implications of ‘the Unknown’ on Practice ...................................................................... 59 0.02 Art: Thinking Through Walking ................................................................................... 61 Walking Past ..................................................................................................................... 63 Walking Present ................................................................................................................ 66 0.03 Experience: Becoming .................................................................................................. 69 Becoming and Affect ........................................................................................................ 71 Listening and Crafting Tentative Articulations ................................................................ 72 ix A Story about Fear ............................................................................................................ 74 0.04 Learning: From Losing, Loss, and Being Lost, to Lots ................................................ 76 Lose, Loss, and Lost ......................................................................................................... 76 Safety and Risk ................................................................................................................. 79 Being Lost and Where to Start .......................................................................................... 81 Moving With/Into Abundance .......................................................................................... 82 Hold for 4 | Attunement ...............................................................................................................84 0.05 Concept: On Attunement .............................................................................................. 84 Attunement, Mood, and Awakening ................................................................................. 86 Resonance ......................................................................................................................... 89 Dissonance and Non-Coincidence .................................................................................... 90 0.06 Art: Thinking Through Oracle Cards ............................................................................ 93 Oracle Cards and Cartomancy .......................................................................................... 93 Cartomancy In/As Curriculum and Pedagogy .................................................................. 96 Oracle Cards as Icons........................................................................................................ 99 0.07 Experience: The Mystery of Chance, Timing, and Synchronicity .............................. 102 Synchronicity as Unthinkable (A)causality .................................................................... 102 Attunement Through Chance and Timing ...................................................................... 106 0.08 Learning: Reaching for the Beyond ............................................................................ 109 Distance and Reach ......................................................................................................... 109 Empirical, Spiritual, and Conceptual Eternities .............................................................. 111 Sublimity and Wonder as Gates ...................................................................................... 115 x Exhale for 4 | Presence ...............................................................................................................118 0.09 Concept: On Presence ................................................................................................. 118 Presence as Access .......................................................................................................... 118 Being Present .................................................................................................................. 121 Beholding Presence ......................................................................................................... 122 Possessing Presence ........................................................................................................ 124 Carrying Presence ........................................................................................................... 126 0.10 Art: Thinking through Conceptual Art ....................................................................... 130 Conceptual Art ................................................................................................................ 131 Social Turn of Pedagogy-as-Art-Practice ....................................................................... 132 The Music Exchange Project .......................................................................................... 134 Discussion and Debrief ................................................................................................... 139 0.11 Experience: Weight of Worlding ................................................................................ 143 Encountering Worlds Upon Worlds................................................................................ 143 Worlding ......................................................................................................................... 146 Boundaries ...................................................................................................................... 150 0.12 Learning: Toward Ethics, Perhaps Even Love ........................................................... 153 Bondage of Ethics ........................................................................................................... 153 Situational Ethics ............................................................................................................ 155 Commitment to the Good................................................................................................ 156 Perhaps Even Love ......................................................................................................... 157 Hold for 4 | Home .......................................................................................................................160 0.13 Concept: On Home ..................................................................................................... 160 xi My Lived History with Home ......................................................................................... 161 Homesickness and Homecoming .................................................................................... 163 Turning Camp to Home .................................................................................................. 166 Home in the Eternal ........................................................................................................ 167 0.14 Art: Thinking Through Textile and Installation Art ................................................... 169 Poetic Vignettes .............................................................................................................. 171 The Project ...................................................................................................................... 174 Knitting, Crochet, and Yarn Bombing ............................................................................ 175 Chair ................................................................................................................................ 178 0.15 Experience: Position and Orientation ......................................................................... 180 Furniture and Orientation ................................................................................................ 180 (Dis)inheritances ............................................................................................................. 182 Finding a Way Home ...................................................................................................... 185 0.16 Learning: Thresholds .................................................................................................. 188 Marking and Crossing Thresholds .................................................................................. 188 Rebirth, Rituals, and Gestures of Concern...................................................................... 191 Epilogue ......................................................................................................................................194 References ...................................................................................................................................199 xii List of Tables Table 1 Dissertation Structure ...................................................................................................... 39 Table 2 Selections for the Music Exchange Project (Individual) ............................................... 137 Table 3 Selections for the Music Exchange Project (Gifts for Others) ...................................... 138 xiii List of Figures Figure 1 Photo Collage of Ritual Noticing of Numbers ............................................................... 18 Figure 2 Square Breathing Exercise Diagram (Adapted from Images in the Public Domain) ..... 35 Figure 3 Breathing Square as Container and Form for Dissertation ............................................. 38 Figure 4 Continuous Breathing Squares ....................................................................................... 40 Figure 5 Visualization of Breath on Sticky Notes ........................................................................ 41 Figure 6 Visualization of Breath (Detail) ..................................................................................... 42 Figure 7 Walking as Personal Practice ......................................................................................... 61 Figure 8 Oracle Card Set............................................................................................................... 94 Figure 9 E-mail Correspondence with Music Exchange Project Participants ............................ 136 Figure 10 A Series of Cursive E’s .............................................................................................. 165 Figure 11 The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2017) Side and Back Views .............. 169 Figure 12 The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2017) Top View ................................. 170 Figure 13 Portable Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2020) for Crossings .................... 192 Figure 14 Portable Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2020) Worn and Detail ............... 192 xiv Acknowledgements I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Rita Irwin, my supervisor, for her generosity in broadening my horizons of possibility and her unwavering confidence in me to reach for the stars. Her holding of space for my passions, struggles, and aspirations nourished my very becoming. I am indebted to Dr. William Pinar for his gentle and nurturing ways of guiding my path. He has bestowed upon me the profound gift of feeling seen, understood, and accepted in his presence. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Sandrine Han for grounding me in my roots and rekindling my love for where I come from. I would not have found my way home from the great vastness of the unknown without the light that is my committee. This work would have been unachievable without the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am appreciative to Dr. Naomi Norquay for introducing me to life history research methods and the field of curriculum studies during my time at York University. Much gratitude to Drs. Anne Phelan and Penney Clark, the most wonderful graduate advisors in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at The University of British Columbia, for cheering me on at tumultuous turns in my study. Special thanks are extended to members of the a/r/tography lab and a/r/tography study group for hours of inspiring conversation that expanded my thinking and lifted my spirits. As well, heartfelt appreciation to members of my doctoral cohort—Elise Chu, Kevin Day, Amanda Fritzlan, Héctor Gómez, Alexis Gonzalez, Kshamta Hunter, Jenita Huynh, Naomi Kawamura, Ildiko Kovacs, Kari Marken, Bruce Moghtader, Tsubasa Saitoh, Gerald Tembrevilla, Joanne Ursino, Lesley Wong, and Matthew Yanko—for the enriching joy of friendship, companionship, xv and collegiality while being on this journey together. Sincere thanks to members of Teach Anything British Columbia for their openness in sharing ideas and practices. I had the great pleasure of studying alongside my esteemed friends and colleagues Ken Morimoto, Marzieh Mosavarzadeh, Angela Baldus, Nashwa Moheyeldine, Elmira Sarreshtehdari, Mitsy Chung, Sholeh Mahlouji, Yuko Stooshnov, Larissa Bezerra, Peisen Ding, Motoki Nozawa, and Lee Iskander. Thanks also to Kiera Brant-Birioukov and Patricia Liu Baergen for moving moments of connection. The warmth of being in these scholarly and artistic communities sustained me through the challenges. Over the course of my study, I worked with Kirsty Robbins in the publication of multiple scholarly contributions and I remain grateful for her incredible graphic design work. Thank you also to Joanne Ursino, Gerald Tembrevilla, Gloria and Bosco Chan, Eva and Ken Li, Charlotte Chang, the Fermill family, and Wyness Casama for their gracious hospitality that helped me land on my feet in Vancouver. Blake Smith and Thelma Zee’s thoughtful mentorship is immeasurably appreciated throughout the years. Thank you to the two who believed in me: Chris Marshy for always being in my corner and to Derrick Tu for bringing lightness through play and imagination. I must thank Oscar Pastores for being by my side through many peaks and valleys. His presence gave me the courage to press on when it seemed impossible to continue. Finally, I cannot begin to articulate my thanks to my parents for all that they have done, for me to find myself in the here and now. xvi Dedication For Ronald 1 Prologue: 3 Moments Week 1: Final Hours It was 3:15pm my time in Toronto, Ontario and 12:15pm his time in Prince Rupert, British Columbia on August 20th, 2015. My phone stayed unusually silent. Was he busy at work? He called me during his lunch hour without fail every day—to check in, to find out where I was and what I was doing, to say I love you. These phone calls and video calls sustained our long-distance relationship. I was reminded that he acted strange the night before, insisting to have a video call and phone call “like old times”—until 2:00-4:00am my time—a practice that could not be continued for practical reasons. For him, it would have only been around 11:00pm and 1:00am. I lasted until my 2:00am (and his 11:00pm) before falling asleep. He might have sung me to sleep, but I cannot remember. He complained about my forgetfulness often as I drew blanks upon being quizzed on which song guided me to the dream world. During the call, he mentioned that I might want to call his family; suggested that I should take videos of him and that I might regret it if I did not (I took two); requested that I put on a necklace he gave me while I am in pajamas; expressed oddly excessive appreciation that bordered on relief for the late birthday present I had sent (a pewter compass with the engraving “Love will Find the Way”); prompted me to take a stuffed animal I made him the next time (what is “next time” referring to?); showed me how he still had all my letters; articulated gratitude of seeing two hand puppets when I presented his gifts to me in return; reassured me that he was “staying right here” when I inquired whether he planned to go somewhere; and, finally, made sure that I knew he loved me. 2 In hindsight, all of this makes a lot of sense. At the time, though, I thought he was travelling to me for a surprise proposal. I was not sure if I was ready—with his courtship with substances, history of mental health concerns, alarming need for control, and struggle with schooling—but the possibility excited me. So, by 3:52pm, I laid on the couch and messaged him to ask where he was, oblivious that this would be my last moment of effortless peace for a long time. His sister-in-law asked if I knew where he was. I did not. His father called to inquire if we broke up. I said no. Now worried, I got to my computer desk and checked my e-mail. Sitting in my inbox were a $1000 e-transfer and two letters, one to me and one to his family. His best friend called to say he was sorry. I did not understand. All this time, his body laid crumpled on the ground floor of his home, hidden behind the couch. Between our calls and the morning when he was supposed to report to work, a rifle bullet effectively went straight through his throat, his skull, the ground floor ceiling, the second-floor bedroom ceiling, and the roof. The pewter compass rested in his pocket. His cell phone drowned in a pool of orange-rimmed blood. Later, the police officer would go through photos of the scene with his sister and me, explaining to us that a box of bullets sat on the couch. The rifle was taken from the family’s recreational shooting equipment storage. I recognized the firearm he used. It was the one he taught me to shoot with the previous March. My love had loaded three shots. It took two to get the job done. I made note of his determination. 3 Week 2: The Price of Remembering I flew to Prince Rupert, British Columbia from August 26th to September 2nd, 2015 for his funeral. His family and the community were in the middle of a nine-day period of prayer when I arrived. Some of them I met on one other occasion and the others were complete strangers. I would learn later that the novena is a part of the Catholic tradition. On the altar stood a photo with an unfamiliar face—a much younger version, without the glasses I loved. I did not understand why we were chanting and praying for his soul. Was he headed for the fiery depths? I thought otherwise, but I did not want him to miss out on blessings just because I was too stubborn to pray. So, I followed suit, while holding a defiant belief that the ritual was more for the living than for the dead. I stayed with his family during the week. They fed and looked after me when I had little desire to keep going. In the house, I sat in the spot he chose to end his life, gathering small pieces of blood and bone missed by the relatives who cleaned up the mess. I looked for traces of him in the house, but I did not recognize the clothes left in the drawers, nor the patched-up wall, nor the cup and origami ball I gave him—both broken. The previous time I visited the house was only five months earlier, in March. His father casually told me that part of the wall was fixed because he had punched it out of anger, joking that he should have used the punching bag instead. I did not recognize this anger or the secrecy around broken things. The private family viewing proved to be difficult. The mortician took extra time to make the body presentable because the blast from the rifle had caused damage to the mouth and the subsequent forward fall had flattened the nose. Regardless of the mortician’s efforts, the corpse just did not look quite right. There was too much powder on the face and it also smelled like luxurious cream. I am reminded that the body was only a vessel for… something—him. But 4 then, where was he? What was he? What does it mean to (cease to) be(come)? I distracted myself by considering the variety of positions that would allow a more beautiful death. At the open-casket funeral Mass, some of his friends and family offered eulogies. I was offered an opportunity to speak, but I could not sum up a life neatly within three minutes in front of strangers who seemed to know a completely different person. Throughout the week, messages from people my love never mentioned to me poured onto his social media pages. I got to meet some of his friends, some of whom had affectionate pet names for him and claimed interesting relationships with him. One of his friends offered that I knew the best parts of him. I wondered what knowing someone meant. His sister and I went to the police station to see the photos of the scene when he was found. The room was not as red as I imagined. I saw the way his fingers were bent around the gun and stealthily mimicked the position with my hands to burn it into memory. His father was concerned that I would be traumatized. I considered this the price to pay for holding onto a memory. The day before we sent his body to be cremated, I insisted on digging through a bag containing the materials used to clean the mess, which was to be cremated with the body. After nine days, the blood had oxidized and was practically non-existent. What lingered was the smell: a fishy, rotting pork kind of smell. We found a shirt that I finally recognized but had to let go of and salvaged another bone fragment. 5 Week 3 Onwards: Putting Fragments Together Sometime during my stay in his home town, I was told that my love had a psychotic episode during his time in the Pemberton Festival (July 16th-19th, 2015) that put him in the hospital when he got back to Vancouver, British Columbia. I remember calling him on his cell phone that day, only to reach a family member instead. He was released after a day and flew back home for work right away. In our video calls between this episode and his death, I noticed his paranoia, irritability, depression, and lack of motivation. I would not think much of this, as it was often the case when he returned to his home in Prince Rupert, British Columbia from time away, which usually involved participating in a music festival. Looking back, we had many arguments during this time about his recreational drug use, where we were headed, and family expectations. He disclosed to me that people were chasing him at the Pemberton Festival and that they threatened his life. When I suggested to file a police report, he spat aggressive words, saying I would not understand. I did not understand, as it turns out, anything at all. Upon checking with a mutual friend who went to the Pemberton Festival with him, what triggered the psychotic break seemed to be alcohol, dehydration, and a deadly concoction of long-named substances: 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly known as ecstasy (E) or molly; methamphetamine, or meth; and cocaine. Another of his friends informed me that he wanted to try ketamine as well. Immediately prior to the festival was his second attempt at a Microsoft Certificate exam, which was in Vancouver. On the day of the exam, he told me he had passed. After the funeral, I was surprised when his best friends wondered parenthetically if he had passed. I was also told by one of his family members that he looked relaxed the day he took it and said he would wing it. 6 This test weighed heavily on him as he hoped that it would allow him to switch districts and move to Vancouver, a place we envisioned a possible future together. His first try at the exam was a more outwardly difficult time. He articulated that he never did well in school and that studying stirred thoughts of death. Being a teacher, I thought I could help him develop learning strategies and a growth mindset—teacher’s college and Masters of Education program talk. “Even if you failed, it would have been a learning process,” I encouraged. Not only did the study anxiety and depression overwhelm him, he hid these struggles in the days leading up to the second exam and his passing. Shame crushed him. I will never know what happened with certainty. This story is only one version—the one that I have convinced myself makes the most sense and would allow me to move forward. Sometimes I would ruminate upon which point in time things went wrong. If I had a time machine, when could an intervention be made? I live with questions now, most of which have no definite answers. 7 Tumbling Questions What went wrong? How did I misunderstand and misinterpret so many signals? How did the people in his life miss the signals too? Why did he not tell anyone he was suffering? What role did I play in this? What did I mean to him? Is he truly dead? What does it mean to be dead? Is the only way to find out to follow his path? Is there an answer somewhere in the massive amount of thinking and writing done by human kind? Do cultural stories of death and dying propose some understanding? What about occult beliefs, explanations, rituals, and ceremonies? Is everyone simply making things up if no one can know for sure? Would the Ouija board help me summon his spirit? If I can summon spirits, does this imply he still exists somewhere beyond the material sense? Where is he? Would a ghost hunting app help me find ethereal presences? Would he want me looking for him? Do electromagnetic field detectors indicate the presence of ghosts? Even if he could communicate with me, would he want to? Why would he not? Would I want to open myself up to the possibility of being possessed? What does it mean to be possessed? Am I already possessed if I am gripped by something? Can possession be metaphorical? Even if occult and new age methods are not “real,” what ideas do they offer? Do philosophical writings on death and metaphysics propose another interpretation? Metaphysically speaking, why did this happen? Why did this happen to him, to me, and by extension to all the lives we touch? Is there a God? Where was He when my love needed help? Is there a cosmic order? What does the concept of God mean? While I do not believe that the popular saying “there is a reason for everything” is true as it is something spoken in hindsight, what can be learned from this tragedy? 8 How did this all this happen? What core events in his life led him here? How did he plan this? How long did he plan this? Why did he choose a gun? Was it possible to prevent this outcome? Would quantum physics, alternative timelines, and time travel help me go back to the past? Did I go into the wrong field? Is it too late for me to start researching in this area? If I were to hypothetically go back into the past, which point in time would be my destination to fix this? Is this a pseudo-question if one moment in time flows into another with no clear beginning and end? Is the inability to separate a series of events what people call “fate”? What do fate and destiny mean? What role does freedom and agency have in shaping our lives? Even if I could meet a past version of him, what would I express to him? Who was he? Did I know him? What does it mean to know someone? How might this experience allow me to be with another in a better way in the future? What are the ethics of relationality and boundaries of being with another? What do I do now? How do I heal today? Which part of the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief curve am I on now? When is the roller coaster going to end? How many lifetimes do I need to answer all of these questions? Am I okay being with the unknown? What does being “okay” mean? What does being with the unknown mean? 9 Preparatory Meditations 111 Beginnings | Linking Autobiography with Research In this dissertation research, I ask: what does it mean to cultivate a relationship with the unknown? The question comes from repeatedly (re)framing and (re)interpreting my tumbling questions—a distillation and remixing process of my living inquiry. As a survivor of suicide loss, I struggle to grasp the impossibility to know and understand the loss, the events surrounding it, as well as what might come after it. This has created an urgent need to cultivate a relationship with the unknown. This relationship offers a way to continue my own path and carry what is left behind without a constant reference to loss. It provides alternative sets of languages and frames to work with/through grief, trauma, and pain. In this curriculum of loss (Leggo, 2017/2019), I navigate the unknown in relation to academic, personal, artistic, curricular, and pedagogical inquiries and practices. In the expression of a desire to “continue in a pedagogic relationship with [his] brother so that [he] learn[s] from both memories and loss, as well as from the possibilities that continue,” Canadian poet and professor of language and literacy education Carl Leggo (2017/2019) invites me to consider “the curriculum of loss [as] a curriculum of hope” (p. 28). The presence of my love lingers and walks with me. Like Leggo, I am also learning to live with a hole in my heart and “to listen to the music and poetry that resonates from the places of loss, absence, and silence” (p. 27). Grief Work and an Aesthetic Orientation American psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist Francis Weller (2015) raises how “[e]very one of us must undertake an apprenticeship with sorrow” (p. xxii) as “to honour our 10 grief, to grant it space and time in our frantic world, is to fulfill a covenant with soul—to welcome all that is, thereby granting room for our most authentic life” (p. xxiii). The context of my research and the ambiguity of my destination demand that I bring my full self to the work of learning how to find my way through the “many moods and movements, shapes and textures” of grief (Weller, 2015, p. 1), with the hope that I will eventually find my way—although this seems to be an assessment only accessible in hindsight. From the loss of her mother to gun violence, storyteller and equity scholar Samira Thomas (2017) comes to a profound understanding of grief: Grief is about heaviness. To grieve something is to make it heavy, to press heavily upon it, to burden it. It is to be hurtful and harmful. It is to cause bodily discomfort and pain. It is to affect with deep sorrow. It is to make angry. To provoke to anger or resentment. To incense, offend. To sorrow deeply. It is to regret deeply… That heaviness, the weight of the world acting upon us, is the curricular grief. (p. 32) Grief, in all its difficult complexity, teaches; its lessons are intimate and unique to each individual bearing its weight. Weller (2015) talks about grief work as “[b]ringing soul back to the world” which “means perceiving the world through a deepened imagination, one that is capable of experiencing our intimacy with the surrounding world” (p. 2). Along with the loss of my loved one, I had lost a part of myself too. To me—an artist, researcher, and teacher—this act of bringing soul back to the world was a kind of soul activation that embraces the aliveness of an aesthetic orientation. As an aesthetic and spiritual pedagogy of self (Irwin, 2006), my journey of bringing myself back to life is also one of becoming and self-creation in which “we create ourselves and, through this creative activity, care for ourselves” (p. 78). Such a “curriculum for self-creation focuses on the aesthetic, spiritual, imaginative, narrative, and nonlinear by being open to unexpected 11 directions and unpredictable turns within transformative spaces of possibilities” (Irwin, 2006, p. 78). In this process of self-creation, I attune to the self-in-relation, lean into love, work with unfolding situations, let go of elements that no longer serve my becoming, embrace change, feel deeply, (fall down, try again,) develop my own language and story, and learn to grow more into myself. I depend on my artistic, pedagogical, and research practices to carry me through and my outputs are reflections of where I am at during splices in time. This individuated journey encourages me to experience life meaningfully as a constantly emerging/unfolding revelation. As a deep dive into the landscape of interiority and identity, a self-study like this may suffer the accusation of being a narcissistic undertaking, but healing first and foremost comes from a willingness to work on one’s self. No amount of external aid will lift the heaviness of my circumstances if I am unwilling to move forward from my current situation. Narcissism is catalogued in the American Psychiatric Association’s (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a personality disorder, entailing a “grandiose sense of self-importance,” a hunger for “excessive admiration” and attention, as well as “a sense of entitlement” that one is better and more deserving than others (Narcissistic Personality Disorder section, para. 1-10). Even if I concede to the accusation that this work leans narcissistic, narcissism ironically calls for one to look within to inquire into why the hunger exists and what one is seeking to fill. I turn here to American author and activist Glennon Doyle’s (2016) notion of pain as a traveling professor, rather than a hot potato to toss into someone else’s hands (p. 201), as pain begets pain and advances no one. She suggests sitting with pain so that it can teach us what we need to know, instead of avoiding it and inflicting more pain on one’s self and others (p. 201). Weller (2015) notes that “[t]rauma always carries grief, though not every grief carries trauma. Therefore, grief work is a primary ingredient in the resolution of trauma” (p. 70). This 12 trauma-informed inquiry does not glorify pain; it merely recognizes its presence and works with/through it. When asked why we engage in grief work, Weller’s (2015) response is that it is “good manners” (p. 142-143). He teaches: “when we leave here, it is essential that we feel that we did all we could for generations to come, for this sweet earth, for all we loved” (p. 146). If educators inevitably teach themselves to their students, I feel an obligation to take up the responsibility of continuously teaching myself and cultivating the best possible self. In my apprenticeship with sorrow, of “establishing a relationship with grief, developing practices that keep [me] steady in times of distress, and staying present in [my] adult sel[f]”, I am taking up “the hard work of maturation” and “the work of becoming an elder” so that I can “craft sorrow into something nourishing for the community” (Weller, 2015, p. 7). Story and Truth In the prologue, I (re)constructed a story of events around the loss based on what I remember, which fuses my account with the accounts of family and friends gathered immediately after the loss. It is structured as three moments: how I found out about the death of a loved one; my trip to Prince Rupert, British Columbia August 26th to September 2nd, 2015 where I attended to post-death arrangements; and my attempts to put together and make sense of the fragments. British cultural historian Annette Kuhn (1995) writes that “memory work has a great deal in common with forms of inquiry which—like detective work and archaeology, say—involve working backwards, searching for clues, deciphering signs and traces, making deductions, patching together reconstructions out of fragments of evidence” (p. 4). In the autobiographical memory work that is the prologue, I pull together fragments of remembrances, conversations, and autobiographical traces (Kadar, 2005). Using autobiographical traces means 13 getting to know and thinking about the identities of individuals through unlikely documents, which “bespeak either an extended or a limited story about a person’s life” (Perreault and Kadar, 2005, p. 2). The unlikely traces include Skype and Facebook message conversations, flight tickets, receipts, a celebration of life program, an obituary, photos, memories, music lists and lyrics, objects of the dead, and an animated film. Distinctions between who said what in conversations are blurred now, six years later. However, these attributions are perhaps not as important as why the events still matter and insist on being carried into the present. British philosopher Nicholas Davey (2016) writes: profound experience is never transparent. Its content requires time to unfold. Such experience withholds aspects of itself, is never amenable to full conceptual determination. Learning from these experiences is not simply a matter of undergoing an intensity of experience but concerns dwelling on their content, drawing it out, patiently bringing to life what lives on within it which has yet to be lived out. (p. 328) The narrative consists of moments that continue to grip me now and prompt perpetual struggle around the spiritual dimensions of death and the beyond and the who-ness and what-ness of be(com)ing. The moments I share are primarily post-loss because the abruptness and trauma of suicide loss divided time into before and after for me, with everything after tinting what came before. The (re)constructed story of suicide loss is not at all complete, objective, or absolute Truth. The loss has touched a community of people in different ways and each person has their own perspective. My story is punctured by gaps, silences, and absences from its temporal context and is further marked by them because I am remembering through the lens of the present. Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s (2010, 2:37) notions of the “experiencing self” and the 14 “remembering self” are useful heuristics to frame my autobiographical tracing, at least initially. There is “an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present [and a]… remembering self… [who] keeps score, and maintains the story of our life” (Kahneman, 2010, 2:37). The experiencing self embodies a sense of awareness of the present and can register changing elements surrounding and within us; it goes through fleeting moments and gradual transformations in the flow of ‘real’ time, gathering raw data for the remembering self, who mediates how our experiences are remembered and told. The moments of the present that the experiencing self goes through are often lost to us forever and the only component we are able to keep is the memory of events (Kahneman, 2010, 6:47). The remembering self is the narrator who has the power to condense or extend time, summarize parts or elaborate on fragments, edit sections in or out as necessary, and weave a cohesive piece for the purposes of remembering and telling. Western Zen master Albert Low (2010) writes about the two selves in different terms: an awareness as the world and an awareness of the world. He writes, “when I am aware as the world I see the world from within. When I am aware of the world I see the world from outside” (p. 12). To be aware as the world means to live through the flow of time, as an experiencing self. To be aware of means to behold, name, and analyze a length of time through distance, as a remembering self. While the loss took place six years ago, it is constantly being relived in the present. As the reverberations of the events continue to be felt, I cannot be sure at which point in time the past can be bracketed neatly as ‘the past.’ It feels like I am sitting in a train backwards—moving forward in time, into the unknown, while looking backwards, experiencing the present as it becomes the past, gazing at the wide expanse of the past from the present before everything 15 disappears into the horizon of obscurity. In this train ride, I am at once the experiencing self and the remembering self, at once aware as and of the world. The Work Whenever I use ‘the work’ in this dissertation, it refers to the exertion of effort, time, strength, energy, and faculties to reach understandings for my self-creation and subjective and social reconstruction. The parameters highlighted in this research project are frames. On frames and projects, French literature scholar Michael Sheringham (2006) notes: The project is a frame, but nothing that comes to fill that frame can be said to complete or realize the project, which always remains open and unfinished. Yet within its framework a shift, essentially a shift of attention, takes place. The project brings us into proximity with something that might have seemed familiar, but which we now acknowledge more fully. (p. 391) Self-creation and subjective and social reconstruction, as a project, “is animated by passion” and so “it is not free of suffering” (Pinar, 2011, p. 101). Yet, I believe it is a project work undertaking to live a fuller life. It is a challenge to bracket what I do and summarize understandings as findings since the permeable boundaries of this work resist categorization. Everything becomes interconnected (not fused). Sheringham (2006) understands: The everyday cannot be reduced to its content. It is not just repetition that makes daily activities part of everydayness, but the endless variation and sedimentation which, according to Jacques Réda or Certeau, turn the quotidien into a sphere of invention. (p. 361) 16 Concretely, I read; write; research; theorize curriculum; think during inconvenient times (before sleep, during showers, at the bus stop, etc.); dream; meditate through making, particularly knitting and crochet; breathe; sleep; attend my beloved’s family events; travel to the gravesite; remember; pray; cry; call friends and family and have conversations; read tarot and oracle cards; revisit the places I have been with my beloved; have meals at treasured eateries; go to massage and physiotherapy to manage pain; watch movies and shows to make cultural connections; listen to the electronic dance music he enjoyed, the songs he recorded for me, and the Chinese neo-traditional music that allow affective access to what cannot be languaged; and teach, mentor, and collaborate in kinder, more human ways. The knowledge and insights garnered from the variation and sedimentation of one’s everyday practices requires noticing. Mexican-American artist and art educator Jorge Lucero (2020b) notes that “most of us assemble our literature reviews without even knowing it… to examine what our practice is made of and where it’s going” (p. 43-44). As we “become the librarians and curators of our own niche-practice” (Lucero, 2020b, p. 44) we are then able to discern connections, ask questions about them, and conceptualize possibilities. These understandings might be deeply personal. As Pinar (2011) acknowledges, “[w]hile informed by reality, the singularity of one’s situation requires threading a needle only the individual himself or herself can discern, however, aided by others” (p. 101). An example of this is reflected in the way these preparatory meditations are numbered. The year following the loss was intensely difficult and I developed an openness to make meaning out of coincidences. I began noticing triple and quadruple digits on car plates, clocks, phone numbers, and other spaces (Figure 1). A quick Google search suggests that these might be ‘angel numbers’ and ‘messages’ from ‘the universe.’ Being an astute researcher, I kept a log of my 17 observations and tried to discern what the moments of seeing the same number would have in common. Over time, I deepened a personal connection with each set of numbers, which I would interpret as an encouraging prompt or reminder to pay attention to certain particularities of existence. This almost-superstitious ritual can sound foolish, or even mad. In fact, a friend once brought up the thriller The Number 23 (2007), where the main character Walter becomes obsessed with numerology, and gently inquired if I am looking too much into the digits. Fair enough. It is a risk to articulate the ritual out loud, let alone write it into an academic dissertation! After all, one can find meaning and connection in just about anything. As an aside, the numbers themselves are not where meanings reside. For me, meanings are located in between my creation of the language and situational offerings that employ and resonate with that language. The match vibrates and allows for understanding. When I see 11:11 on my microwave, I trust that the universe is aware of the language that holds significance for me and uses that as a key to connect. Regardless, I write this language into the structure of the preparatory meditations to honour this ritual and connection. Rather than describing all particularities of my processing, such data and contents of the everyday are distilled to formulate concepts. The work of self-creation and subjective and social reconstruction summons me to develop a kind of disposition: to seize the day, walk courageously in the face of doubt, build a better world than the way I found it—to become someone who takes care and loves deeper. Ironically, the more one loves, the more there is to lose. The more powerful the love, the more forceful the loss. Great loss is a cost and a testament to a great love. This work invites me to trust that it is still worth loving. 18 Figure 1 Photo Collage of Ritual Noticing of Numbers 19 222 Relationships | Philosophy and Methodology In this section, I situate my work within phenomenology (see Rocha, 2015), a “major philosophical orientation in continental Europe in the 20th and 21st century… [that] inquir[es] into how things appear, are given, or present themselves to us in prereflective or lived experience” (van Manen, 2014, p. 610). Making linkages between phenomenology and hermeneutics, I describe the nature of my research—into how one cultivates a relationship with the unknown—as living inquiry (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Meyer, 2006, 2010; Springgay et al., 2005). Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Phenomenology “asks ‘What is this experience like?’ as it attempts to unfold meanings as they are lived in everyday existence” (Laverty, 2003, p. 22). However, phenomenology is intricately linked to hermeneutics, “a modified transliteration of the Greek verb ‘hermeneuein,’ which means to express aloud, to explain or interpret and to translate” (Schmidt, 2014, p. 6). Philosopher Lawrence Kennedy Schmidt (2014) makes a distinction between description and examination, where the “description [of lived experience] is phenomenological, and the examination is hermeneutic since it is the interpretive self-understanding we have of ourselves in life” (p. 7), but I consider every act of storying (and describing) as an act of interpreting and translating. American educator, curriculum theorist, and international studies scholar William Pinar et al. (1995) underlines this thought in their assertion that “phenomenological inquiry is… [a] form of interpretive inquiry which focuses on human perception and experience, particularly on what many would characterize as the aesthetic qualities of human experience… In its 20 contemporary forms, however, one cannot separate phenomenology and hermeneutics” (p. 404-405). I held back from storying my lived experiences for a long time because the act of writing is an interpretation that involves changing the experience in some way, which seems like an unfaithful rendering of ‘how things truly were.’ Finding consolation in the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1903/2001a) words, I resonate with how “things aren’t so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered” (p. 5). Even though it is difficult to find the words, I can no longer hold the bulk of cascading thoughts in silence. I consider writing as a kind of catharsis that gives me permission to put down the heavy responsibility of holding onto every detail, since they will be laid out on a page, archived, and accessed when necessary. This expulsion does not mean releasing the importance of keeping the loved one’s memory alive; rather, it means moving forward with the recognition that the past will always be with me in the way it has shaped my present self and my current thinking. Much of this work involves the readiness for crossing through thresholds—of having a lived experience storied outside of the self, released into the world. It demands an acceptance of the certainty of loss. Indeed, as revisions are being made between the first draft and the final draft of this dissertation, as I adjust the number of years ago the loss took place with each passing 365-day cycle, as I go through the rounds of meditative exercises, and as I make many turns and crossings, I am gradually feeling lighter. Returning to the discussion on phenomenology, Max van Manen (2016), a Canadian scholar who specializes in phenomenological research methods and pedagogy, writes that “a phenomenological question must not only be made clear, understood, but also ‘lived’ by the researcher” (p. 44). Pinar et al. (1995) agree that “[p]henomenology is a disciplined, rigorous 21 effort to understand experience profoundly and authentically” (p. 405). My tumbling questions are certainly lived—they have gripped me and fused with my being. I embody them whether I like it or not, whether I consciously choose to or not, and whether they announce themselves or not. They carry into my academic, personal, artistic, curricular, and pedagogical inquiries and practices. In other words, I engage in living inquiry, a practice where “the horizons of inquiry are our everydayness and our immediate participation in daily life” (Meyer, 2010, p. 86). By consciously choosing to highlight, announce, and think through these questions, my dissertation research is an attempt to empower myself and to reclaim a sense of agency while attending to significant vulnerability and uncertainty. Cultivating a relationship with the unknown is as much a phenomenological problem as a hermeneutical one since it is an effort to understand the experience and the meaning of being in the world (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 407). To understand means I need to interpret. Interpretive inquiry risks transformation and change, where one can end up with a different sense of self-understanding from where one began (Jardine, 1992, p. 60). Diving into the unknown requires a courageous openness to experiencing change without knowing where one is headed. Just as “Gadamer believed that understanding and interpretation are bound together and interpretation is always an evolving process,” I, too, believe that “a definitive interpretation is likely never possible” (Laverty, 2003, p. 25), which means that self-understanding is a never-ending endeavour. This process of unraveling and reassembling pieces of the self, one that Pinar (2011) might call subjective reconstruction, is pedagogical and necessary in engaging in one’s lived experiences more profoundly. 22 Living Inquiry My often-strenuous relationship with the unknown requires persistence to keep moving in the best way I know how, trust in my own resilience, acceptance of discomfort with uncertainty, openness to different possibilities, flexibility to changing situations, courage to recalibrate my direction in response to emerging provocations, and faith in the constantly unfolding revelation that is part of living inquiry. Writer and curriculum scholar Karen Meyer (2010) contends that “living inquiry constitutes inquiry into ‘knowing the world’” (p. 88) as “everything that we come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of our existence” (p. 85). Living inquiry investigates into matters that impact who people are holistically and the topics of interest arise from lived contexts. Research comes from “the stuff of daily life” (Sonic Acts, 2019, 18:13). Meyer (2010) asserts that this inquiry “concerns being in the world but also what constitutes our belonging in the world, our worldliness” (p. 86). Action researcher Patricia Gayá Wicks et al. (2008) write about living inquiry in relation to action research practice. For them, it underscores two points: • the importance of practice and life experiences and these as integrated with—and often preceding—philosophical, political, and intellectual underpinnings; • the web of relationships, events, influences, role models, and experiences which underpins action researchers’ practice (and which has done so over time). (p. 15) While I am not doing action research, my philosophical and intellectual work is deeply influenced by my artistic, research, and teaching practices, and life experiences, as well as my embeddedness and entanglement within the world. Living inquiry “is not a philosophy of life, a methodology to be followed, or an analytical tool” (Meyer, 2006, p. 165) and practices are as diverse as the lives of the inquirers. For Meyer 23 (2006), living inquiry “is simply an inquiry into how to live with the quality of awareness that sees newness, truth, and beauty in daily life” (p. 165). In my living inquiry, I engage in Dutch artist and cultural theorist Mieke Bal’s (2002, 2009) interdisciplinary “concept-based methodology,” which involves finding “heuristic and methodological basis in concepts rather than methods” (Bal, 2009, p. 14). Concepts offer dynamic spaces of negotiation and exploration in which intersubjective understandings come together. In this work, I am participating in the collective “groping” (Bal, 2002, p. 11) to study what the concepts of the unknown, attunement, presence, and home might mean and what they can do. I chose these concepts to study as they naturally emerged for me with each turn from the previous concept, with the unknown as a starting point. My practice of living inquiry involves embodying concepts. I take up an idea from Part I, Episode 4 of The OA (2016-2019) that asserts how “knowledge is a rumour until it lives in the body” (Marling & Batmanglij, 2016, 31:45), which differentiates purely intellectual knowing from understanding that vibrates within and radiates from one’s full being. While reading texts and conversing with others, I allow concepts, meanings, and understandings to grip me. Carrying the pieces that draw my curiosity or inspire admiration, I try to see the world with/through them. I sit with them and see how they feel in my body, often forgetting about them after a while if they connect with the other pieces that have become part of me over time. Concepts, meanings, and understandings that do not align with who I am and what I value evoke great distress when I take up this process. After reflecting upon the reasons for the distress, I let them go if they do not push me toward a direction of constructive, life-giving, and/or ethical becoming. If they do, however, I (re)imagine how to move forward by reshuffling my sense of self, discarding pieces if 24 necessary—this can be a painful but enlightening practice. When the time comes to write about the ideas I have carried, they are saturated with life experiences. I imagine the exploration of a concept as descending into a deep, dark pit. I embark upon this descent with methodological compasses for navigation and orientation. These compasses cannot serve as Global Positioning Systems that pinpoint exactly where I am on a map and guide me to where I want to go, because there is no map to follow, I do not know where I am going, I am learning cartography as I go, and I am uncertain where I intend to or will end up. Instead, the methodological compasses that I take up prompt me to consider where I want to go next artistically and conceptually, which spring me into the next point. They invite reflection upon where the next point is in relation to my previous point and how the two points relate meaningfully. They summon me to listen deeply to my inner voice, be attentive to both my immediate and evolving reactions to circumstances, trust in my judgement of what is happening, and have faith in my discernment on how to proceed. The next section offers an overview of the methodologies I engage in as process-based compasses to push through the unknown into the emergent (see Heydon & Davies, 2020). 25 333 Sacred | Methodological Compasses The methodologies that guide my journey into/through the unknown as process-based compasses are a/r/tography (LeBlanc & Irwin, 2019; Springgay et al., 2008; Triggs & Irwin, 2019), currere (Pinar, 1975, 2004), and contemplative practice (Garbutt & Roenpagel, 2018; Kumar, 2013; Walsh et al., 2015b). They drive my (re)thinking and (re)framing of experience so that self-creation and self-transformation become possible as one attends, attunes, and becomes present to one’s interiority. These methodologies help me find my bearings while being in tensionality and play interrelated roles in my dissertation research. They reject positivist and instrumental ways of knowing the world structured by scientism that makes progress by manipulating the measurable and observable (Pinar, 2015b, p. xv). Instead, they embrace the notion of a becoming self and the process of coming to know as the foundation for an emergent reality. A/r/tography The concept of the unknown is like a black hole that swallows any of my attempts to pin it down. Thinking about something forever elusive, that is beyond comprehension, grasp, prediction, and anticipation, pose distinct challenges. My approach to tackling the unknown is to consider how it interacts with other concepts and to create art alongside each concept that I study. Artmaking, as an accompanying practice, enables me to push forward into the emergent. In this work, I am alternating between relying on artmaking and theorizing to drive the development of concepts through a/r/tography, “an art and education practice-based research methodology dedicated to acts of inquiry through the arts and writing” (Irwin et al., 2008, p. 26 205). As Canadian a/r/tographers and curriculum scholars Natalie LeBlanc and Rita Irwin (2019) recognize: Thinking with materials is about the encounters that allow us to treat materials… as active and participatory. In this way, attention is placed on how materials move through time and in space, how materials move us, and how materials and [maker] change each other through mutual encounters. (p. 9) For me, art enables a broad spectrum of practices and the materials with which a maker engages can also be wide-ranging and comprehensive. ‘Material’ can include a breadth and depth of ‘stuff’ that take on (in)tangible, contextual, situational, temporal, spatial, affective, and relational qualities. Specifically, in my work, I walk to think about the unknown, create and play with oracle cards to contemplate upon attunement, engage in a music exchange project to understand presence, and craft a textile installation to ponder about what home means to me. A/r/togaphy is a form of practice-based research that joins text, visual, and/or artistic forms to investigate what matters to one’s life and the inquiries that one is living through. It is a methodology that engages the horizon of the unknown as it “continually become[s] what it has not yet been, in the relationality of becoming what it is not, through the work and entanglements of thoughts, things, systems, and experiences” (Triggs & Irwin, 2019, p. 3). Rather than a rigid method to be adopted or applied, it is a lived and emergent practice. A/r/tographers have written extensively on a/r/tographic living inquiry since its conception in the 2000s (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Irwin et al., 2018; Springgay et al., 2005). In their work, “a/r/tographers are living their practices, representing their understandings, and questioning their positions as they integrate knowing, doing, and making through aesthetic experiences that convey meaning rather than facts” (Irwin, 2004, p. 31). Art educator and curriculum scholar Valerie Triggs & Irwin (2019) 27 articulate the emergent, interdisciplinary, artistic, and pedagogical qualities of a/r/tographic living inquiry in the following excerpt: Focused on feeling rather than controlling, [the] becoming pedagogical [character of a/r/tography] highlights the active performance space of living inquiry that everyone undergoes every day: The self is a continual emergence of form (image) that singularly resolves (learns), but only long enough to activate (teach) new relations. (p. 1-2) As a living practice or living inquiry, a/r/tography is “a methodology of embodiment, of continuous engagement with the world: one that interrogates yet celebrates meaning” (Irwin & Springgay, 2008, p. xxix). It encourages a pursuit of something personally meaningful: fragmentary, situated, and embodied understanding(s), not explanation(s) that are fixed, stable, generalizable, measurable, or quantifiable. This “living inquiry does not intend to pursue a particular thought; rather, it expands the thought and its practice to its potential” (Irwin et al., 2018, p. 40). Especially important to my work is how a/r/tography, as a rhizomatic methodology of situations, invites events, lives, conditions, and relations to unfold (Irwin et al., 2008). One dwells in the uncertain and demanding living exchanges of in-betweens—of artmaking and writing; of image and text; of artist, researcher teacher identities; and of a complex set of shifting relations—through which one depends on openness, listening, and being responsive/receptive to navigate (La Jevic & Springgay, 2008, p. 71). A/r/tographic research can be driven by the exploration of concepts and propelled forward by a series of provocations and propositions. 28 Currere Introducing temporality into my methodological mixture is currere, an active form of curriculum that serves as “a strategy for students of curriculum to study the relations between academic knowledge and life history in the interests of self-understanding and social reconstruction” (Pinar, 2004, p. 35). Pinar (2015a) notes that “it is the lived experience of curriculum—currere, the running of the course—wherein the curriculum is experienced and enacted” (p. 110). The four moments of currere—regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical—are merged together in narrative form. The methodology involves reactivating the past, dreaming of future possibilities, discerning “how culture and history have become particularized in the specificity of… subjectivity” (Pinar, 2012, p. 46), and bringing together these pieces to understand the meaning of the present. Currere allows me to recalibrate where I am based on a consideration of where I was, where I think I am going, and the discourses in which I am/was situated. I engage in currere as a form of attunement. My process of working through the regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical does not divide easily into these sections because I move through instances of each in all the conceptual moments. Currere offers a space for one to dwell in temporal in-betweeness. On this, Pinar (2004) reminds us that: To undertake this project of social and subjective reconstruction, we teachers must remember the past and imagine the future, however unpleasant each domain may be. Not only intellectually but in our character structure, we must become “temporal,” living simultaneously in the past, present, and future. (p. 4) Elsewhere, Pinar (2012) suggests that: 29 Part of the project of currere is to contradict presentism by self-consciously cultivating the temporal structure of subjectivity, insisting on the distinctiveness and simultaneity of past, present, and future, a temporal complexity in which difference does not dissolve onto a flattened never-ending “now,” but is stretched as it is spoken, reconstructing the present as temporally and spatially differentiated. (p. 227) In going through the concepts—the unknown, attunement, presence, and home—I am constantly looking backwards and forwards in time to discern possibilities in reframing my experiences and my understanding of them, which allow a kind of spaciousness for alternatives (that I may not have recognized before) to blossom in the present. Currere work is never complete. I find myself continuously rethinking a previous understanding in relation to what I am learning encountering, experiencing, as well as what these elements are prompting in my dreams of the future. This process is how I come to encounter and rework a concept over and over again. Pinar (2012) suggests that “the point of currere is an intensified engagement with daily life, animated, paradoxically, by an ironic detachment from it” (Pinar, 2012, p. 46). I have expressed that my conceptual work with the unknown allows me to work with the autobiographical without a constant reference to loss, which, in a sense, is a detached engagement. My work can be described as what Pinar (2004) writes as developing a “‘theoretical relationship’ with oneself [that] can be explored and recast through autobiographical reflection, through conversation with oneself” (p. 251), and “with others threaded through academic knowledge” (Pinar, 2012, p. 47). This is conceptualized as complicated conversation. 30 Contemplative Practice Engaging in a/r/tographic and currere work that involves a haunting and the navigation of the unknown calls me to embrace the contemplative. The contemplative has no singular or stable methodological definition. In the current literature, the word “contemplative” attaches to “practices” (Haynes, 2004; Walsh, 2017; Walsh et al., 2015b), “inquiry” (Barbezat & Bergman, 2014; Haynes, 2004), “pedagogy” (Dalton, 2018; Haynes, 2004), and a “way of knowing” or “epistemology” (Haynes, 2004), describing a quality of attentive consideration that transcends thinking and reaches within. I focus here on contemplative practice as it is a tangible doorway through which one can access different ways of inquiring, teaching, learning, seeing, knowing, and being. For me, the contemplative is closely connected to living inquiry, as it is about “embracing wholeness… blending both the inner and the outer, and mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the individual” (Dalton, 2018, p. 177). However, the contemplative is distinct in its potential to transform one’s self through repetitions in practice. Contemplative practice can mean attending, being aware, and being present to one’s way of being in the world through “conditioned patterns” (Walsh, 2017, p. 2), such as mindfulness, meditation, reflection, walking, artmaking, writing, and rituals, among other activities (Walsh et. al, 2015b). As methods for survival, each of my contemplative practices respond to a particular kind of emergency. I use breath work when my mind races. I tell fear to go away. I listen to music to pass monotonous or difficult time. I walk to encourage myself to get out the door. I knit when I do not know what to do with myself—the repetition of stitches help me slow down and experience time in better sync with the clock. I make art to give voice to what I cannot articulate. I write through strong emotions. I read cards when I face the unknown with deep uncertainty. 31 When a calm graces me, I withdraw into silence and “this absence of stimuli and sound creates a still point… draws upon the innermost regions of the self” (Dalton, 2018, p. 179). Pinar (2012) recognizes as well that “[i]n privacy we turn away from the maelstrom of everyday life, and in solitude and silence we might hear ourselves, undistracted by the onslaught of empty information. We can look for what we’ve lost” (p. 229). I reflect, based on how I feel in my body (Dalton, 2018, p. 177). My body knows more than I do, picks up cues from situations faster than I can, and holds more than I can remember. My task is to learn how to read (and listen to) the barometer that is my body and give language to the things that arise, so I can work through them more consciously. As Dalton (2018) suggests, “contemplative practices… depend on cultivating an understanding of oneself, as well as one’s relationship and interdependence with others and the world” (p. 176), so that a transformation of such relationships becomes possible (Barbezat & Bergman, 2014, p. vii-viii). Through contemplative practices, I am developing my interiority—which psychologist Tobin Hart (2008) describes as being “about developing spaciousness in order to meet and take in the world before us” (as cited in Dalton, 2018, p. 175). They allow for things to come up within myself. As South Korean-born Swiss-German philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han (2017) comprehends, “[c]ontemplative lingering presupposes things which endure” (p. 93)—this is how I come to a greater sense of clarity of what is most important for me to hold onto and what I might let go of in time as I move through the unknown. Susan Walsh (2017)—a researcher with interests in innovative forms of research, experiences of female teachers, and contemplative inquiry—makes a distinction between the conceptual and nonconceptual, asserting that “practice is where we can learn to let go of thought, of the conceptual—connect with other aspects of being and knowing. By ‘conceptual’ here, [she] mean[s] that which is shaped by thought and language” (p. 3). This dissertation as you—the 32 reader—experience it, is an artistic and conceptual exploration because I am articulating the inexplicable, but the process of teasing apart the inexplicable prior to writing involves accessing the nonconceptual. Personally, the nonconceptual usually begins revealing itself through glimpses of feeling that might be developed as mental pictures, which can then be described as visual imageries through artistic and linguistic languages, and finally used as metaphors. This visualization method can bring the nonconceptual into the conceptual. Contemplative practices invite one to “let go of a (seemingly) intact, coherent, and rational, individual sense of self—for short periods of time at least—through relating with the energies of other people and the natural world” (Walsh et al., 2015a, p. 12). With “embodied, active, and also disciplined (repeated)… contemplative and artistic engagements with the world” (Walsh et al., 2015a, p. 13), one is called to deeply consider how one shall live. Contemplative inquiries prompt conversations with otherness and what lies in the beyond because they summon what is unsettled in our lives (Pinar, 2015a). Slow Scholarship Lingering on subjective and social reconstruction through a/r/tography, currere, and contemplative practice gives and deepens time. Han (2017) recognizes, “[w]hen life regains its capacity for contemplation, it gains in time and space, in duration and vastness” (p. 113) and it “opens up spaces for breathing” (p. 113). For Han (2017), “[f]orms of the vita contemplativa [contemplative life] are also modes of being, such as ‘hesitancy’, ‘releasement’, ‘shyness’, ‘waiting’ or ‘restraint’” all of which “rest on an experience of duration” (p. 93). On the differences in/of time, Weller (2015) tells a story of meeting his mentor Clarke Berry, a Jungian analyst, from the Jung Institute in San Francisco. Clarke compares a rock and a clock, noting the 33 geologic speed through which the soul moves and how it is incompatible with the rhythm of the timepiece (p. 60). Clarke suggests learning how to operate at geologic time to do soul work. Canadian English professors Maggie Berg and Barbara Karolina Seeber (2016) note that “[s]lowing down is a matter of ethical import” (p. 58); they call for an ethics of time through reimagining time as a process of becoming rather than of production (p. 59). I am aware that time can be a luxury that one might not be able to afford. The work of becoming is a lifelong one, and time’s arrow moves forward regardless of one’s level of self-reflexivity. The call here is not to set aside everything, go on an island retreat, fix one’s self, and come back to rejoin society. The call here is to be involved and wide awake in the steering of the ship in the storm of life while being open to where it takes one and recognizing that there are no guarantees to where one ends up. Han (2017) understands that “[a] vita contemplativa [contemplative life] without acting is blind, a vita activa [active life] without contemplation is empty” (p. 112). Contemplation and action go together—both make up the work—and this happens with/through/alongside the everyday. Berg and Seeber (2016) continues, “slowing down is about asserting the importance of contemplation, connectedness, fruition, and complexity” (p. 57). This ethics of time allow for attunement, rhizomatic connections, and the capacity to dwell poetically. In the research context, the ethics of time: gives meaning to letting research take the time it needs to ripen… to thinking about scholarship as a community, not a competition… to periods of rest… there are rhythms, which include pauses and periods that may seem unproductive… to thinking about what is sustainable over the long haul. (Berg & Seeber, 2016, p. 57) 34 This slowing down allows one to meditate and work with/through what matters, in one’s own terms, “in order to understand more fully, with more complexity and subtlety, one’s submergence in the present” (Pinar, 2004, p. 4). I am learning how to guide and heal my soul, slipping between geologic time and everyday time through the practice of a square breathing exercise. It is the container that holds my dissertation. In the next section, I discuss how form, content, structure, and practice come together. 35 444 Wisdom | The Square With the belief that an alignment of content and form inspires a fuller and more holistic experience of the work, I endeavoured to create a dissertation structure that appropriately reflects and expresses both the context and content of my research. Breathing Life into Form and Structure During times of distress, I practice a square breathing exercise (Figure 2). To go through the breathing square, inhale for four seconds, hold the breath for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and repeat. Figure 2 Square Breathing Exercise Diagram (Adapted from Images in the Public Domain) 36 Phenomenologist and philosopher Gabor Csepregi (2019) describes how Kierkegaard “defines personhood as the synthesis of future possibility and past necessity and compares its continued existence in time to the act of ‘breathing (respiration), which is an inhaling and exhaling’” (p. 52). Breathing, as an implicit, everyday practice that begins at birth and ends at death, steadily supports one’s existence. It is a necessity to living, but not something one actively deliberates upon unless the process goes wrong and cause urgent and serious implications. With respiration pushed into the background of the quotidian, one may not keep track of the ins and outs of one’s breath. The exercise helps to bring the process and one’s aliveness into sharp focus. The exercise slows one down and the counting commands an awareness of the temporality and ephemerality of human life. The continuation of breathing brings one from one moment to the next. As one arrives in the possibility of the future one breath after the next, these possibilities become actualities of the present. And as quickly as they become actualities, they move into the past. When breathing with the exercise, I notice that I inhale too quickly, exhale too little—holding on to too much because of my fear of scarcity. What if I do not have enough of what I need to survive? Will there be a next set of possibilities if I miss one? Lungs can only take in so much oxygen before one needs to exhale what has already turned into carbon dioxide and take another breath. Holding onto the waste product of respiration and not taking another breath means suffocating. Understanding breathing as a metaphor for my way of being in the world, it seems I am not very good at letting go, nor simply trusting in the life-giving possibility of the next moment. There are different ways to go through the breathing square exercise to introduce variety, which include modifying the control of breath flow to one’s chest or belly first, bringing conscious awareness to parts of the body, lengthening breath with segmented inhalation or 37 exhalation, playing with bursts of speed and power in breath work, and using valved breathing (Ujjayi breath) for extension and vibration. I learned many of these techniques by practicing yoga in Moksha (now SÅANA) Yoga in Thornhill, Toronto, Ontario in 2015. These practices strengthened my body and carried me through the most challenging periods of grief. In my work, I explore concepts of the unknown/knowable, attunement, presence/being present, and home as a constantly repeating cycle in the human experience. Each repetition is a return to a different rendering of a similar frame of mind. While the experiences of each recursion will be unique, they can still be understood within the cycle. With the amount of uncertainty, vagueness, and ambiguity in the practice of cultivating a relationship with the unknown, perhaps one thing is certain: time continues to pass. This framework—governed by time and marked by turns—extends comfort in the cliché fact that ‘this too shall pass’ if it is a difficult time and summons me to cherish beautiful moments. It urges me to be more attentive and aware of the environment and the webs of relationality in which I exist, as well as the choices I make to navigate through the everyday. This way of abundant thinking encourages me to exhale better so that I have more capacity for whatever comes next. By continuing to breathe, I am trusting that my “large sadnesses” will go “right through me,” as Rilke (1904/2001b) proposes, and that when I look back at the event and at the processing of it, I will recognize that “perhaps many things inside [me] have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, deep inside [my] being, [I] have undergone important changes while [being] sad” (p. 28). Indeed, every time I revisit this writing, I am struck by how something in me has changed. The way I access this work of healing continues to shift. 38 Using the breathing square as a structure, my exploration of concepts is divided into four chapters: 0.01-0.04 Inhale for 4 | The unknown; 0.05-0.08 Hold for 4 | Attunement; 0.09-0.12 Exhale for 4 | Presence; and 0.13-0.16 Hold for 4 | Home (Figure 3). Figure 3 Breathing Square as Container and Form for Dissertation Each chapter is divided into four sections (Table 1). It opens with an introduction and close examination of the problem posed by the concept. It is followed by a reflective description of an art practice in which I engage and the resulting work that accompany my conceptual exploration. The third section of each chapter details theoretical extensions and experiences of the concept 39 based on my artistic engagements. The fourth dives into a distilled learning, which suggest possibilities and implications of the core concept. Concept Art Experience Learning 0.01-0.04 Inhale for 4 Unknown Walking Practice Becoming Abundance 0.05-0.08 Hold for 4 Attunement Oracle Cards Chance, Timing, and Synchronicity Beyond 0.09-0.12 Exhale for 4 Presence Conceptual Art: Music Exchange Project Worlding Ethics and Love 0.13-0.16 Hold for 4 Home Textile Installation Position and Orientation Thresholds and Crossings Table 1 Dissertation Structure While I have structured each chapter as four seconds and each section as one second of the breathing exercise, it does not necessarily dictate that working through particular ideas and conundrums should last literal seconds. The temporality in the breathing square exercise poses a metaphor for the cyclical nature of one’s journey into the unknown: one encounters the unknown, attunes to what one is suited for, hauls in the world of presences in the conversation, and finds a center that is home. On paper and as a square, it can seem like a linear process, but in practice there are many back-and-forth movements toward different directions while one pushes into the emergent. Using sticky notes, I visually illustrate how the multiplicity of breathing squares and what they entail might come together. The shape of the sticky note is itself a square, a container that brackets the numerous journeys linked to a conundrum situated in a moment in time (Figure 4). As the images suggest, there are overlapping and intersecting squares, unfinished squares, and 40 squares that change directions. It is difficult to tease out one square from another. In fact, some of the ‘steps’ take much longer than others and they become more like rectangles. One takes many breaths and works through many series of squares/rectangles over the course of one’s life. Working through a conundrum in one moment in time connects to the next. The materiality of the sticky notes allows for a flexible rearrangement of one’s life story. The resulting picture always looks different depending on how one arranges the picture (Figure 5 and Figure 6). The view is muddy as one navigates one’s way into the future. Only in hindsight do fuller pictures begin to come into being. Figure 4 Continuous Breathing Squares Structuring my dissertation in the form of a breathing square and leaning on the methodological compasses of a/r/tography, currere, and contemplative practice, I respond to critical, political, and contemporary art theorist Irit Rogoff’s urging that “the methods by which we approach something actually emulate the kind of affective texture of the thing itself” (Sonic Acts, 2019, 16:10). My research reflects an alignment in form, content, structure, and practice. The breathing square is a particularly suitable container for my work because it is about the 41 eternally becoming self, and the only way one might stop the process of becoming is when the last breath is drawn. Figure 5 Visualization of Breath on Sticky Notes 42 Figure 6 Visualization of Breath (Detail) The Square: Death, Equanimity, Stability The square has four sides. The word “four” (四) is nearly homophonous to the word “death” (死) in the Chinese language and serves as an appropriate frame for contemplation for the unknown, as death can be conceptualized as the absolute unknowable unknown. The idea for my breathing practice is not to linger excessively on the morbid, nor to magically gain the ability to ignore, eliminate, and repress how I feel about death at the end of the practice. As I breathe, I am moving through phases of my transformation. Interdisciplinary, site-specific performance artist Ernesto Pujol (2018) suggests from the context of a cloister walk that: a body walking a square, rounding its corners, walking the four sides of a square is a body going nowhere. But what if we measured this psychically rather than materially? What if we measured the miles in terms of psychic distance to an invisible destination? Because materially, there is nowhere to go but within. (p. 61) 43 My research is one of “question[ing] something by going back again and again to the things themselves until that which is put to question begins to reveal something of its essential nature” (van Manen, 2016, p. 43). Through these (re)visitations, I want to come to embrace, accept, and be at peace with death, loss, and endings. Each cycle of breathing slows down my rhythm and allows me to come back to the present into my own presence. This vague ‘sense of peace,’ perhaps, forms the ‘goal’ of my research. This sense of peace is intangible, invisible, embodied, and constantly shifting depending on particular times, contexts, circumstances, and sets of relations. It is an elusive and delicate sense of balance that may not be achievable for the long term. Rather, it might be a place in which one arrives momentarily. This discussion reminds me of practicing the tree pose in yoga classes, where there are moments of being absolutely still and others where the room suddenly becomes very windy, especially when I relinquish control of my visuals. The voice of the instructor reassures me, “all trees move so it is okay to wobble.” Such a sense of peace does not mean being able to keep still, static, or frozen, but it means being “okay,” in the plainest terms, whether one is stationary or falling out of the position. The state of being resonates with Csepregi’s (2019) notion of equanimity, which means letting go of certainty and being open to the emergence of the present moment (p. 32-34). The notion of equanimity echoes the sentiments in the Serenity Prayer, as having the serenity to accept the things one cannot change, the courage to change the things one can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Csepregi (2019) writes: equanimity is the readiness to accept the objective and subjective limits imposed on our actions, to live with our successes and failures, and to accept the unavoidable dictates of the existing and changed circumstances… equanimity involves not only the keenness to 44 make decisions with poise and confidence, and to act in absence of certainty concerning the future, but also the ability to relate to the world, to fellow human beings, and to oneself in a relaxed manner… the person who has equanimity “lets things be and happen.” (p. 33) The sense of peace I am trying to reach means developing a good sense of judgement and discernment, embracing one’s limitation in knowledge and understanding, and proceeding the best way one can, under the circumstances. The awareness of one’s limitation implores humility, and on that topic, the renowned Japanese Canadian curriculum scholar, theoretician, and pedagogue Ted Tetsuo Aoki (1987/2005e) offers: a truly educated person speaks and acts from a deep sense of humility, conscious of the limits set by human finitude and mortality, acknowledging the grace by which educator and educated are allowed to dwell in the present that embraces past experiences but is open to possibilities yet to be. (p. 365) To be this person—one with a sense of peace or equanimity, with a proportional mix of serenity, courage, wisdom, grace, confidence, and humility—means that I must work through my anxieties, fears, grief, trauma, and pain as best as I can. Going through the motions of breathing and living does not guarantee the production of this person, but one might become this person by constantly attuning one’s choices, behaviours, and actions to the idea of who one wants to become. Not everyone wants or needs to be this person. It is who I want to be. The importance lies in finding one’s authentic self and who one wants to be. For me, this means discovering not only how I do things, but how I do things, because “one’s way of knowing, thinking, and doing flow from who one is” (Aoki, 1987/2005e, p. 365). 45 The square as a structure can seem static, and I recognize that it is perhaps an overcompensation for the chaos left behind by my loved one’s passing. The stability of the square expresses my desire for structuring the experience of trauma, tidying up loose pieces of remembrances, and ordering my grief so it becomes more manageable. As Australian philosopher and feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz (2017) recognizes, “[a]ny stability or foundation is itself only relative to the instability and interactivity that mark the broader and further-reaching environment, the infinite connections between all things and all processes” (p. 261). The square’s structure provides a dependable basis to anchor my deep dive into the unknown. After all, I do not intend to wander in the dark without preparation and purpose. The structuring of breath carves vessels for holding possibilities, happenings, and me in the midst of them. They become chambers, rooms, and even public squares where “[c]onversation… takes place both intersubjectively and intrasubjectively” (Pinar, 2012, p. 229). The square offers a conceptual sketch of a path so that one can push through the unknown into the emergent. The structure is one that continues to grow in/through time. 46 555 Change | Accompaniments and Tensionalities of Being Human Descending into the darkness of the unknown and finding a way home requires an elasticity and suppleness so that one does not break under the immensity of pressure—this, I find in Aoki’s notion of “and.” Aoki (1991/2005b) muses that “and, we were taught, is a conjunction, a word that relates. It is, moreover, a coordinate conjunction, said to cojoin things of equal weight to promote a stilled balance” (p. 259). He continues: as I move to dwell in the and, I sense I need to caution myself, for I seem to be caught in all the risks of dualism. I jump up and down in the and let more ands tumble out. (p. 260) While one word can come before the other, joined by “and,” it does not necessarily connote a hierarchical relationship. I employ the use of “and” to join and hold together the people, ideas, and processes that accompany my journey. And There are two significant “and”s in Aoki’s scholarship: (1) theory and practice as “twin moments of the same reality” (Aoki, 1983/2005a, p. 120)”—which makes praxis, and (2) indwelling between curriculum-as planned and curriculum-as-lived—which is a situated curriculum that is both well-structured and alive to improvisation and change (Aoki, 1986/1991/2005h, p. 163). Engaging in conceptual development and artistic practice, using methodological compasses of a/r/tography, currere, and contemplative practice, structuring experience while remaining open to change, my work actively embraces Aoki’s “and”s and more. Following a/r/tographic lines of questioning as métissage means living in the borderlands, the in-between, and the third space of “memory, identity, reflection, meditation, storytelling, 47 interpretation, and representation” (Irwin, 2004, p. 34). One can consider “certainty and ambiguity” (p. 29), “similarity and difference… resolution and continuous growth… nurturing and withholding” (p. 30). For Irwin (2003): Lingering in the in-between space, the and or /, is an active space for knowledge creation, and particularly, an active space for unfolding aesthetic sensibilities. Unfolding, opening, evolving, expanding, manifesting, laying open one’s sensory awareness, understandings of beauty, and perceptual sensibility. (p. 64) Pinar (2015a), too, supports how “such ‘in-between’ or ‘third’ moments are opportunities for ‘action’ and ‘creations of new meaning’” (p. 40) because they prompt one to transition “between established patterns of thought and behavior to form new behaviors and ways of being” (Dalton, 2018, p. 175). “And” welcomes difference to accompany me on my journey. It grants a practical rendering of what I am doing in this research and a disclaimer for how readers might come across uncomfortable juxtapositions of ideas. “And” gives permission for an eclectic juxtaposition of acts in what Rogoff delineates as: the arena of knowledge production: doing, inventing narratives… mapping subjectivities, intervening, simulating, proposing… sketching out intergenerational lines of affective connections—the rages, the longings, the hopes, the melancholy that moves us up and down our social histories. (Sonic Acts, 2019, 19:48) I draw from a diverse array of scholars, thinkers, and writers whose ideas might not necessarily line up to form a cohesive picture, as they come from different ontological, epistemological, philosophical, theoretical, conceptual, research, disciplinary, and spiritual traditions and histories. Practically, the task of navigating the unknown is too daunting and substantial for one 48 individual to have a final say on how to go about it. The scholars I lean on have something to offer to the discussion precisely because they are different. I select them based on how their ideas sit with/in me through living inquiry and how they provoke in me different ways of (re)framing and (re)thinking experience. The unknown poses an abundant space that can house an infinite amount of “and”s and a multitude of possibilities. The “And” of Stitching Together Multiple Realities Embarking upon this journey through the unknown—as research—follows American transdisciplinary theorist Donna Haraway’s (2013) feminist objectivity of situated and embodied knowledges. My research is built on the ontological and epistemological assumption that multiple realities and truths exist based on personal understandings and interpretations. The ontological nature of phenomena is not simply already there in its wholeness for us to discover. Rather, it is entangled with the ways in which we see, frame, discuss, and express it. Multiple realities and truths are not mutually exclusive and can simultaneously exist. American theoretical physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad (2007) remarks that “the apparatus must be understood as part of what is being described” (p. 118). In my research, I seek to (re)organize (re)frame situations so that I can unsettle established meanings and understand the world in multiple ways. In turn, I become part of what is being described. As Rogoff defends, “research is about the constitution of new realities, not the study of existing realities” (Sonic Acts, 2019, 17:42). My work is about making meaning from the stitching together of different realities and the contemplation on the cartography of convergences. Many realities flow alongside and outside of the self, because: 49 the knowing self is partial, in all its guises, never finished, whole, simply there and original; it is always constructed and stitched together imperfectly, and therefore able to join with another, to see together without claiming to be another. (Haraway, 2013, p. 359, emphasis in original) Each person’s experience going through the breathing square of concepts is distinct. Each journey is unique, no matter how many times one undertakes it. However, something from and about it can be shared because an experience of the unknown is at once particular and shared. Continental philosopher and feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti (Harvard GSD, 2019) calls the collective sharing of truths, expressed from each person’s grounded position, perspectivism—it entails entering a convergence of different realities, different interpretations of a subject, through an analysis of a cartography based on one’s own point of entry. She asserts in her lecture that “‘we’… is not unitary, ‘we’ is not one, ‘we’ needs to be put carefully in inverted commas—grounded according to the politics of imminence” (14:45). Braidotti (Harvard GSD, 2019) calls for a grounding of one’s statements and being accountable in a specific location (15:05), which allows “a critique of universalism without falling into relativism,” (15:28) as “the opposite of universalism is not relativism” (15:35) but rather “perspetivism: multiple, grounded perspectives” (15:39). She differentiates how “‘we’ is not one and the same, but ‘we’ are in the posthuman convergence together” (15:43). The conceptual components hold spaces and openings for readers to enter and find personal resonances. The purpose for my work is not to create a unified illustration. I do not advocate for one solution for moving through the unknown. Everybody moves through the process differently. The unknown can be an inhibiting, dark space, and as I make my descent and come back up, I am placing markers along my paths with the anticipation that they might guide the next 50 adventurer. Acting as a record of my travels and serving as possible signposts for others, the markers of ‘the unknown,’ ‘attunement,’ ‘presence,’ and ‘home,’ form a structure through which I hold space for emergence, allowing an in-dwelling in the liminal space of generative and creative tensionality. It is a framework I put forward based on an abstraction of my experiences. While resisting the positivist paradigm of capturing objective realities that are ‘out there’ and creating a one-size-fits-all model of understanding the world, I am supported by affect and aesthetics theorist Lauren Berlant’s (2011) approach to generalization: “how the singular becomes delaminated from its location in someone’s story or some locale’s irreducibly local history and circulated as evidence of something shared” (p. 12). I hope my self-study and concept-based work will “evoke in the reader a new way of understanding themselves and the life they are living” (Jardine, 1992, p. 60) as they travel with me into the unknown. In this way, the work matters to me but also matters for others (Chambers, 2004, p. 7). Embodiment of Tensionality in the In-Between As separator and co-joiner (Aoki, 1991/2005b, p. 259), “and” is a space of in-between and of tensionality from holding onto multiple elements. Inspired by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, Aoki (1993/2005c) writes that “in multiplicity what counts are not the elements but the space between, a place of difference, a place of bind, a place of tension” (p. 298). While “dwelling in tensionality in the realm of between, in the tensionality of differences,” Aoki (1987/2005f) emphasizes that “it is the difference that really matters… not so much the elimination of the differences, but, more so, the attunement of the quality of the tensionality of differences that makes a difference” (p. 354). Such a “space in between… enables one to become attuned to the endless ways the nature of things is particularized” (Pinar, 2019, p. 271-272). 51 Holding multiple elements together in a liminal meeting point, or on the bridge that is not a bridge, does not mean flattening ontology. As one contemplates how different ideas and people can be together, one must remain open to connections while never forgetting that everyone and everything on the bridge is singular and unique. As expressed in Haraway’s (2013) feminist objectivity of situated and embodied knowledges and Braidotti’s (Harvard GSD, 2019) perspectivism, the particularity of lived experiences can join and stitch together but can never merge. I do not invoke the “and” out of convenience or laziness. Holding the in-between of tensionality is a way of being that connects to my autobiography and how I am constantly challenged to carry different interpretations, stories, possibilities and versions of what happened. Everyone impacted by the event processes and makes sense of it in distinct ways and it is not always possible to merge these subjectively constructed realities. The “and” holds space for different realities without imposing one absolute Truth. Sometimes, living in the “and” is an unfortunate necessity and I must admit that I bear its tensions begrudgingly. The weight lodges into the sinews in my neck, shoulders, and back; it twists my stomach into a knot as acid corrodes the pocket meant for the absorption of nourishment. It makes my heart sore and I feel broken. In this experience, I resonate with Rilke’s (1904/2001b) words and they remind me such moments are transitory: all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. (p. 28) 52 When tensionality gets too tight, it becomes mostly about enduring the weight as I keep moving, trusting that I would experience something different when I continuously (re)situate and (re)create myself, trusting that the next turn would present new possibilities that would lift the tension a little or render it no longer relevant. As I go through moments of tension, I am comforted by the words a colleague wrote me a few weeks after the loss: “When going through difficult times, I like to remind myself that life is a series of building up and letting go.” On letting go, Weller (2015) writes that “[it] is not a passive state of acceptance but a recognition of the brevity of all things. This realization invites us to love fully now, in this moment, when what we love is here” (p. 135). These words and practices continue to stay with me as the knots in my body come and go. I share my experiences of tensionality to express that the “and” is not a romantic space, but it is perhaps a hopeful one. Aoki (1986/1991/2005h) offers that “to be alive is to live in tension; that, in fact, it is the tensionality that allows good thoughts and actions to arise” (p. 162). “Good” does not automatically equate to a comfortable, happy time, but I trust that good things follow once I take an active role in working through tensions. Aoki (1979/2005g) encourages how one’s “isness,” or “the essence of what it means to be human—the essence of what it means to become more human” “comes more readily to one… who lives in a tension situation” (p. 336). This tensionality presents an “opportunity for probing… makes possible deeper understanding of human acts that can transform both self and world, not in an instrumental way, but in a human way” (Aoki, 1979/2005g, p. 336). The task “is not so much a matter of overcoming the tensionality but more a matter of dwelling aright within it” (Aoki, 1986/1991/2005h, p. 163). For me, the task is to reach equanimity while living with the tensions, to experience pressure and expression, effort and ease. 53 With these preparatory meditations in mind, body, and spirit, we make our descent into the unknown. 54 Inhale for 4 | The Unknown 0.01 Concept: On the Unknown In this section, I define “the unknown” as unknowable and differentiate its quality from “the unfamiliar,” make a distinction between the known unknown and the unknown unknown, and situate the unknowable unknown within these parameters. I present questions elicited by the unknown and reflect on what it can mean to cultivate a relationship with/in it in relation to its implications on artistic, research, and pedagogical practices. Defining the Unknown When I evoke ‘the unknown’ in this dissertation, I use it to name that which is ultimately unknowable. It refers to the horizon, forever elusive and beyond reach until one arrives in it. It is something that is not perceivable, understandable, and fathomable until one experiences it—regardless of how many words are used to describe what is anticipated and expected beforehand. When one meets it and lands in it, it is no longer the unknown. Another unknown takes its place and looms in the horizon. The unknowable unknown is the apprehension (of foreboding trepidation) before apprehension (of recognition and perception). Working with the context of my autobiography, immediate examples of the unknowable unknown include experiences of/with love and death, but the unknowable unknown can also mean a future that cannot be seen through the veil of time, the artistic and scholarly work that has yet to come into being, and the self that is continuously becoming every moment. The unknown is a psychic space of suspension between the now and the not yet. When Pinar (1998) writes about the influential American education philosopher Maxine Greene, he says she is “not 55 yet [and] her own sense of incompletion, of what is not yet but can be, inspires us to work for a future we can only imagine now” (p. 1). What lies beyond thresholds of space and time cannot be seen or known until one crosses into them through movement and process. The ideas surrounding the unknowable unknown can only be speculations and hypotheses of possibilities, regardless of how informed and prepared one might be for crossing the thresholds and arriving in the beyond. The unknowable unknown is a known unknown since one is aware of it and can generally identify, perhaps after some introspection, some forthcoming experience on the horizon that one might be dreading. The unknown unknown refers to that which is beyond consciousness, awareness, and knowledge. The vastness of things in the universe that lies outside knowledge and has yet to be born as a thought, idea, or articulation humbles those who deliberate upon it. The moment something from the unknown unknown can be identified and articulated, it becomes a known unknown. Once one arrives in close spatial-temporal proximity with the object, situation, environment, or context, one encounters the unfamiliar and the known. The unfamiliar lies in relation with the known (or the familiar), though these designations can only be attributed when the object, situation, environment, or context is upon one, here, in the present. One becomes acquainted with the unfamiliar through repeated encounters and it becomes known. The spectrum of these categories is slippery and full of grey areas. The process of coming to know, full of back-and-forths, is never as straightforward, clear, and linear as described, but I attempt to sketch it out to differentiate the quality of ‘the unknown’ that I address. I conceptualize the unknown in relation to my tumbling questions about death, freedom, choice, metaphysics, ontology, time, and existence—the answers to which will never be fully graspable, comprehensible, or understood. They are known unknowns existing at the horizon. As 56 such, “the unknown” with which I cultivate a relationship is not synonymous with “the unfamiliar”: these terms can be conflated when describing something that one does not recognize but their qualities are distinct. The quality of the unfamiliar is assessed in relation to what one finds ordinary. The known acts as access points for one to enter the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar is lifted from a backdrop that is the ordinary. In aesthetic education, the unfamiliar is the ordinary made strange, a shift in perception to see something new (Greene, 1987/2001b). To sum up, the unfamiliar refers to something that is right in front of you, and the unknown refers something in the beyond. It is about the quality of distance and access. The unknown conjures a liminal space of anticipation, a state of uncertainty, ambiguity, ambivalence, and vagueness. There is spatial-temporal distance between the self and the unknown, but one is always already in a situation here and now with the unfamiliar to experience it. The unknowable unknown is an absolute alterity that asks for a beholding, a witnessing, and a carrying without collapsing and turning away in denial. Questions from the Unknown Thinking, writing, and creating art about the unknown is difficult because it, by nature and definition, points to the limits of knowledge and comprehension. How does one talk about something obscure, mysterious, unascertained, unnamed, and unestablished? My attempts to document this conceptual exploration through textual and artistic forms fall short as they cannot adequately capture an actual experience of the unknown. Yet, what I am doing is embracing a posture of curiosity toward the beyond and of humility to learn from what unfolds. Canadian author, illustrator, and conceptual artist Keri Smith (2008) suggests that “to enter into the unknown (to partake in an experiment) involves a willingness to fully experience and study 57 things we don’t understand, and to embrace that lack of understanding” (p. 148). In my work, I live in the domain of the unknown and take up the duty of a scout, keeping watch of the changing horizon and trying to see as far as possible into it. I am tasked to find a right relationship with it and right distance to it so its gravity does not immobilize me. Citing J. Robert Oppenheimer, American writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit (2005) also encourages us to “live always at the ‘edge of mystery’—the boundary of the unknown” (p. 5). As something beyond comprehension, ungraspable, unforeseeable, and forever elusive, the unknown propels the inquirer into epistemological, phenomenological, aesthetic, metaphysical, and ethical realms of questioning. The problem of cultivating a relationship with the unknown means asking the following question: how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?... the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale that has not yet arrived, is what must be found. (Solnit, 2005, p. 5) My interpretation of this text is that one always, without fail, arrives in an idea, form, tale, or something that was previously ‘not yet,’ because beings exist in time and temporal movement forward is inevitable. The relentless persistence of time propels one into the beyond toward different thresholds, one second after another. Time ensures arrival of some sort one way or another—this is not within one’s control as long as one continues living. However, one can control the (re)direction of attention and effort into the idea, form, or tale that is perhaps more desirable than another possibility. In other words, one must have both patience and faith for that something to arrive and to reveal itself, while remaining engaged with/in it. The unknown rouses 58 “an aesthetic awareness [that] is open to wonder while suspending belief and trusting uncertainty” (Irwin, 2003, p. 64). It is the ‘what if’ that prompts one to think and live differently in the present. One does not ‘find’ the unknown when the not yet arrives, as it changes into the unfamiliar or the known when the spatial-temporal distance closes. The unknown continues to shift and remains distant like the horizon. There is always the next unknown. It can motivate and inspire one into a pursuit of creation, knowledge, and understanding. Within contexts of art, study, research, teaching, and being/becoming, one’s active pursuit of the beyond is nourishing. Other times, the pursuit is not necessarily a healthy aspiration, as evident in the context of death by suicide. Consequently, before chasing whatever is in the beyond, or ‘the next thing,’ the task is to continuously discern what constitutes ‘the unknown’ for the individual. Contemplating upon what ‘the unknown’ means for the individual invites one to conceptualize possible futures in relation to one’s past. What unfolding future(s) does the individual want to arrive in, given the circumstances (and what led up to it/them)? The unknown invites both regressive and progressive moments in currere. This projection and imagination work involves anchoring a core idea that one cares about—the heart of the matter—while being open to change personally and conceptually. This anchor acts as a starting point, but also a goal that guides engagement, something to revisit again and again. It is important to note that the constant engagement with whatever the unknown means to the individual does not guarantee that the subject of tension will be resolved directly. Centering equanimity with personal tragedy as my anchor does not mean I come to satisfactory answers for my tumbling questions. Some things linger in the horizon. While navigating my way, I am asking myself, what is the best way I can move forward, bearing in mind what I currently know 59 and do not know, what might reveal itself later, and what will never be revealed? What are my assumptions that need to be questioned? If I shift my ways of thinking and understanding using different logic, rules, languages, representational forms, theories, and practices, might I find a sliver of a crack in the boulder of limitation that allows me to pass? Rarely does a sliver of possibility not reveal itself, but in case it does not, two questions remain: (1) must I proceed this way? (2) how might I live with this? Working through the unknown presents a process that allows me to find my way through limitations without necessarily demolishing them. Implications of ‘the Unknown’ on Practice Artists, researchers, and teachers cultivate diverse relationships with the unknown. Tangibly, in artistic, research, and pedagogical practices, one may encounter ‘the unknown’ in a blank page, a canvas, a topic, a question, a participant, a student, a stranger, and in oneself. Artists and writers often do not know what the product or even the next step of a project will look like. The unknown of the blank page or canvas can be intimidating but the artist and writer can trust the process of artmaking and writing to guide what emerges. Artists can find inspiration in the unknown and think through it with artistic processes. Their work takes viewers into the strange and unfamiliar to inspire new reflections and connections. Solnit (2005) writes: It is the job of artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it’s where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own… they [do not only] transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out into that dark sea. (p. 5) Artistic practices help me move something from the unknown unknown into the known unknown. Making helps me articulate what it is I am grappling with. 60 When I first began thinking about my dissertation project, I was working with a completely different idea, but I had an urgent impulse to make wire portraits of significant mentors and teachers in my life and to yarn bomb a chair. There was little logical reasoning why these works demanded to be birthed. Something inside of me wanted to be expressed and made corporeal. The justification and artist statement came later after much introspection and conversation. Indeed, it took a “long disciplined process” (Solnit, 2005, p. 5) to figure out what I created, why I made them, and the thread that connected the works. The objects are now imbued with significant and meaningful stories from their interactions with/in the world and they help me understand myself and my experiences with loss—their place of birth. The unknown is intricately connected to the work of researchers and teacher educators too. Tackling the unknown necessitates identifying parameters through defining and mapping the contexts, terms, and areas of inquiry—an activity that is very much akin to the research process. Researchers develop questions from the unknown of a field that is open and unresolved, which are used to guide inquiry. Creating appropriate boundaries for exploration guards one against being overly lost and reveling in a reckless abandon of expansive growth. Questions frame what is revealed and tethers one to a point of return. These boundaries parallel the enabling constraints used in art curriculum, where structure is provided to enable something to flourish. Teachers, like researchers, suggest appropriate boundaries for exploration in the curriculum. Educators are tasked with introducing students to the unknown and accompanying them in making the search their own. In this accompaniment, the teacher learns from the unknown that is the alterity of the student, their curiosities, and the relationship that develops between them. In the next section, I discuss how I use walking practice to explore the concept of the unknown. 61 0.02 Art: Thinking Through Walking Walking is a deeply personal practice. Mechanically, it involves putting one foot in front of another, but the way one carries oneself is unique (Figure 7). Only you walk the way you do. Walking practice is the way in which one moves through and with/in the world as oneself, with a particular body that is of a unique set of proportions and dimensions, that can be read intersectionally as raced, gendered, ethnicized, cultural, and classed. This external reading affects the way one walks. Perhaps most importantly, the body holds and expresses a distinctive lived history. Figure 7 Walking as Personal Practice 62 American philosopher John Kaag (2018), who undertakes two journeys to the Swiss peaks above Sils Maria in pursuit of understanding Nietzsche’s life and wisdom, observes that: walking is practically and physically beneficial, but it has also, for artists and thinkers like Nietzsche, been intimately tied to creation and philosophical thought. Letting one's thoughts wander, thinking on one's feet, arriving at a conclusion—these are no simple figures of speech but reflect a type of mental openness that can be achieved only on the move. (p. 27) Walking, for me, is also tied to creation and philosophical thought. I use walking practice as a metaphor for stepping into the unknown of the future. Each step can be burdened with significant consideration if one feels apprehensive, fearful, and anxious of moving toward the unknown. It is easy to second-guess oneself, whether the direction one is taking is ‘correct’ and whether each stride is worth the investment of time. Walking practice embodies the Heideggerian notion of being-towards-death. English philosopher Simon Critchley (2009a) summarizes the idea: “If our being is finite, then an authentic human life can only be found by confronting finitude and trying to make a meaning out of the fact of our death” (para. 1). Since everything expires eventually, the task of living seems to be sustaining, renewing, rejuvenating the time-being, the being-in-the-world, and the being-with—physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually—with the recognition that death is waiting at an unknown time in the future. With each step, I am bridging the present and the future in a state of perpetual becoming, into an eventual cessation of being. The only thing left to do is to live well in the process. Part of cultivating a relationship with the unknown means figuring out how to live well, which depends on the meaning of ‘living well.’ There is often an underlying assumption in scholarship on walking that individuals can simply get up and go take a walk. A body that walks has a certain amount of privilege, of 63 autonomy, agency, freedom, and power to act based on what Canadian cultural theorist, political philosopher, and artist Erin Manning (2009) calls “auto-activation—the habitual capacity to change direction, speed, state” (p. 51). Indeed, when one can walk, it has the potential to be a democratizing activity that offers participatory access to many different individuals. The practice “eliminates the myth of achieving something original in the arts [and] dwells outside the notion of artistic talent and crafty skill… [which] keeps it humble” (Pujol, 2018, p. 9). Walking is intricately related to storytelling as it cannot be conceptualized without reference to the personal foundation of practice. So, I will tell stories of how I come to better understand the unknown from walking. The writers I lean on in this section are artist and teacher practitioners who honour the immediate tangibility of walking. The minimal simplicity of their encouragements help me get out the door. Walking Past I have a complicated relationship with walking. When I can walk, the practice is visceral, immediate, embodied, and quotidian. Personally, walking is about freedom, or often, my lack thereof. Kaag (2018) acknowledges the connection between walking and independence, as “[i]t’s no coincidence that parents celebrate their child’s first steps—the first, and perhaps the greatest, signs of independence” (p. 27). For many years prior to meeting my loved one online, I did most of my walking digitally in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Growing up in a Chinese immigrant family in Toronto, Ontario, as an only child—a daughter—means working with the expectation of respecting parental direction and consent. Such expectations came from parents who feared the unknown of a place, as they never quite developed the same roots in Canada as their previous home in Hong Kong. Leaving the house required approvals of all travel 64 details: the places, people, duration, and plans. This involved visualizing ahead and filling in the unknown both for myself and for my parents. Outings were functional and hold little mystery or spontaneity as they became executions of an arrangement. Deviations from a plan felt like sacrilege and there was little room to be lost, or just to be. Solnit (2005) asserts that “never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery” (p. 14). I did walk with my mother in my neighbourhood as after-meal exercises. We had conversations where I clawed at the boundaries of possibilities to some extent. All was done out of love and with the best of intentions, yet protectiveness can be stifling. Letting the raging currents of their rhythm and energy carry me forward allowed me to stay afloat. In exchange, I remained as still as possible. In virtual spaces, I experienced freedom to explore, learning the skills to navigate maps and orient myself. I would go seek out beautifully rendered spaces and ‘sit’ in them while listening to the background music, study, or converse with others in the community. I enjoyed navigating puzzles to seek out cinematic environment art that showcases the location and scenery. I got lost in mazes and puzzles and found my way out, and if I did not, I tried again. Pujol (2018) proposes that “the notion of failure is a metaphor for pushing mediums and their materials to the edge of their possibilities” (p. 90). In the virtual, there are restart buttons that shifted fail states into growth opportunities that allowed one to wonder about alternative ways of going about something. I became lost in time and hours would go by in one sitting. The immersive environments lifted me temporarily out of my situation as I was both at home and not there. While this was perhaps not the best use of my youth, I did learn valuable lessons. As a stationary, psychic wanderer, I roamed imaginatively through virtual spaces and the world of books, developing what Smith (2016) calls a wandering mindset, of “ambling with a 65 complete openness to the unknown” (p. 7). A rich inner world grew within me while I remained outwardly still. Wandering is, as Smith (2016) remarks: not so much about where you wander, but rather your readiness to create your own path, to let go of what society has told you you’re supposed to be. When we speak about wandering being a mystical endeavour, what we are referring to is a willingness to confront the mysteries of life: the universe, the unknown. (p. 19, italics in original) Looking back, I suppose I could have done more physical walking, but the unknown beyond the door and all that it represents—the consequences of shattering expectations, of being a disappointment, of rebelling against traditions of filial piety—feels too oppressive. Appeasement for a prolonged period does come at a cost, however. Physical inertia continues to be difficult to shake due to habit and who I have become. Manning (2009) talks about inertia in relation to post-encephalitic patients. While I do not mean to lighten their experience of immobilization by claiming that I, as an able-bodied person, understand what that is like, I resonate with her writing from the perspective of being immobilized through a limitation of autonomy, agency, freedom, and power. Walking calls into question the amount of each one possesses. While there is no way to measure this, one becomes acutely aware of the lack as it inhibits one’s way of being in the world and capacity to be with the world. She writes: Inertia is the property of a body by virtue of which it tends to persist in a state of rest or uniform motion unless it is acted upon by an external force. Inertia does not imply a total loss of movement: it suggests an inability to activate a change in state. (p. 50) My loved one was such an external force. When he visited me in Toronto, I explored the city with him and experienced it through fresh eyes. The familiar shifted and became strange. In turn, 66 I visited him in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. We had adventures in tourist spots, hiked, and walked through different neighbourhoods across the three cities. After the loss, I carried a significant amount of weight as I walked. Yet, Czech writer Milan Kundera (1984) questions whether heaviness is “truly deplorable and lightness splendid?” (p. 5). Despite my efforts to ‘keep it together,’ the grief was heavy and it cracked my outward stillness. The loss exposed me to the unknown of death, the future, and the confirmation that the outside world equated negative experience. Strangely, it propelled me to finally summon the courage to leave Toronto, realizing Kundera’s (1984) perceptive prophecy that “the heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become” (p. 5). Irwin (2003) observes too that “with every good learning experience, a place of difficulty causes us to attend to what matters” (p. 76). I began a doctoral program in Vancouver and, as a result, I could openly grieve and work through my trauma, to honour the plans that I made with my loved one, to extend my capacity to be and to move, and to dive into an unknown academic world that I have always wanted to be part of. Walking Present I now find delight in encountering my favourite pieces of my loved one in the Canadian West Coast. I meet him again and again in how city dwellers greet transit drivers, in how cars slow to a stop at intersections with flashing green lights, in damp chilly morning air that carries a fresh, earthy scent from the mountains, in songs playing on the radio, and in the aromas of restaurants we have visited. In Vancouver, I continue “to be nourished within a space filled with memories of [love and] friendship that made it sacred, the way a little autobiography can be 67 filled with secret, secular, sacred benchmarks” (Pujol, 2018, p. 44). Because one becomes enculturated through living in a place, the affective residue of one’s presence can be traced and found in place. These affective residues come together as atmosphere, which design researchers Shanti Sumartojo and Sarah Pink (2019) define as “an aspect of the way something feels to people, a contingent and fluid outcome of our perpetually configured surroundings, sensory perceptions, subjectivities and imaginations” (p. 5). The elusiveness of atmosphere cannot be pinned down in origin, located, or manufactured. The feeling suddenly comes when I least expect it. I like to think that I am breathing in the atmosphere of my loved one’s presence in this city as I journey forward courageously into the unknown. In recent times, I walk to calm the raging storm of emotions within me. I attempt to “flow visibly but remain inwardly still” (Pujol, 2018, p. 8), a twist from my previous state. This deep inner stillness, not shaken by disturbances of inner turmoil or the flow of physical movement, is the equanimity that I strive to reach. In turn, the stillness might allow me to move with more grace. I learn what grace tangibly means as I go, as new challenges push the boundaries of my stillness. Pujol (2018) offers that “a walk can be healing for a bruised or broken walker if the person is humble... Part of healing has to do with discovering that your bruise and wound are a gift to the walk” (p. 105). Everything I have ever done, thought about, touched, felt, and experienced has brought me here in this moment. As I arrive with each step, walking prompts me to consider what I will do with the gift that is the present moment. In moments of inhibiting apprehension, of not producing enough, of not having something to show for my efforts, of not being where I want to be, and of not reaching a pre-determined destination, I like to remind myself not to be absorbed in neoliberal production because it is 68 process that makes up culmination and process that takes me to my destination, wherever that is. As Pujol (2018) offers: The transformative experience of the walk makes the destination post-climactic. The true climax happened during the journey, while walking the road: one or more breakdowns followed by release and surrender, one or more insights leading to transformation, long before arrival. Yet, had there been no destination to journey toward, there would have been no process for transformation. Even when a destination becomes post-climactic, it was necessary because it triggered walking; it made us walk. (p. 64) Through a sustained engagement with the unknown, I am changed. Arrival is something one concludes in hindsight as one movement moves into the next in a constant state of becoming. I would not be conscious of my arrival before I have arrived. I meet myself in the process of negotiating breakdowns, releases, surrenders, insights, and transformations. When I get stuck, I use the technique of visualizing anticipated regret when making choices and decisions: what are the paths that I imagine that I would regret if I did not follow it to the fullness of potential? What can I not bear to move on without saying or acting upon? Sometimes time is needed for the answer to be revealed and I hold space for waiting. I am learning to tread with care and responsibility as I take each step, but perhaps more importantly, I am learning to forgive myself when things go amiss. 69 0.03 Experience: Becoming While I am coming into a walking practice and making it my own, I am stepping into the unknown presented by the future-moving-into-present and engaging in a process of becoming. Explorations on becoming have a long history in humanistic psychology and education (see Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1962), and I join the conversation through the creative act of walking. The connection between walking (particularly hiking) and becoming is acknowledged by Kaag (2018): When you hike, you bend into the mountain. Sometimes you slip and hurtle forward. Sometimes you lose your balance and topple back. [Kaag’s] story [is one] of trying to lean in just the right way, to lean one’s present self into something unattained, attainable, yet out of view. Even slipping can be instructive. Something happens not at the top, but along the way. One has the chance, in Nietzsche’s words, to “become who you are.” (p. 7) The movement of walking propels one into the unfolding of the next moment, because “walking is all about taking the next step. Walking is never one-off: the momentum of the last step feeds the advance into the next one” (Manning, 2009, p. 49). The Oxford English Dictionary defines become (n.d.) as “to come, come about” (para. 1) and “to come to be” (para. 9). Beings come to be—growing and becoming by living through the forever but fleeting present moment of time. Becoming is the way existences flow through time, the way something unfolds. It is the process of going through or experiencing change and growth. Becoming is a relentless state of change, which involves everything in existence. It is about how all the slices of time come together to make up the whole film of a life. British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy notes that one can only experience change by being attentive to the shifting present, that to compare two snapshots of 70 existence is to see difference, not change (von Donop et al., 2001). He also suggests in an interview with Fiona Maddocks (2014) that “working with change is to also work with the future” (para. 9). Becoming is a concept that is immediately tangible in the arts, particularly in terms of making. British anthropologist Tim Ingold (2013) suggests that material and matter have tensions, elasticities, lines of flow, resistances, conformations, and deformations. The maker accesses the states of becoming through which materials pass. At the same time, materials also enter the maker’s process of becoming. Materials shape makers just as much as makers shape materials. In the process of making, makers are growing and being made. When artisans or practitioners access the movement, flux, and variation of matter-flow, they enter the grain of the world’s becoming and shape it to an evolving purpose (Ingold, 2013). For Ingold (2013), all things, human, non-human, and more-than-human are fundamentally animate, not as things that move per se, but as things that correspond with what is around them and change through time. Each organism, energy, or force that enters and exits the life of another makes an impact through their meeting, however big or small. He calls the correspondence of all beings and things a dance of animacy, where “bodily kinaesthesia interweaves contrapuntally with the flux of materials within an encompassing, morphogenetic field of forces” (p. 101). In other words, elements in the world meet and correspond with and through each other, taking turns in shaping what happens. Becoming, as a dance of animacy, means that things alternate in taking the lead in navigating the unknown of the future. Through walking, I am coming to understand how to better navigate the dance of animacy between self and other, self and material, self and spiritual, as well as self and world—when to take the lead, when to be led, when to hold space, when to move on, when to let something go, when to let something in, and when to show something out. 71 Becoming and Affect When I walk as a meditative, research, creative, and pedagogical practice, my materiality, rhythm, and energy meet that of the world. My practice echoes Manning’s (2009) idea that “to take the next step is to move-with the world” (p. 49). The world presents an ongoing invitation for me to pay attention to how the mélange of elements interacts in particular situations and contexts. In moments of wide-awakeness—“an intensified pursuit of meanings” through “the subjective dimension of our knowing, our awareness” (Greene, 1980/2001a, p. 11)—I notice how I affect and am affected, which provide the fuel for me to make sense of each encounter. Many of these affects come from simultaneous forces pushing and pulling at the individual. As Triggs et al. (2014) suggest: in walking, multidimensional movement cannot be spatialized; its essential character is always in a state of becoming. This means that one experience always recedes into other experiences and simultaneously we feel anticipation and remembrance, approach and withdrawal, recovery and loss. (p. 29) Each step of becoming is never simply one experience or another, of anticipation or remembrance, approach or withdrawal, recover or loss. In between each pair is “and” (Aoki, 1991/2005b, p. 259). Every moment is filled with multiplicities. The quality of the moment depends on how one stories, languages, visualizes, expresses, and remembers the experience of moving through it. It is never a single story (Adichie, 2009). These creative strategies for reframing experience can ever-so-slightly shift realities that seem permanent, static, and fixed. They do not change facts like the loss of a loved one, but I can come to understand the loss differently through multiple interpretive structures. They present opportunities for an acceptance of one’s current circumstances, not in resignation, but in reception of the possibility for renewal. 72 Irwin (2013) calls the capacity for openness “to affect and be affected through the dynamic movement of events with learning to learn” (p. 206) becoming-intensity. I interpret this as a call to release one’s preconceived notions of how something should be, acknowledge one’s current circumstances in-relation, let go of a resistance to change, and allow things to unfold, all the while noticing and assessing how one personally goes through processes of renewal. Irwin (2013) also writes about the notion of becoming-event, where “affect resonates, reverberates, echoes across time and space within and beyond” (p. 207) a multiplicity of social and collective events. This summons one to notice patterns across different temporal-spatial planes and dig into how one makes sense of them as a way to catch a glimpse of something larger—how the flow that is one’s life meets that of human, non-human, and more-than-human entities as well as how one participates in social, cultural, historical, political, ecological, material, virtual, and spiritual trajectories that are always already in motion. Finally, Irwin (2013) discusses becoming-movement through walking pedagogy and walking methodology, that “to see movement is to feel the body in relation to potential” (p. 209). On feeling movement, Manning (2009) offers that “to be conscious of movement is to have known that movement moved you. Movement felt is available to consciousness only in terms of how it was left behind as a trace for the next movement moving” (p. 46-47). Walking into the unknown as a state of constant becoming means living at the cusp, liminal space, threshold, and edge between the now and the not yet, the known and the emergent, the corporeal and incorporeal. Listening and Crafting Tentative Articulations Walking into the unknown means that not every experience is articulable, especially when meeting oneself in the process. Pujol (2018) suggests that “while words create realities, not all 73 realities rely upon words. There are realities greater than language” (p. 20). Sometimes there are no words at the moment and the articulation takes shape much later, but the body senses, feels, knows, and remembers. Triggs et al. (2014) note, too, that “walking as an art practice, is a way of reminding the self that perceptions are made before conscious awareness of a particular sense” (p. 23). Walking into the unknown opens one up to affect and be affected by everything surrounding oneself, and “to be affected by something is to evaluate that thing. Evaluations are expressed in how bodies turn toward things” (Ahmed, 2010, p. 23). This turn toward some things means the body simultaneously turns away from other things. The constant, active discernment of how one affects and becomes affected, as well as how one is positioned in-relation, creates an “idiosyncratic map of connections between a series of singularities” (Stewart, 2007, p. 4-5). Australian artist and educator Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher and Irwin (2017) draw from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus (1987), reflecting how: the map, or carte, is an affective space or opening that enables experimentation, collaboration, and notations through interactions and ecological assemblages. In such a context, affect is understood to be a suite of somatically and relationally experienced vibrations, perceptions, and energies that flow, drift, and emerge in, through, and with (in this case) the acts of [artmaking], walking, and wayfinding. (p. 117) The clarity of my idiosyncratic map of connections waxes and wanes with the quality of my environmental, social, and psychic conditions. Understanding that one moves and is moved differs from figuring out how and why things are happening. Such meanings shift with time as well, requiring a sustained commitment to listening deeply to oneself. I often find it challenging to figure out what is arising within me as I am too busy attending to what is going on outside of me. However, the dual perspective is necessary in making an 74 accurate evaluation of reality and discerning individual truths. These realizations often come in hindsight to inform the next happening. As Pujol (2018) muses, “it is only when these two forms of listening are synchronized, the outward with the inward, that the walker has truly become a walking organ of perception, a true listener—a part of the landscape” (p. 25). On listening, Pinar (2004) encourages: One must listen to one’s silence, observe the shadows among which one moves. One must identify the ghosts who haunt us now; one must “talk back,” to oneself as well as to those who will listen. Theory so understood becomes a passage out of the knotted present, into the seams, the unraveled past, embedded in fantasies of the future. (p. 127) Listening to oneself means holding space for revelations and being present to what comes up. The process cannot be rushed as such revelations take time to emerge as circumstances unfold, patterns establish themselves, and meanings are discerned. Conversing with oneself and others is an important process to distill the affects that remain tangled in one’s life so that they can be addressed. Spending time with oneself allows opportunities to come to know the self better. A Story about Fear While the forces that move the self in affective terms should not be disregarded, I find it helpful to put (tentative) names to them eventually as an experimental framing of reality so that I can properly address series of similar experiences in relation to different social, cultural, historical, political, ecological, material, virtual, and spiritual trajectories. An example of this process is how I gradually came to recognize how my own fear manifests itself. After the loss, I repeatedly ‘saw’ mental images of a distinct character. I met ‘it’ as I walked with my mother, during which I was engaged in an internal conversation, pleading with desperation to understand 75 where my loved one ‘went.’ In essence, I was seeing and having conversations with something that was not there, and this became problematic as it began to disturb me in frightening ways. I knew I was affected, touched, and moved by something, but I did not know what it was, how or why it was happening, and when the visits would come. Attempting to explore possible explanations, I considered an overindulgence of fantasy films, a rich imagination, a family history of schizophrenia and depression, the effects of trauma, a coping mechanism for not being able to outwardly grieve, the possibility of being literally haunted by a ghost or evil spirit, a connection with the lost loved one that did not project well into my world, and the consequences of overthinking. Perhaps the character birthed itself because of all of the above. I will never truly know. However, I identified a pattern in the contexts through which the character came up over time, concluding that I was not scared because I saw the character. Rather, I saw the character because I was scared. Never has Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva’s (1982) notion of abjection—the state of casting off something—become so clear to me. The character was, quite literally, the Other within me. In an effort to ‘stay strong,’ I had cast out fear, but it found its way back demanding to be recognized. Finding appropriate names to frame the problem helped me manage its occurrence, as my particular and singular experiences now connected to a larger repertoire on understandings of the emotion that is fear. Casting manifestations of fear away entails a mustering of ‘lots’ as a deliberate move into abundance. 76 0.04 Learning: From Losing, Loss, and Being Lost, to Lots Walking into the unknown and becoming in the process of journeying prompt me to consider what I am carrying and letting go with each step. As I walk, I am engaging in what Pujol (2018) calls “psychic editing,” where one sheds and releases “unnecessary, visible and invisible baggage” (p. 17). The process of becoming or the path one takes in such a pilgrimage, he continues, “is editing you, clawing at you… A path rejects unreal agendas, if not the agendas of the unreal. Because a path is pure thisness” (p. 17). The path of becoming is not predetermined and so it cannot be prepared for in utilitarian and instrumental ways, but “the path of pilgrimage can be an aggressive animal—of your own bloody making” (p. 17) if one is not honest about one’s intentions, if one is not prepared to expect the unexpected, and if one is not open to change. Along the way, one surely gains, achieves, and accumulates, but also loses, experiences losses, and becomes lost. This section discusses how losing, loss, and being lost can be reframed to become an experience of abundance—lots. Shifting from lack to abundance is a repositioning echoed in Canadian curriculum studies scholar David Jardine and his colleagues’ (2006) discussion of curriculum in abundance. Lose, Loss, and Lost According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to lose (or losing) (n.d.), as a verb, is often used to refer to an object that is acted upon by the subject. To lose means “to fail to maintain” (para. 9), “to cease to have, to get rid of” (para. 10), and “to be deprived of or part with” (para. 11). Loss (n.d.), as a noun, connotes a state of “being deprived of, or the failure to keep (a possession, appurtenance, right, quality, faculty, or the like)” (para. 3) as well as a state of “being defeated” (para. 6). Losing places tremendous responsibility and guilt upon the subject that loses. 77 This subject becomes a loser, encompassing the triple meaning of one who loses something, one who carries fault, and one who fails. Losing a loved one can situate one in such a position, where one who was lost cannot be recovered and the perpetual cycle of self-blame, shame, and guilt keeps going like a broken record. The continuous form of lose (n.d.) is losing, and its meaning relates to possession: to become, permanently or temporarily, unable to find in one's own possession or custody; to cease to know the whereabouts of (a portable object, an animal, etc.) because it has strayed or gone unaware from one's possession, or has simply been mislaid. (para. 21) Losing signifies that one possessed something and now it is gone because of one’s lack of awareness. In precarious situations, losing the means to sustain one’s needs of the physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization sort, indeed, has serious implications. I am not redeeming loss and accepting the condition of not having enough, especially due to systemic challenges. Losing a loved one is hard and there is no amount of reframing that can convince me it is a positive in itself, but loss can give birth to understanding, strength, rumination, openness, resilience, humility, courage-vulnerability, and gratitude, among other good things. One’s disappointment and despair magnify from dwelling on how something was once in grasp and is no longer present. The heaviness of emphasis placed on a state in the past ironically gets one more stuck in the cycle of self-blame, shame, and guilt. Looking backward is needed to take stock of what has happened so that one can look forward to what is emerging in the constant state of becoming. The concept of loss assumes that a state of possession is the default forever. Understanding that change is just around the corner cultivates gratitude for what one currently has and encourage reserving something for unforeseen challenges. As Weller (2015) recognizes, 78 it is about “living in the creative tension between grief and gratitude” (p. xxiii). Gratitude for what one has is crucial in the understanding of the magnitude of what is lost (Brown et al., 2019). Lost, as a verb, is the past tense of lose, signifying that the losing and deprivation has already happened. However, as an adjective, lost (n.d.) describes a state of being— “that [which] has perished or been destroyed; ruined, esp. morally or spiritually; (of the soul) damned” (para. 1). The person, animal, or thing being described is “no longer to be found… Having gone astray, having lost his or its way” (para. 4). Solnit (2005) distinguishes between two meanings of lost based on the ratio of familiarity to unfamiliarity in a situation: Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know where you are. Everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger that your knowledge of it. Either way, there is a loss of control. (p. 22) Losing something is indeed different from being lost, but it can also send one into a state of being lost if the lost thing forms a fundamental pillar of one’s experience and understanding of the world. For me, being lost is more than the appearance of the unfamiliar. When I am lost, I become acutely aware of my own smallness precisely because the world has become larger than what I know. Losing one’s position and orientation, coupled with not knowing how to find a way through, sends one into a state of psychic suspension and a liminal space of anticipation because there is an overwhelming amount of possibilities with each step of becoming. The situation can go any way at any time. It is the perpetual unfolding of more and more and more possibilities. 79 Safety and Risk Being lost means not having access to anchors for grounding and blocks of enabling constraints as guidelines. The state of lost-ness brings closer the distance between the individual and the unknown. One is forced to confront the unknowability of how the situation will unfold, of how vast the universe is, of how many possibilities there are diffracting from the particular moment in the present where one is situated, and of the mystery that is the self. Getting lost is experiencing the heaviness of freedom. It is not straightforward to surrender to a state of being completely lost because it can be uncomfortable and disturbing and it is human nature to prevent harm by having back-up plans. Getting lost should not be romanticized due to the possibility of harm one can encounter from the surrounding environment and psychological trauma. It is difficult to go somewhere with the intention of getting lost as it is often a state in which one finds oneself. Daniel Boone, a character in Solnit’s (2005) book, makes a remarkable claim, “I never was lost in the woods in my whole life though once I was confused for three days” (p. 13). Being lost is not the same as being confused. Finding one’s way is possible because as (1) there is a recognition that one is in strange and unfamiliar territory, (2) one is prepared with the appropriate knowledge and tools to navigate this territory, (3) there is optimism to keep moving, and (4) a desire to make an eventual return. Being lost, even for a moment, means having no safety nets that are working though one may have prepared them. Solnit (2005) proposes a shift in understanding the experience of being lost, comparing it to a full immersion into the present: To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away… to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And 80 one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. (p. 6) While being present, one can pay attention to possibility, in-between place and relationality, and interiority (Lee et al., 2019), among many other things. On surrendering oneself to the unknown, Pujol (2018) offers a helpful and essential reminder that “there is a difference between the educated surrender to an unknown but nurturing path, and being self-destructive” (p. 87). Getting lost means assessing the level of risk in one’s journey, figuring out whether one’s path continues to be nurturing, and adjusting accordingly. Getting lost does not only happen physically in an outdoor setting. It is a state of mind one enters. As Smith (2008) writes: In the context of exploring we can think of it in terms of “existing in a state where you do not know exactly where you are headed.” In this sense we may choose to become either literally lost, exploring a place we’ve never been before, or lost in the sense that we enter into a relationship with objects and ideas without knowing what the outcome will be. (p. 148) As a tangible example of the latter, I think of a student who stares squarely at the face of the unknown in the form of a blank page, for hours, at loss, not knowing what to do with the prompt “write whatever you want.” It always seems relatively easier and faster to satisfy what someone else wants than to discover one’s passions, how one learns, and what matters most to the self. Yet, I believe it is much more important and rewarding work to take the time to find out. 81 Being Lost and Where to Start Being lost can stimulate paralysis and telling a student to keep staring at the page until something comes might not be the best pedagogical strategy. Jardine et al. (2006) observe too, that: faced with the abundance of things, we can easily become simply paralyzed. What abundance requires of teachers and students is a much more cultivated, much more deliberate and intellectually sound sense of the nature and limits of our own agency. In the face of abundance, we are called upon to act carefully and vigorously. We are called upon to venture. We are, of necessity, involved, because without active involvement, we will be overwhelmed. (p. 10) At the graduate level, students are often invited to trust the process. When one is overwhelmed by possibilities, Rogoff suggests that “the vibration, the rhythm, the sense of a pulsation is actually a place from which to start working” (Sonic Acts, 2019, 24:27). I conceptualize of these vibrations, rhythms, and senses of pulsation as affects that grip and move me. As a practice, I pay close attention to my embodied responses to everyday happenings and seek to decipher possible reasons behind these responses, while acknowledging these interpretations are fluid. There are always multiple reasons to react in particular ways to something. I study the traces left behind for the next movement of becoming (Manning, 2009, p. 46-47) and of atmosphere (Sumartojo and Pink, 2019), as “how places and events feel… [and] also what they mean” (p. 3). Atmosphere affects “how we feel about the people who accompany us or who we encounter, and as something that lingers in our memory when we recall past experiences” (Sumartojo and Pink, 2019, p. 3). 82 In the exploration of difficult moments of becoming and atmospheres, I can get lost while chasing for understandings and becoming overwhelmed by the forces affecting me. Canadian a/r/tographer Alex de Cosson (2018) connects getting lost (and found) and education: “I get lost, then found, then lost—again and again—I encourage my students to trust the process of walking—a lost and found pedagogy” (p. xiii). One needs to be lost to find and be found through a process of inquiry, where “that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost” (Solnit, 2005, p. 6). In artistic, pedagogical, and research practices, this approach does not work with predetermined outcomes because circumstances unfold through becoming. If predetermined outcomes already exist before beginning a process, the work risks being purely the execution of a design, advancement of an agenda, and indoctrination. Irwin (2013) summarizes aptly that “there is space for structure, central systems, and territorialisation, yet there must also be flexibility, decentralization, and deterritorialization. Indeed one exists because of the other and too much of one cements structure or utters chaos” (p. 211). There is nothing wrong with planning, but one must hold space for something to grow, echoing Aoki’s (1993/2005c) discussion on curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived. Moving With/Into Abundance I am not sure what the unknown beyond the veil of the present looks like as I continue walking and becoming, but I hope reframing losing, loss, and being lost will carry me, with each step, into lots—an abundance of possibilities. Moving in and with abundance is necessary to counter the fear and anxiety that comes with cultivating a relationship with the unknown. It means trusting, with reasonable ground, that there will be enough (and more) for tomorrow. It 83 means focusing on what one has and appreciating the richness and fullness of those possibilities. I am not advocating for wishful thinking, that something will drop from the sky tomorrow and one does not have to prepare ahead for a rainy day. I am suggesting that if one lives with a fear of scarcity, it poses challenges to take risks as one feels threatened. This apprehension for the unknown of the future steals joy and enjoyment of what life can offer. The resulting inclination would lean toward conservation, competition, and monopolization of control over resources. Of course, conservation of resources is important ecologically speaking, but a situation of taking everything without sharing does not help individuals or communities grow. Holding too tightly to what one has (whether this is history, tradition, culture, and/or materials) can be detrimental to one’s ability to take risks, learn something new, and explore outside of one’s comfort zone. Moving in and with abundance allows for pathways to appear. In the landscape of abundance, we move into the concept of attunement where one discerns the path that one is fitted for. 84 Hold for 4 | Attunement I began the previous moment (0.04 From losing, loss, and being lost to lots) with the image of a pilgrim. The pilgrimage continues and it is with a posture of welcoming abundance that I move into attunement. As Pinar (2019) asserts: In time and place the pilgrim plots his unpredictable course, attuned to what surrounds, obeying (or not) what is revealed, engaging (or not) with what and who appears. It is a pilgrimage that demands fealty in finding one’s way along a trail that sometimes fades away. (p. 287) Wayfinding is a concept associated with Canadian curriculum studies scholar Cynthia Chambers (2008), as one of four dimensions of a curriculum of place: “wayfinding is knowing as you go (Aporta, 2003; Ingold, 2000); it is living your geography (Collignon, [2006]); learning a place by dwelling and traveling in that place (Ingold, 2000)” (p. 123). For Chambers (2008), place constitutes a material and physical location. The landscape of the unknown that I traverse is one populated by the currents of affect, and I am constantly seeking “tools of wayfinding in place and through life” (Chambers, 2008, p. 124). Such a geography calls for a kind of theoretical, spiritual, imaginative, and speculative wayfinding—attunement—and the tool of choice for my context of loss is oracle cards. In this turn of the square, I investigate the concept of attunement (Heidegger, 1953/1996; Pinar, 2019) as part of an individuated spiritual journey—a constantly emerging/unfolding revelation of lived educational/curricular experience. 0.05 Concept: On Attunement The concept of attunement offers a dynamic space of negotiation and exploration in which intersubjective understandings come together. This exploration helps me understand, in 85 fragmentary, situated, and embodied ways, what it means to live deeply and meaningfully as I dwell in the particularity and singularity of my own autobiography. In the preparatory meditations, I discussed my search for a sense of peace, or equanimity. To reach this state, even just momentarily, means finding what I am fitted for through attunement, while dwelling in the complex web of changing situations. As Pinar (2019) suggests, “within that ongoing attunement, requiring ongoing adjustment of apprehension, one becomes recast, recalibrated, reconstructed” (p. 269). Echoing German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s (1953/1996) assertion that “in attunement lies existentially a disclosive submission to world out of which things that matter to us can be encountered” (p. 129-130), I surrender to the world—its vastness and mystery—and let things unfold. Through attunement, I seek redirect focus and attention toward what matters most in the moment. The act mitigates the likelihood of regret for what might and could have been, as “[t]o live with regret is a heavy sadness. It is like walking through a graveyard of loss” (Weller, 2015, p. 43). Based on Pinar’s (2019) study of Canadian philosopher George Grant’s corpus, attunement is an openness to what transcends material existence: eternity or transcendence. Pinar (2019) writes, “through attunement to ‘eternity’ one can recalibrate oneself within the world, lived experience experienced as an ongoing revelation, informed by the omnipresence of alterity, for Grant, the Good or God” (p. 264). I am informed by Weller’s (2015) definition as well, where “attunement is a particular quality of attention, wedded with affection, offered by someone we love and trust” (Weller, 2015, p. 6). This “someone” can be a “something,” and can be The Good or God—rather than dictating a set of standards for living, it calls one to constantly consider an ethical engagement of the everyday. For me, attunement means developing a personal way of doing my best, not to satisfy someone else, an entity, or a spiritual code, but to live well, under 86 the circumstances. Living well signifies being grounded in different ways of knowing and simultaneously being open to the possibility of not getting it right in the acknowledgement of one’s humanity. It means being open to mystery and what the world can reveal. Attunement, Mood, and Awakening Attunement is an embodied act of sensing and listening to how one’s rhythm interacts with those in the atmosphere of the world. For German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1953/1996), “what we indicate ontologically with the term attunement is ontically what is most familiar and an everyday kind of thing: mood, being in a mood” (p. 126). Gerard Kuperus (2007)—scholar in environmental, comparative, and continental philosophy—notes the connection between mood, attunement, and one’s beingness: “with the German Stimmung, which can be translated as ‘mood,’ or, better, as ‘attunement,’ Heidegger describes the being of the human being as ‘being-there’ (Dasein). This Dasein is always in a mood or attunement” (p. 1). Mood seems to be the instrument one uses to apprehend signals and rhythms from the world. As such, one’s encounters are always filtered through mood. This “moodedness of attunement constitutes existentially the openness to world of Da-sein” (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 129). I bring in Heidegger’s concept of mood to offer a historical perspective on the discussion of attunement, but I do not think attunement is mood. Perhaps more resonant for me is Heidegger’s (1953/1996) assertion that “attunement [is] the character of being affected or moved” (p. 129). German philosophy scholar Paul Gorner (2007) explains that “affectedness is mood (Stimmung), being in a mood, being in an affective state… I am, as we might say, always ‘mooded’ (gestimmt), in some affective state or other” (p. 72). This brings us back to concepts explored in the previous chapter: embodied knowing, affect, letting oneself be moved, and 87 paying attention to these responses as a starting point for inquiry. Attunement is more than mood because mood is influenced by the environment, one’s physiology, and one’s mental state, and can generally be described as positive or negative. Heidegger (1953/1996) talks about fear as a mode of attunement, which links to emotion. The attunement I am interested in is a connection “to what we cannot see or name, the presence of something outside our comprehension of it” (Pinar, 2019, p. 270-271). The act of “attunement tries to traverse the gap between our world and what is outside it, from particularity to universality” (Pinar, 2019, p. 261). This connection between the worldly and otherworldly from ongoing study is a “constant contemplation of what might be beyond empirical (observable, audible) experience, what might be, even in some incomprehensible indirect way, influencing it” (Pinar, 2019, p. 267). In the spiritual aspect of my relationship with the unknown, I listen multimodally from something beyond, for particular “tugs,” resurfacing motifs, or moments of resonances in one’s inquiry (Irwin et al., 2018, p. 38). Attunement involves listening, feeling, thinking, with keen attentiveness, to that which is not necessarily visible, imaginable, or thinkable: “Like revelation, attunement cannot be possessed or summoned; one decentres and waits, open—listening—to what lies beyond” (Pinar, 2019, p. 261). In a later work, Heidegger (1983/1995) states that moods, such as anxiety or boredom, are fundamental attunements of philosophizing that need to awaken for the act of philosophizing, but it should not be done consciously, knowingly, or intentionally. There is something in both Pinar and Heidegger’s writing about attunement that has to do with letting go of control and allowing something to happen. I am drawn to Heidegger’s (1983/1995) writing on awakening an attunement: 88 to awaken an attunement cannot mean simply to make conscious an attunement which was previously unconscious. To awaken an attunement means, after all, to let it become awake and as such precisely to let it be. If, however, we make an attunement conscious, come to know of it and explicitly make the attunement itself into an object of knowledge, we achieve the contrary of an awakening. (p. 61) This later idea echoes what I think happens during attunement, when one’s quiet murmurs of felt inclinations come alive. They are always already there. The task is “letting whatever is sleeping become wakeful” (Heidegger, 1983/1995, p. 60). The act of attuning calls one to follow what one is fitted for, which changes in different circumstances, times, contexts, so it is important to keep being open to fluidity. While doing this work, a healthy dose of skepticism is essential as one cannot be sure attunement is possible. Despite the uncertainty of its possibility, Pinar (2019) suggests that “acting as if it were so provides an ‘outside’ to the confinement of the everyday” (p. 270). Attuning to the beyond requires faith, a practice of belief in the face of unknown. This might sound like the idea of blind faith, which is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “belief or confidence (in a person or thing) without any evidence or proof” (“Blind,” n.d., para. 57). The pairing of blind and faith seems redundant because faith that requires sufficient evidence or proof undermines its very meaning. Faith inherently involves blindness and trust as one moves forward. Attunement asks one to have blind faith because it is not an act that can be proven through empirical and positivistic evidence. The results or effects of attunement are not quantifiable. However, this does not mean that the process has no theoretical reasoning, basis, and support. The process of attunement invites one to continuously understand, perceive, and discriminate/discern/judge what is happening in relation to the past and projected future. 89 Whether these understanding(s), perception(s), and judgement(s) are true depends on how one defines truth—true to one’s self (subjective), true in relation to others (relative), factually true (objective), or unconditionally true (absolute). Resonance Within arts-based educational research and aesthetically-based research, attunement between the empirical/material and the unknown takes on a different set of language surrounding resonance. Resonance is described as “tugs” (Irwin et al., 2018, p. 38) and “sweet spots” (Bresler, 2018, p. 652). I consider how these ideas on resonance might provoke a felt understanding of attunement. In discussing a/r/tography as living inquiry, Irwin et al. (2018) summon readers to trust the artistic process in carrying forward an experience of the unknown. One needs to be open to the exploration of possibilities and expansion of thought/practice, rather than the pursuit of one specific idea/thought/practice from the onset. The abandonment of predetermined paths or end products allows intuitions, unanticipated connections, unexpected occurrences, coincidences, impulsivity, and accidents to enter the work. While the space of potentiality is expansive, this work necessitates keen attention to particular “tugs,” resurfacing motifs, and moments of resonances in one’s inquiry. In the process of coming to know, Irwin et al. (2018) write, “what we came to realize was that particular ‘tugs’ seemed to resurface in each session, calling us toward them” (p. 38). Writing from the contexts of arts-based pedagogies and aesthetically-based research, Liora Bresler (2018), researcher of qualitative methodologies and aesthetic and artistic education, discusses “sweet spots” (p. 652) of in-betweeness that echoes with the notion of attunement. She 90 writes that “ABR pedagogies, just like research, aim at a ‘sweet spot’ between observations skills and unknowing; between following a careful plan and the ability to improvise; and between the voice of the situated self and others’ perspectives” (p. 652). Lingering and dwelling in zones of in-between involves attuning and attending to both ends of a duality and also to plurality; it is akin to the both/and of Aoki’s (1991/2005b, 1996/2005d) metaphor of being on a bridge. Pinar (2019) notes as well, that “the bridge provides passage from one reality to another; it is a metaphor for attunement” (p. 271). Aoki (1996/2005d) writes: on this bridge, we are in no hurry to cross over; in fact, such bridges lure us to linger. This, in my view, is a Heideggerean bridge, a site or clearing in which earth, sky, mortals, and divine, in their longing to be together, belong together. (p. 316) This bridge is an in-between space that connects everything together. In Bresler’s (2018) arts-based research pedagogies, “resonance mobilizes perception and engagement, enabling a bridging between the inner and the outer” (p. 659). On this bridge, a dialogue happens between the self and something beyond the self—alterity. Dissonance and Non-Coincidence Resonance does not only mean aligning oneself with what is happening in the world. For Bresler (2018), there is also “dissonance, the discordant manifestation of resonance, [which] has a forceful role in shaping observations… to stimulate inquiry into the self’s subjectivity” (p. 661). Dissonance is “that which jars our values” (p. 659). When something unsettles, it points to an opportunity to refine our discernment of what matters. Bresler (2018) continues: Working through dissonance takes a curiosity that is deeper than judgment, as well as a certain amount of courage. It requires respect for fumbling, for searching for things that do 91 not lend themselves easily to ready-made language and concepts… it takes some tolerance for being humbled. A community that values integrity, depth, and grappling is vital. (p. 659) Dissonance might signal a need to clarify values, reshuffle priorities, and revisit boundaries whenever applicable. Additionally, it might signal an opening for growth and expansion. Attunement is a process of figuring out one’s resonances and dissonances with alterity through engagement and dialogue, leading to self-understanding. Such understanding positions one in a certain orientation with a specific perspective of the world, which clarifies the quality of the tensionality of difference (Aoki, 1987/2005f, p. 354) between oneself and alterity. Bresler’s (2018) notion of dissonance relates to Pinar’s (2019) concept of non-coincidence as both suggests not fusing with what is. Pinar advises that “attunement is listening, feeling, thinking, sometimes separate sometimes fused attentiveness to what is revealed to—and what is withheld from—us” (p. 289). Attunement is an invitation to think for oneself and to develop a personal way of knowing the world, while taking the steps to understand a situation as fully as possible. This makes up a true aspiration for education because “responsibility for what happens starts inside us” (Pinar, 2019, p. 267). It summons one to form an informed view that is flexible to amendments as circumstances change. Pinar (2019) writes, “through the prism of the personal we try to decipher the meaning of the moment, its materiality, temporality, calling us to coincide with neither” (p. 289). Maintaining distance between what is and one’s interiority, what he calls “non-coincidence with what is—living within the gap—installs subjective freedom, implying that there is always, or almost always, a move to make, even if only inwardly” (p. 267). Subjective freedom offers one choice even if none seems possible. For me, non-coincidence serves as a reminder not to be overly committed to the way things are at the moment, as they are 92 constantly changing and being influenced by forces out of one’s control. Non-coincidence invites one to pay attention to the present, but to be doubly conscious of the possibilities beyond it. I explore the concept of attunement through the research-creation of oracle cards. In the following sections, I delve into the history of cartomancy and oracle cards, the practice of cartomancy in/as curriculum and pedagogy, the concept of attunement in relation to oracle cards, what attunement means through chance, how attunement implies distance, and what attuning to something beyond might mean. 93 0.06 Art: Thinking Through Oracle Cards Accompanying my study of attunement is the research-creation of an expanding deck of oracle cards, as I use them in times of distress to help me find my way through being lost. Being in uncertainty and mystery can be exhilarating but terrifyingly inhibiting. Oracle cards encourage me to take little steps in the dark. I use oracle cards to think through the concept of attunement because they help me find my way through the unknown by inspiring attunement to the beyond. In this section, I discuss how I explore attunement through the making, thinking, and practice of using oracle cards. I describe the artistic intention and process of making the cards; outline the history of oracle cards and cartomancy; theorize its relationship with curriculum and pedagogy; and consider the artistic and pedagogical implications of using them with others. Oracle Cards and Cartomancy As part of my conceptual exploration, I created a stack of oracle cards inspired by scholars, writers, and thinkers who have influenced and guided my thinking (Figure 8). These influential guides, in alphabetical order of last names, include Mitch Albom, Ted Aoki, Chloë Brushwood-Rose, Louise Gormley, Maxine Greene, Sandrine Han, Donna Haraway, Martin Heidegger, Tim Ingold, Rita Irwin, Carl James, Laozi, Celeste Ng, Naomi Norquay, Dónal O’Donoghue, William Pinar, Plato, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rebecca Solnit, and me (while risking arrogance of standing with the giants). I imagine that the deck will expand as time passes. 94 Figure 8 Oracle Card Set Oracle cards, also known as angel cards and wisdom cards, is a divination tool contemporarily associated with ‘New Age’ thought, phenomenon, practice, and religious beliefs. They can often be found in the Health and Well Being section of mainstream bookstores or in 95 spiritual, metaphysical, holistic well-being stores. The term ‘New Age’ is vaguely inclusive and can be traced back to a blend of eclectic influences, including English theosophy and anthroposophy; 1950s UFO-cult movement; and 1960s alternative, countercultural, anti-establishment communities (Hanegraaff, 1998). The name generally refers to: ideas and practices regarded as alternative vis à vis dominant cultural trends, especially if these ideas and practices seem to be concerned with “spirituality.” …[I]t concerns a label attached indiscriminately to whatever seems to fit it, on the basis of what are essentially pre-reflective intuitions. (Hanegraaff, 1998, p. 1) In my work, I borrow the idea of oracle cards and the divination practice of reading them as a metaphor for attunement, but do not aim to advocate for any religious or spiritual affiliation. The history of oracle cards is linked to that of playing cards. First invented in China during the Tang dynasty (9th c. AD), playing cards spread to India, Persia, and Egypt. They entered Europe from Egypt in the 14th century and cartomancy, or playing-card divination, emerged (Huson, 2004). When thinking about cartomancy, tarot cards may come to mind. These early decks of playing cards and tarot cards have suits and a set number of cards that provide structure for handling them, unlike oracle cards. While the origins of oracle cards remain unclear, cartomancy using self-devised cards grew widely popular when Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand (1772-1843), a French fortune teller, used them to predict the futures of French nobility in the Napoleonic era. Oracle decks have little rules to them, can have any number of cards, and can have imagery of any theme. For me personally, and in the context of this conceptual exploration, cartomancy has very little to do with predicting the future or a predestined outcome. It is my belief and an assumption underlying this project that human lives are not fixed and thus cannot be predicted. Each decision 96 one makes and each step one takes closes a set of doors and opens others. One’s future is not set in stone due to free will and chance. Undoubtedly, we live in a complex web of pre-existing histories, conditions, contexts, and relations—never in a vacuum—so we do not have absolute freedom in shaping our lives. As explored in 0.01-0.04, we are always already entangled in traces that will drive the next movement of becoming (Manning, 2009, p. 46-47). However, living within this web does not suggest that human lives are fully predetermined as one possesses subjective freedom (Pinar, 2019, 267) and subjective agency (Pinar, 2019, p. 268). As the title of pastor Mark Batterson’s (2015) book reminds readers, “you are one decision away from a totally different life.” He argues that this decision is offering one’s self to God, but any decision that has a certain finality attached to their implications or consequences would illustrate how humans do have at least some degree of freedom and control in their lives. The uncontrollable remains up to chance. We exist in the cusp of the unknown, as futures unfold and become the ever changing present. Cartomancy In/As Curriculum and Pedagogy Instead of trusting cartomancy to predict the future, I conceptualize the oracle card practice as an offering of prompts to (re)consider one’s past, present, and future. The reading activates a kind of currere, one of my methodological compasses: an active form of curriculum that involves four moments—regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical (Pinar, 1975, 2004). Readings provide starting points to make new connections between elements in time, to consider many possible futures, and to reflect upon one’s way(s) of being, thinking, and knowing in the present. These deliberations are perhaps most evident in the past-present-future spread, but are not necessarily confined to this layout. Readings offer opportunities for one to enact an aesthetic 97 and spiritual pedagogy of self (Irwin, 2006), where the teaching of one’s self happens. Canadian artist and educator Sylvia Kind (2008) writes that “pedagogy… is listening to thought; to that which cannot be said yet tries to be heard” (p. 169). Readers teach themselves by listening multimodally to the quiet murmurs and felt inclinations within, awakening understanding(s) that were not yet known but already there. Cartomancy is often used to ask for guidance in critical instances that call for a decision to be made or a redirection of one’s course because one might be lost about what to do. The process is regarded as mysticism or witchcraft, but is quite similar to how one might imagine consulting a mentor, teacher, or model on how they might approach the situation at hand. Csepregi (2019) notes: we might, in our imaginations, consult one of our models and ask: if you were facing my task, what would you do now? And, quite often, we find the answer we were looking for and, by making the ineluctable decision, follow our own path with greater confidence and determination. (p. 86-87) Readers can think, listen, meditate, and feel their way through philosophical and everyday matters and reach personal understanding(s) through oracle card readings, because they are projecting meaning(s) relevant to their own life history and way(s) of being, thinking, and knowing in the world onto the cards. Readers are not psychically or telekinetically asking a mentor, teacher, or model for their input in this process. Rather, they consult their inner voice that takes the form of this influential person in their life. Inevitably, understanding(s) are awoken as the reader tries to make sense of the cards’ ambiguous imagery, wording (if applicable), or positioning (if in a spread). The dialogue between the reader and the cards clarifies what one has, to some extent, always known. Meaning(s) and understanding(s) are not embedded solely within 98 the material nor the reader. They come into being in the interaction, the in-between space of human actors and the material world. Reading cards plunges the reader into an aesthetic space, or third space, or liminal space, where one can encounter glimpses of the unknown. This space extends a capacity for distancing from the familiar and becoming aware of the unfamiliar—for “break[ing] through the ‘cotton wool’ of dailyness and passivity and boredom and come awake to the coloured, sounding, problematic world” (Greene, 1980/2001a, p. 7). The shift in awareness prompts one to become truly present and alive. In the context of aesthetic education, Greene (1987/2001b) urges students to uncouple from the ordinary and move deliberately into an aesthetic space using their imagination when encountering works of art (p. 69). The aesthetic space demands a double consciousness of what is already there and what can be, as well as the situation at hand and what is happening in one’s interiority. Approaching the cards is like approaching works of art, on which Greene (1980/2001a) writes: we move (as we should) from attending to the work in its integrity to moments of presence, of felt relation to the work, when we allow our imagination to play on what we have perceived, when we incarnate it and make it ours. It is at this point that the work may infuse our consciousness, bring new and unexpected patternings into our reflected-on experience, offer us new vantage points on the world. (p. 11) When one finds it challenging to break through habit and mundanity, cartomancy can serve as an intermediary for attunement that points to the strange, magical, new, and uncanny—and even the beyond. 99 Oracle Cards as Icons Attunement entails an openness to what transcends material existence: eternity or transcendence. With reference to Mondzain (2005, p. 38), Pinar (2019) remarks that “[t]he motion of revelation occurs in its ‘incessant coming and going between the visible and the hidden, enigma and mystery.’ Attunement reveals but cannot resolve ‘enigma and mystery,’ but it might enable the ‘coming and going’” (p. 282). Attunement, like reading oracle cards, requires one to bring forward their subjective presence, life histories, and situated understanding(s); to set intentions that frame what is revealed; to remain open to ruptures, connections, and possibilities; to listen multimodally; to trust the intuitive process of meaning making; to clarify through discernment; and to always linger in uncertainty and skepticism. Both practices of attunement and reading oracle cards involve listening, feeling, thinking, with keen attentiveness, to that which is not necessarily visible, imaginable, or thinkable—a polyphony/cacophony of (im)possibilities. Connecting the material and beyond can occur in dialogue with the self, others, texts, experiences, and icons, which serve as portals to what lies beyond itself. Created with watercolour and pen and ink, the images on my oracle cards visually represent individuals who have influenced my thinking and being. I created the visual imagery by attuning to their body of work and their way(s) of being in the world if I had the opportunity to meet them, hear them speak, or be in their presence. The images were created from my relationship and connection with them. The individuals are not meant to be summed up and contained in any way. As well, the cards do not speak for them or in place of them. Illustrating the concept of attuning, through oracle cards, to the complex being of each individual—their presence, aura, thoughts, ideas, body 100 of scholarly/literary work, and way(s) of being in the world, Csepregi (2019) tells a story of Karl Jaspers and Max Weber: The philosopher Karl Jaspers emphasized the importance of finding oneself in the actual presence of a great person, such as Max Weber. Yet, Weber’s “wonderful source of energy” became effective not only when Jaspers was face to face with him, “thinking with him,” but also when he was no longer with him, “thinking of him.” While Weber was still alive, the intensity of his aura provoked an enriching conversation… after Weber’s death, his words were heard through an enlightening imaginative communication. (p. 75) The cards initiate a connection that may not be evident before the influence of chance, inviting one to engaging in a conversation by thinking-with and thinking-of the person on the card. The oracle cards operate like a visual bibliography or citation list, inviting the reader to dialogue with the imagery, which point to an aspect of who they are and what they represent to me. Intended to be icons rather than idols, the images are intermediaries or portals that provide passage to something beyond (Pinar, 2019). The significance of meaning does not lie in the cards’ materiality or imagery as their form merely signals, signs, and points elsewhere. One of the key differences between iconography and idolatry is where one finds reverence (Pinar, 2019, p. 224). For Pinar (2019), an icon possesses spiritual power in the way it teaches what it represents and stimulates belief (p. 231). Icons redirect reverence while idols hold it. Attunement requires icons, not idols, because icons open a connection between the material world and the beyond. Idols close this connection. One can never be certain that one is attuned and to what one is attuning. Whatever messages and suggestions one may interpret from readings does not dictate one’s subjective agency to follow their instructions, nor do they absolve one’s responsibility for their actions. However, the process does bring into clearer focus what needs doing. Even then, 101 Pinar (2019) advises that “it is an exercise of subjective agency to follow what we know needs to be done, what we are instructed to do, however open to reconsideration—even skepticism—such instruction is” (p. 268). Common critiques of cartomancy, especially religious ones, include concerns about opening a channel to something unpleasant, or even evil. Many speak about feeling a presence following them after experiencing the uncanny. The possibility of danger, and the existence of spirits, cannot be proven nor denied. However, such ghosts can be conceptualized as curriculum visions (Doll, 2002). Ghosts “speak to us from ‘the other side’ or from ‘the Land of No Return,’ often admonishing us to remember that which we have forgotten or repressed” (Doll, 2002, p. 24). My failure to find clear presences of the dead, even during active pursuit in the beginning of my journey, suggests that it is not easy to encounter a ghost, if it is at all possible. However, ghosts can be readily found within the self. In a secular perspective, ghosts can be thought of as reflections of one’s own state of discomfort, anxiety, or fear, as one gazes into the abyss of the unknown. Attuning to the beyond inspires an awareness of curricular hauntings—and I would argue that this is not necessarily a negative experience. It is an invitation to work through the why and how of felt inclinations. One may guard against spiritual hauntings and encourage curricular hauntings at the same time by creating boundaries and structures in the form of intentions. Setting intentions might mean asking a question to frame what is revealed. Using intentions to frame a reading or attunement parallels the enabling constraints used in art curriculum, where structure is provided to enable something to flourish. It helps to structure and make sense of (over)abundance of information and happenings, which is crucial to the practices of attunement and cartomancy. 102 0.07 Experience: The Mystery of Chance, Timing, and Synchronicity When drawing oracle cards, chance comes into play. While connecting the material and beyond can occur in dialogue with the self, others, texts, experiences, and icons, it can also occur in dialogue with chance, timing, and synchronicity because of their unthinkability (Jung, 1955/2013), which links to the unknown of the inexplicable beyond. In discussions of chance, the terms probability, random, uncertainty, likelihood, unpredictable, accident, coincidence, and luck are interrelated (Bartholomew, 2016). Chance refers to the fortuitous, accidental, coincidental, and unintended, which all have to do with the uncontrollable and unknowability of how events, lives, conditions, and relations unfold. In my (growing) stack of 20 oracle cards, it is currently a 1 in 20 (5%) chance to draw a particular card. In a typical tarot deck, the percentage gets smaller to 1 in 78 (1.28%). The low percentage suggests that it is difficult to predict or even guess which card(s) a reader will select and how a spread might look like before they are revealed. For Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1955/2013): Meaningful coincidences are thinkable as pure chance. But the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is, the more their probability sinks and their unthinkability increases, until they can no longer be regarded as pure chance but, for lack of a causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements. (p. 142-143) When a card is drawn, there is something mysterious about how it comes to mean something in relation to aspects of one’s query, state of being, and life. Synchronicity as Unthinkable (A)causality In earlier iterations of this writing, I tried to compose in purely secular terms, carefully engineering mystery, wonder, and magic out of attunement. After all, this is an academic work. I 103 want to impart that everyone can hold space for the unknown and reach toward it—and here are neatly packaged steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 to go about it. Yet, this is an instrumental, positivistic trap. Upon returning to my home in Toronto for a brief visit, multiple ‘unthinkable’ (in Jungian terms) incidents prompted me to uncensor the spiritual in my writing. In my subsequent stabs at the draft months later, however, I went back to trying to find a compact theory of causality to explain how nonlocalized occurrences, or meaningful coincidences, happen so that I can write with more certainty about what is happening during attunement. I approached the concept of attunement through meaningful coincidences rationally, logically, analytically with object-oriented thinker Timothy Morton’s (2013) speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, and realist magic where “causality is aesthetic” (p. 21) as well as Barad’s relational ontology and intra-action where “the very act of measurement produces determinate boundaries and properties of things” (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012, p. 62). I swam in theoretical physics ideas like quantum theory that beckoned me to place my faith in speculation, abstraction, and everything other than the spiritual. In Morton’s (2013) object-oriented ontology, there is no transcendental beyond (p. 215). For Barad, “there are no things before the measurement” (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012, p. 62), which is based on apparatuses of perception. These ideas did not sit well in my being. My mistake here was not accepting the unknown and the act of reaching for it through attunement for what they are—inexplicable. Attunement involves connecting to or catching a glimpse of somewhere, someone, something, and/or sometime beyond the here and now. The suspension of one’s desire to recognize and comprehend everything is necessary in reaching understandings grounded in realms beyond logical, rational, and analytical thinking. 104 Accepting the unthinkable means surrendering to mystery. Jung (1955/2013) proposes that “synchronicity does not appear as an idea by itself, but as ‘magical’ causality” (p. 118). Magic suggests that something cannot be traced to a source and that it may remain an incomprehensible and inexplicable mystery. This is not an encouragement to be complacent in accepting everything one does not understand without trying to find out as much as possible. As Jung (1955/2013) writes: their “inexplicability” is not due to the fact that the cause is unknown, but to the fact that a cause is not even thinkable in intellectual terms. This is necessarily the case when space and time lose their meaning or have become relative, for under those circumstances a causality which presupposes space and time for its continuance can no longer be said to exist and becomes altogether unthinkable. (p. 143) Magic happens when one is situated at the cusp of the unknown and two or more things click together inexplicably in personally meaningful ways. It occurs when something happens and makes shifts in one’s perception of the world. It describes an eerie moment a force grips one’s attention, touches one’s core, and opens one up to the bizarre interconnectedness of existence. Such moments strike at just the appropriate time, often leaving one in amazement, awe, and wonder. Magical practices, such as oracle card reading, weave sets of relations, binding the human, non-human, and more-than-human together. The magic of such practices hinges on one’s belief and faith in its emergence, demanding respect for the sacred and spiritual. These practices offer us the perspective that one is always in relation with worlds beyond one’s comprehension. “Magical” causality “is an early form of our classical idea of causality, while the development of Chinese philosophy produced from the connotation of the magical the ‘concept’ of Tao, of meaningful coincidence, but no causality-based science” (Jung, 1955/2013, p. 118). 105 During class discussions with William Pinar and colleagues in 2017 at The University of British Columbia, an image of a radio is often conjured up as a metaphor for attunement. The practice is like adjusting the receiver of one’s machine to tune into a particular frequency. The radio metaphor assumes that there is a frequency to listen in on. It is an idea that resonates with ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi’s (1988) writings in Tao Te Ching on centering in the cosmic rhythm of Tao (The Way): Every being in the universe / is an expression of the Tao. / It springs into existence, / unconscious, perfect, free, / takes on a physical body, / lets circumstances complete it. / That is why every being / spontaneously honors the Tao. / The Tao gives birth to all beings, / nourishes them, maintains them, / cares for them, comforts them, protects them, / takes them back to itself, / creating without possessing, / acting without expecting, / guiding without interfering. / That is why love of the Tao / is in the very nature of things. (Chapter 51) As a natural rhythm of the universe, the Tao is not a namable entity or concept, but it is embedded in every being and thing. Tao is said to have existed before time and space, as nothingness (wu) and non-being. It “is beyond is and is not,” is “ungraspable,” and “unfathomable” (Chapter 21). This natural rhythm cannot be understood in terms of good and evil, but more as a flow of becoming and unraveling. The goal of attuning to the Tao is not just finding what one is fitted for, but to reach equanimity and harmony through non-action (wu wei). This is done without intent or desire, and with an openness to how things might not be what they seem. One discerns the Tao, or the path, through experience and being alive. 106 Attunement Through Chance and Timing Whether I am tuning into the cosmic frequency of the Tao or communicating with something divine, personally, attunement happens for me primarily through the unthinkability of synchronicity presented by chance and timing. Kundera (1984) articulates in The Unbearable Lightness of Being that: chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup… Necessity knows no magic formulae—they are all left to chance. (p. 48-49) When contemplating the idea of chance, one might draw a quick link to fate and destiny, that the unfolding of situations is predetermined by a supernatural power. Having been raised a Christian, chance proposes a unique conceptual conundrum for me. One cannot determine with absolute certainty that supernatural power(s) exist and that it/he/she/they are interested in micromanaging every detail of human lives, but the possibility exists in a spiritual sense. In polytheistic belief systems, chance can happen when the pantheon of gods and goddesses act with and against each other according to their own will, sometimes causing unintended ripple effects in the world. However, monotheistic belief systems seem at odds with the notion of chance as it can be thought to defy a divine plan, or the idea of an intentional unfolding of happenings. The degree to which chance is perceived to play a role in one’s life depends on views on causality and intentionality. Bartholomew (2016) offers three ways for chance to be reconciled with a monotheistic worldview. (1) Chance as appearance: God is in control of everything and the unfolding of events only appears like chance to humans because of 107 our limited perspective; (2) Chance as the default engine of the world, but an occasional sprinkle of divine interference is necessary: God shapes events during critical moments in history, but the everyday unfolding of events is left up to chance; (3) Human will and freedom bring about chance encounters: God does not interfere or control what happens, but the unfolding depends on human will and freedom instead. When reading Kundera’s (1984) phrase “chance and chance alone has a message for us” (p. 48), I understand chance as a prompt for a message to be interpreted, and do not think of chance as an entity or something directly influenced/controlled by an entity, like the Greek goddess of fortune, prosperity, and destiny Tyche, or the Roman equivalent Fortuna. Chance is not something that can act or something that possesses agency. After all, if a being makes intentional prearrangements on how lives unfold, then what happens would not be the chance we understand as unintended and uncontrollable—just that it was intended and controlled by something or someone else. In terms of agency, Ingold (2013) argues that “humans do not possess agency; nor, for that matter, do non-humans. They are rather possessed by action” (p. 97). Chance is not human or material substance, but refers to the role that timing plays into human-human and human-material encounters. Based on this reasoning, my views most align with Bartholomew’s (2016) scenarios two and three, where God intervenes only when necessary or not at all. Simultaneously, I understand the possibility of scenario one, where the unfolding of events only appears as chance to humans due to our limited perspective. In this case, attuning to chance can mean attuning to God, or other spiritual and divine beings. However, in all three of Bartholomew’s (2016) ways of reconciling chance with monotheism, one attunes to inexplicable beyond. 108 Attunement through the unthinkability of synchronicity presented by chance and timing is a complex process of meaning making. It involves first acknowledging and then playing with the hand one is dealt, physically speaking in an oracle card reading, and metaphorically speaking in the context of one’s life. This acknowledgement implies accepting the unknown and unknowable and releasing a need for absolute control. Paradoxically, this acceptance of the enigmatic is easier to stomach when one believes that nothing in life is a coincidence. When an encounter has led one to believe that it was not a coincidence, it suggests a resonance with some element of that encounter. Our everyday lives are filled with chance encounters but we barely notice them all. When we do notice, and think, ‘what a coincidence,’ it means we recognize some element of it in our past. The pattern and repetition strike us as meaningful. When chance encounters appear and one has imprinted a certain resonance with/on some aspect of it, it becomes a motif in the composition of one’s life whether it becomes a conscious decision or not. Kundera (1984) beautifully describes this phenomenon: This symmetrical composition—the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end…human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion… an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence… into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual’s life… Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty. (p. 52) Attunement through chance and timing happens because of resonance (and dissonance). Chance encounters with elements that strike one as meaningful stick and time washes away the rest. 109 0.08 Learning: Reaching for the Beyond Because attunement opens a connection with something beyond, it activates ontological reflection upon one’s view and belief of existence. Attunement, as a pursuit of what one is fitted for, prompts contemplation upon how to be in-relation with the world, which is a matter of figuring out the quality of such relationships—the quality of distance. In this section, I explore this quality of distance and what it is to reach for the beyond, describe how one might reach the gates to three eternities, and behold the sublime with wonder. Distance and Reach Attunement implies that there is distance between the self and another point of reference to which one is attuned. Distance refers to the irreconcilable gap between two points in space and time, and the gap between beings. This distance exists because the two things, human, non-human, and more-than-human regarded in relation to another are ontologically different due to their singularity and particularity. Situated within their own space, time, context, and web of relations, these two points of reference form alterities to each other when considered together as a pair or when they dwell on the bridge (Aoki, 1991/2005b, 1996/2005d). Attunement asks: what is the nature of this distance? Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of a discussion around attunement is the question of what ‘the beyond’ might be if one is to attune to it. No one knows with absolute certainty what ‘the beyond’ is nor what is in ‘the beyond.’ Studying world religion may shed some light on these questions in a spiritual sense but there are no guarantees. The beyond connects me with the spiritual, which I imagine as boundless and outside of space and time. The beyond is timelessness, eternity, and transcendence (Pinar, 2019). It is a kind of aesthetic space 110 (Bresler, 2018; Greene, 2001c). It is also absolute alterity, something forever beyond understanding (Kind, 2008; Springgay, 2008). These possible meanings take me away from the here, now, and the self, but are paradoxically dependent and rooted in them, as I can only see from the perspective of here, now, and the self. As one tries to attune, the self in the present moment, with distinct sets of human contexts and situations, makes up one point of reference. Attunement is an act of reaching the other, with the understanding that one can never truly traverse that distance. The space between the self and other is akin to what Solnit (2005) describes as the blue of distance. She writes: The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in the atmospheric distance between you and the mountains... Blue is the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world. (p. 29-30) While one can experience a desire and longing to reach the other, to merge the two means to destroy the faraway, the other, and alterity, as “distance ceases to be distance and to be blue when we arrive in it. The far becomes the near, and they are not the same place” (Solnit, 2005, p. 35). This distance is filled by a “long, contemplative gaze” that “trains itself in the preservation of a distance to the things, without, though, losing their nearness. Its spatial formula is that of ‘a distanced nearness’” (Han, 2017, p. 77). The blue of distance is a distanced nearness. My understanding of distance is supplemented by Bresler’s (2014) approach to distance within aesthetics education. She writes about connectedness and detachment in the contexts of research methodology and paradigm wars of objective/subjective, quantitative/qualitative, positivist/post-positivist, and hard/soft research: 111 The aesthetics of scholarship… is created through the juxtaposition of two types of distances—connectedness and detachment. Connectedness involves closeness and intimacy. It allows us to discern nuances, subtleties, and variations. Detachment involves distancing, allowing us a broader view. The juxtaposition of moving closer and farther enables fresh perception and conceptualization. (p. 611) Like Greene’s (1987/2001b) urge for us to uncouple from the ordinary, Bresler (2014) encourages detachment—not in terms of positivist objectivity—but as a necessary distance from the familiar so that one can see something differently. She suggests that this kind of distance is fluid and situational, rather than a fixed epistemological state. “The challenge of qualitative research”—one echoed in attunement—“is maintaining an interested connection to what we study and to our participants, as well as detachment from our habitual forms of seeing and judging, upholding the necessary distance involved in disciplined scholarship” (Bresler, 2014, p. 613). Attunement requires one to find an appropriate distanced connection to see the blue of distance in the faraway. We cannot see the blue if we are too close, nor can we see it if we are not interested in looking. Empirical, Spiritual, and Conceptual Eternities Pinar (2019) expresses in multiple instances in his study of George Grant’s work that “the beyond” for Grant is “The Good” or “God” because of his conversion to Christianity (p. 269-271). Lying “outside human experience, beyond time-space, there is order. That sense of an outside—that we belong to that spiritual order to which we can become attuned” (Pinar, 2019, p. 269). I have no background in spiritual studies and admittedly this makes it difficult to write about the spiritual to which I attune, so I explore this subject from my everyday experiences of 112 spiritual and aesthetic encounters. Spirituality differs from religion because it is not mediated or bound by social-cultural institutions. Religion is shared by a community while spirituality refers to individual practices that inspires a sense of purpose and connection to a meaningful way of being in the world. For me, the spiritual has deep links to the aesthetic, as both inspires what Peter de Bolla (2003)—scholar in cultural history and aesthetics—calls mutism, which is “the sense of running out of words or not knowing how or where to begin speaking in the face of the artwork” (p. 4) or the thing in front of you. I keep these experiences tucked away because “any attempt at verbalizing a response… diminishes the experience or even destroys it” (p. 4). Because of this, I can understand the beyond as ‘The Good,’ ‘God,’ and the cosmic rhythm of Tao (The Way). I suppose this means I embrace a kind of spiritual pluralism where one can reach out toward the divine through multiple avenues. The avenues do not preach the exact same version of reality but the thing of reverence does lie ‘outside’ somehow. If the beyond lies ‘outside’ and embodies the quality of eternity, I am understanding it in three ways: (1) a practical, empirical eternity, (2) a spiritual eternity, and (3) a conceptual eternity. Before I explain, I share a story that touches on how these three distinct discernments of eternity might be interconnected. I recently watched One Strange Rock (2018), a documentary on National Geographic about the wonders of how scientists believe our planet came to be. It presented an origin story grounded in the religion that is science, where the Earth was violently created through a series of chance happenings: the cosmic collisions of stardust and rock situated in the Goldilocks zone (not too hot and not too cold), then the impact of icy comets and asteroids that gave us water, the theoretical crash with an intersecting planet (Theia) that gave our planet a Moon and an axial tilt that led to seasonal changes, the molten core that generates an electromagnetic field to protect life from the Sun’s radiation. Somehow single-cell microbes 113 became complex life forms and somehow life rebounded from several mass-extinctions. At each chance encounter, I could not help but exclaim throughout the viewing, “you mean, God, right?” The series explained everything and nothing at once. Even astronaut Jerry Linenger, in Episode 5: Survival of One Strange Rock, expresses that “our very existence on Earth [is] against all odds” (Riley, 2018, 55:50). This is what Jung (1955/2013) refers as unthinkability, where the probability of something happening when one looks backward in time is so low—next to impossible—that such information glitches intellectually. The series also features astronauts who attest to the breathtaking beauty of the Earth from space. I was struck by how even scientists speak with reverence when discussing the planet as something alive. When considering the Earth as evidence of 4.6 billion years of history, it is akin to eternity from the perspective of human timescales, or as close as one can get to an experience of it. Linenger divulges how humans are “just a speck in this long timeline of life on Earth” (Riley, 2018, 51:47) and “if I move on to, you know, another life, I’m kind of okay with that at this point” (Riley, 2018, 54:22). Attuning to this practical, empirical sort of eternity offers a sense of purpose—of how one has impacted the course of the world. It connects one with the life of the planet, extending solace for individual end because death paves way for new life to flourish and we are one small part of a cycle. Attuning to the beyond as spiritual eternity might mean going to heaven or hell, or nirvana, or something outside of the cycle of life and death. While it cannot be certain if humans come from such spiritual eternity before birth, or land in the middle of it in death, or find it at all, treating eternity “as if” it exists heightens one’s awareness of the omnipresence of time (Pinar, 2019, p. 270). Acting “as if” there is an eternity reminds one to consider whether current choices and positionalities would stand the test of time—not that there is any guarantee. Most of all, attuning to the beyond as eternity offers temporary distance from 114 the experiencing self (Kahneman, 2010). A conceptual sense of eternity might adhere to Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus’ view that “everything changes” (Wheelwright, 1959, p. 29), which has been widely translated, interpreted, and paraphrased as: “the only constant in life is change.” Particularity, as structure, is universal, timeless, and generalizable, but not the content of particularity, because this content is lived, embodied, and deeply personal (Nellis, 2018). Yitzhak Y. Melamed (2016), as quoted by Pinar (2019, p. 328), distinguishes the difference between “eternity as timeless existence, as opposed to eternity as existence in all times” (p. 1). Spiritual eternity is often regarded as a timeless existence. It is a time of judgement based on how one has lived and who one has become. Practical, empirical eternity and conceptual eternity point to eternity that exists in all times. In the eyes of scientists, cosmic life force, in the form of energy, cells, bacteria, organisms, has existed long before humans came to be and will continue to exist long after humans become extinct. Change is an eternal existence that persists. In the idea of eternity as existence in all times, eternity exists is in every moment in time. Attuning to the beyond as practical, empirical eternity, spiritual eternity, and conceptual eternity is similar to Heidegger’s being-toward-death, a way of being that reminds me of American country musician Tim McGraw’s (2004) Live Like You Were Dying. As Weller (2015) writes, “we must be able to bring death close to us. We must be willing to live with the ways that death keeps us—paradoxically—aware of whether or not we are fully embracing our lives” (p. 124). Living with an acknowledgement that each day brings one closer to death brings perspective to what matters most in one’s life so that whatever remaining time can be spent for something meaningful—that is if one can bounce back from the crushing and immobilizing gravity of perpetually thinking about death. Zooming in to changing particularity, and then 115 zooming out to recognizing change as a perpetual constant, provokes a certain kind of lament but also provides comfort, depending on how one perceives the present. In other words, it might be comforting to consider that all things pass when going through difficult experiences, but it might be sad that enjoyable experiences also pass. Sublimity and Wonder as Gates Attuning to the beyond as various forms of eternity is an aesthetic experience of sublimity and wonder. For me, aesthetic experience does not only happen within an encounter with art or artistic objects. The realization of my minuteness and fragility, but also interconnectedness with the world, inspires fearful and humbling wonderment, which is what I qualify as an aesthetic experience. As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the sublime (n.d.) is that which “fills the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power; that inspires awe, great reverence, or other high emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur” (para. 18). Being in the presence of violent typhoons in Hong Kong, freezing blizzards in Toronto, colossal mountains in Prince Rupert, and the expansive waters in Vancouver are concrete personal experiences of the sublime. Such encounters take my breath away. When I evoke the sublime, I have no interest in making a judgement of value or even asserting guidelines for morality based on what is aesthetic or the quality of an aesthetic response. As de Bolla (2003) expresses, not all “encounters with art are aesthetic; nor does it imply that aesthetic encounters are necessarily better, more valuable, useful, or pleasurable than any others” (p. 13). One can approach an artwork through political, social, economic, cultural perspectives in an effort of appreciation but they are not aesthetic. In art, an aesthetic experience is one that viscerally evokes a sense of wonderment, which brings us back to the unknown. 116 On the connection between wonderment and the unknown, de Bolla (2003) explains: Wonder requires us to acknowledge what we do not know or may never know, to acknowledge the limits of knowledge. It is… a way of knowing that does not lead to certainties or truths about the world or the way things are. It is a state of mind, of being with the world and oneself that, like being in love, colors all that we know we know. And that can, on occasion, certainly appear to be like thaumatology: the science, or knowing, of wonders and miracles. (p. 143) Engaging an aesthetic experience invites one into a kind of intensified sensitivity, attention, perception, and awareness to one’s surroundings (Greene, 2001c). It is a summon to distance from a lazy indifference toward the environment in which one is situated and to engage the limitations of being and knowing. Attuning to the beyond as an aesthetic experience allows one to snap out of the habitual familiarity of one’s being, to feel and be fully present, and to notice when glimpses of eternity present itself in the natural and human world. Attunement creates an alternative, or a different reality, providing an ‘outside’ and enabling one to make meaningful connections. Attuning to the beyond is part of an ongoing cultivation of the self, a search for who one is going to be in the next moment. This movement toward the beyond and the impossibility of arriving in it marks a core tension in growth and change, or becoming. Reaching for the beyond is part of becoming, and where one is reaching is always a mystery. Tumbling in the incorporeal realm of attunement, one comes to a personal sense of what Grosz (2017) discusses as: the direction or trajectory that orients a movement of concepts or thought, that constitutes the possibility of a process of understanding, that enables the creation of a philosophy or a work of art as an emergence from and an entwinement with a material order, planets, stars, 117 constellations, nebulae, and so on, beyond us, and a world of objects, things, processes, and events that constitute materiality on earth, with the emergence and evolution of life in its growing complexity. (p. 250) Upon finding a trajectory toward a beginning of a direction that one might be fitted for and considers worth pursuing, the invitation shifts into one of following where it leads, to pull the world closer. Having ascended to reach for the beyond that is eternity through attunement, I turn, in the next chapter, toward the earthy groundedness of the world and the presences within it. 118 Exhale for 4 | Presence The previous turn on the concept of attunement is an individual endeavour that requires solitude and looking inward. In this turn of the breathing square on the concept of presence, I move into the space of community, alterity, and connection. This moment is about perceiving, (re)constructing, and (re)structuring the lay of the land. 0.09 Concept: On Presence This third concept and moment of the square involves figuring out the nitty gritty details of hauling in the world and drawing closer to the world. It calls for the act of interacting with materiality while attuning to immateriality. This moment of coming into presence seeks to bring into focus the blurry clusters and fragments of felt inclinations gathered through attunement. It invites an earthy grounding, within an understanding of what is (not) there. One comes to a recognition and acknowledgment of the (in)tangible, (im)material, contextual, situational, social, historical, spatial-temporal, conceptual, aesthetic, imaginative qualities of the stuff that is present-absent. In this process, one attempts to connect with alterity in the face of the irreconcilable gap between self and other. Presence as Access Alva Noë (2012), an American philosopher of mind who theorizes on perception and consciousness, argues that “[p]resence is availability” and that “we should think of what is present as what is available, not to our eyes, or brain, but to us” (p. 32). Working through presence means developing access so that the strands through which one pulls in the world are both sticky and strong. Noë (2012) continues: “[w]e only have access to what there is. But not 119 everything is accessible. What constrains access, and so presence, is what we can do—know-how and skill” (p. 32). This access can be gained through understanding, through sensorimotor perception, through concepts as “a technique for grasping hold of something in thought” (Noë, 2012, p. 146), and through language. Presence is often conceptualized as an ontological problem because it deals with what is and what is there. However, this assertion implies significant risk as one’s ontic dimension—the fact that one exists—becomes exceptionally fragile. In my exploration of presence, I discuss the concept as an epistemological problem rather than an ontological one. Simply because one does not know about/of something or someone, or have a lack of experience and access to the other, it should not mean that the existence of another becomes effectively refuted. In other words, the ignorance of one does not equate to something or someone’s ontic non-existence. The other is merely non-existent to the ignorant knower, perceiver, and beholder. The quality of access to something or someone is not to be fused with the actuality of the other’s existence. Developing epistemological access is a value-laden process as one gravitates to what counts and what matters to one’s self. Such interests are extensions of one’s autobiography. Establishing epistemological access has the potentiality of inspiring new ontological dispositions towards the world, when one becomes a different kind of person as time progresses. This is the third space where presence can be onto-epistemological. My interest in expanding on the concept of presence first developed from a desire to come to know my loved one who has passed on, while acknowledging the impossibility of fully grasping the complexities that is a person—whether they are still in the world or beyond. The words that Chinese American writer and novelist Celeste Ng (2014) composed to describe a deceased sister in the novel Everything I Never Told You stays with me in this pursuit: 120 Years from now, they will still be arranging the pieces they know, puzzling over her features, redrawing her outlines in their minds. Sure that they’ve got her right this time, positive in this moment that they understand her completely, at last. (p. 291) The word ‘knowing’ is burdened with extensive baggage from epistemology. By knowing, I simply mean recognition in the face of ceaseless becoming. My loved one and I are both ceaselessly becoming—I still am, and the memory of him still is. Knowing as recognition does not embrace a touch-and-go approach where one stops short at the identification of someone or something as previously seen. This might be the beginning of the work but certainly not the end. On recognition, Australian writer Kathleen Stewart (2014) offers: “Something reaches a point of expressivity. A line, a refrain, a tendency, an icon, a colour, a groove of habit or hope, or a rhythm or chaos of living take on qualities, a density, an aesthetic, become somehow legible, recognizable” (p. 119). I am seeking the kind of knowing that reaches a point of expressivity that becomes recognizable. Recognition requires both acknowledgement and understanding. Presence is about coming to know how to access someone or something, developing a relationship, and illuminating the world with the light of connection and understanding, so that the nature of one’s entanglements can be distinguished. Accessing the presence of another remains, for the most part, a cooperative, dialogic, and reciprocal act, with the exception that the act can be imaginative when one carries a presence. The other can certainly be human, but it can also be non-human, like a thing or a place, and more-than-human, like animals and spirits. Recognition requires a sharing of realities and the establishing of meeting points of adjusting to each other’s pace, rhythm, interests, and desires. This establishment of meeting points and shared realities happen through practice—the everyday, habitual, and ritualistic actions and activities 121 carried out over time. With the yearning to draw closer to the world, I consider what it means to (1) be present, (2) to behold a presence, (3) to possess presence, and (4) to carry a presence. Being Present Being present can be interpreted as simply being there, but more importantly, it is about the conscious direction of attention. The mind wanders instinctively and the deliberate act of being present is an invitation to become aware of where thoughts take one so that they can be redirected to the present moment—the here and now. American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön (2002/2018) writes that “[w]e cannot be in the present moment and run our story lines at the same time” as “anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present, without a reference point experiences groundlessness” (p. 52). Being present requires comfort in one’s own body and the space and time in which one exists. It is a kind of absent-minded flow that allows one to be the self, here, and now and transcend them simultaneously. For Walsh et al. (2015a), this absent-minded flow is what allows one to “let go of a (seemingly) intact, coherent, and rational, individual sense of self—for short periods of time at least—through relating with the energies of other people and the natural world” (p. 12). There is much literature on mindfulness and contemplative practices that teach awareness, curiosity, and wide-awakeness. Chödrön (2002/2018) observes: Instructions on mindfulness all point to the same thing: being right on the spot nails us. It nails us right to the point of time and space that we are in. When we stop there and don’t act out, don’t repress, don’t blame anyone else, and also don’t blame ourselves, then we meet with an open-ended question with no conceptual answer. We also encounter ourselves. (p. 102) 122 Being present is a call to be comfortable with one’s self. It asks one to enter a relationship with one’s self—to study with the self and to study the self. Writing in relation to the work of Maxine Greene (2001c), Pinar (2011) remarks that “the significance of solitude underlines the interiority of study, including its dialogical character, and not only with others. One engages oneself in complicated conversation as well as with others” (p. 99). Ongoing study is a way in which we come into being, because “we are cultivated ourselves…and in this cultivation worlds open up that would otherwise be closed off. In this way we achieve for ourselves new ways of being present” (Noë, 2012, p. 13). This relationship is a practice of remaining curious and open to what unfolds. From yoga, I learned that reaching this level of comfort in one’s bodily existence becomes easier when one treats sensations as visitors, watching them come and go. The practice of being present is not about pushing but meeting oneself where one is at. It is about coming to terms with being, and being here fully—both an acceptance and a declaration of one’s existence. Beholding Presence Beholding presence is a turning of one’s attention toward the unknown of another existence—alterity—and exercising one’s “response-ability of staying with the trouble” (Haraway, 2016, p. 28), which requires a loving thoughtfulness. Being with alterity entails reaching toward something that is different from the self, something with which one cannot fuse together, and something one cannot assume to be able to grasp. There are many resources that touch on the nuanced facets of being with another, which spirals in an infinite number of directions. Every being has their own approach to beholding another that has been refined by generational insights, socio-cultural shaping, and experience with human, non-human, and more-than-human others in their lives. 123 Fundamentally, beholding presence demands sustained engagement with something beyond the self: another existence as well as their situatedness and entanglement within webs of relations, to which one might or might not be fully cognizant. In contexts of human-human and human-material encounters, Haraway (2016) asserts that “[r]esponse-ability is about both absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying—and remembering who lives and who dies and how in the string figures of naturalcultural history” (p. 28). In the ecological dimension, this attentiveness toward multispecies connectivity can shift one’s everyday choices, which can support the growth of the environment, sustain its inhabitants, or destroy it further. In the human dimension, intense language such as “killing and nurturing, living and dying” remains pertinent. One’s (in)ability to respond to another can encourage, fragment, and stunt ideas, connections, and ways of being and thinking. Beholding presence means remaining curious and interested in learning more about the other, their interconnectedness to multiplicities, and their socio-cultural histories. In human-human contexts, beholding presence means seeing another in their fullness as much as one is capable, with the acknowledgment that another is always beyond what one can perceive and grasp. Romanian-born Hungarian-American physicist Albert-László Barabási (2010) contends that “time is our most valuable nonrenewable resource, and if we want to treat it with respect, we need to set priorities” (p. 125). Spending time with another can affirm worth and value and can be deeply empowering. To behold another, one needs to be in the body, alive to the world through the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and proprioception. It requires being awake to the rhythms of one’s interiority and internal world responding during the interaction, with the recognition of the impossibility of knowing one’s self fully. Mari Ruti (2011), scholar in critical theory and gender and sexuality studies, calls for kindness and 124 generosity toward both self and other while both stumble through this search and refinement of access points, because “[t]he fact that we can never give a satisfactory account of ourselves renders us forgiving about the inability of others to generate seamless self-narratives” (p. 161). Beholding presence asks that one attune to one’s interiority as best as one can and to convey these responses with care and integrity to another. In the gap between self and other, one chooses how to respond in ways that both align with one’s interiority and regard another with respect. Ruti (2011) continues: our willingness to accept the inconsistency of both ourselves and others gives rise to an attitude of interpersonal humility that seeks to sustain a dialogue even when there seems to be no common ground—even when we cannot even begin to understand where the other is coming from. Because we know that the other may not entirely comprehend his or her own impulses, we persist in our attempts to communicate even in the absence of clarity. (p. 161) This persistence to communicate even in the absence of clarity is an ethical act. An ethical being is not one who always makes ethical choices, but one who is committed to engaging the other—one who does not refuse to witness the other. Possessing Presence In the exchange that happens with beholding presence, one might come to appreciate the other’s possession of presence. As part of an evaluation of the beheld from the perspective of a beholder, the notion of presence enters the realm of the affective—of being moved. While the beheld is in a rather passive position, it is worth noting that one’s existence cannot be denied even if there is no beholder. Existential presence does not depend on a perceiver, but affective presence to another does. This is the distinction between ‘one exists’ and ‘one matters,’ where 125 mattering influences the way existences are illuminated and obscured. Presence depends upon points of access (Noë, 2012), and the attribution of value can enact such a point of access. Existences that matter become visible, whereas existences that do not become less so. The evaluation of one’s ‘lack of presence’ or invisibility is not something that one can control as it hinges on another’s ability to access the self. On racializing perception and the phenomenology of invisibility, critical phenomenologist and social theorist Danielle Petherbridge (2017) writes in relation to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) that: invisibility is a form of ontological and epistemological violence, which points to the sedimented habits or general normative constructs of white perception of “others.” …[T]he problem is that when you remain constantly unseen or invisible you begin to “doubt if you really exist… You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in a real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish” and you begin to comport yourself in a manner that might “make them recognize you” instead of bumping into you in the darkness of the night. (p. 107) She argues that the necessary components to bringing the presence of another into focus is recognition as affirmation, coupled with a critical practice of affective hesitation. Affective hesitation means becoming aware and “halting or interrupting the process of racializing perception and perceptual habits built up over time through social and cultural constructs and the reiteration of embodied practices” (Petherbridge, 2017, p. 120). For those willing to engage, such recognition “offers a means of rupturing… indifference and denial, of hypervisibility and invisibility” (Petherbridge, 2017, p. 121). 126 To amend one’s way of being in the world according to the assessment criteria that one possesses presence relies on performativity and the creation of a persona, as only the most undiscerning would remain apathetic when entertained, charmed, dominated, manipulated, and provoked. Correspondingly, the assessment that someone possesses strong presence points to an embodiment of power to affect, influence, and act upon another. Yet, changing one’s self based on some external criteria surrenders agency and power to others in the determination of one’s worth and quality of existence. All presences, even quiet ones, extend invitations to be-with and move-with, so that a beholder can shift from voyeur to participant. Noë (2012) summarizes succinctly: we are always already in the middle of things. But this is not to say that our attunement to what there is around us, its presence for us, its availability or readiness-to-hand, is not our achievement. It is only against the background of what we know how to do—a background that we, with the help of others, make—that there is anything there for us at all. (p. 11) Only when a beholder is open to be with and be moved can such a connection with the beheld be established. One’s presence is not something can be achieved for others, as it shows up when the other shows up, and the reverse is true as well. Carrying Presence Carrying a presence moves into the realm of affect and imagination as one’s attention remains with another while something else is happening simultaneously. As Pujol (2018) suggests, “we walk with invisible others” (p. 37). Such invisible others are absence-presences, “complex and uncertain objects that fascinate because they literally hit us or exert a pull on us” (Stewart, 2007, p. 4). One can invite such absence-presences intentionally, like holding someone 127 (i.e. an ancestor, family member, a scholar) and something of theirs (like words) in mind and heart while going about daily activities. Being-with can happen even if the other is not physically there, though it is imperative to recognize that the quality of the other is entirely dependent on how one perceives, remembers, and understands them. It does not reflect how the other exists or might have existed as a separate entity. While these ghostly presences can engage in lively conversation with one’s self, one cannot assert that the other speaks, as it is not they who speak but rather one’s self who speaks through them. Borrowing another’s voice is a powerful and creative act because it activates one’s awareness of the alterity deep within, brings a mirror into one’s interiority, and allows for hidden ideas to be articulated. Carrying a presence is laden with hermeneutical risk and one must be responsible in holding oneself to the highest degree of integrity. Borrowing another’s voice cannot be used to absolve one’s transgressions. Conversing with and carrying absence-presences are not unlike having a relationship with a ghost that only one can see—or at least, a ghost whose presence shows up in distinct and personal ways. The visitation allows for an exploration of “permissions and prohibitions, presence and absence, apparitions and hysterical blindness,” as well as “exclusions and invisibilities” that are “not necessarily not-there” (Gordon, 1997, p. 17). The insights garnered in this process are subjective understandings. The way I visually conceptualize absence-presence is through two stars in the high-mass x-ray binary system located in the constellation Cygnus, The Swan. I learned of the two stars from a ScienceOnline (2009) video on YouTube, produced by Hila Outdoor Centre in Upper Ottawa Valley. In the early 1970s, at the David Dunlap Observatory, astronomer Tom Bolton studied a galactic source of x-rays that were streaming towards Earth from Cygnus. The x-rays came from a highly luminous, blue, supergiant star called HDE 226868, which was caught behaving 128 strangely. It wobbled and continues to do so in periods of 5.6 days. Behaviour like this suggests that it is locked in orbit with another star, but nothing can be seen there. This was how a stellar-mass black hole came to be found. HDE 226868’s invisible companion was named Cygnus X-1. With its strong gravitational effects, Cygnus X-1 pulls everything inside, particles and electromagnetic radiation, including light. It cannot be seen, but HDE 226868’s stellar wind can be observed travelling toward it, creating a swirling accretion disc around it. While Cygnus X-1 ceased to exist, it came to be known through HDE 226868. Light takes time to reach us on Earth even though its speed of travel in a vacuum is the fastest in the universe, which means we see celestial objects as they were many years ago. HDE 226868 and Cygnus X-1 lie at approximately 6,100 light-years away from our Sun and our planet Earth, so we can only see them as they were. We see the past when we gaze upward and behold the fabric of the universe. A wormhole seems to open and show the absence-presence that is the sedimentation of history, which perpetually contributes to the present. I see myself in HDE 226868. I, too, have an invisible companion who imploded, who continues to move me, and whose presence is made manifest only through the ones who survive him. In many ways, I remain haunted, but perhaps this is not such an undesirable state if regarded as a curricular haunting. Sociologist Avery Gordon (1997) writes that “being haunted draws us affectively, sometimes against our will and always a bit magically, into the structure of feeling of a reality we come to experience, not as cold knowledge, but as a transformative recognition” (p. 8). Curricular hauntings may be unspoken, unspeakable, and unnameable. Hauntings produce a “something-to-be-done” (Gordon, 1997, p. xvi), because they are: the domain of turmoil and trouble, that moment (of however long duration) when things are not in their assigned places, when the cracks and rigging are exposed, when the people 129 who are meant to be invisible show up without any sign of leaving, when disturbed feelings cannot be put away, when something else, something different from before, seems like it must be done. (Gordon, 1997, p. xvi) The high-mass x-ray binary system in Cygnus teaches me to be awake to those who have walked before us, those who we walk with us in the present, and those from the past who catch up with us as we perpetually move forward physically and temporally. 130 0.10 Art: Thinking through Conceptual Art Thinking about the notions of presence and absence does not have to always need to touch on topics of epic proportions. It can be conceptualized through a casual, everyday activity of sharing music with others. Here, I discuss the Music Exchange Project (2020) that I created for the Teach Anything British Columbia (TABC) collective led by Angela Inez Baldus, PhD student at The University of British Columbia in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. TABC is an iteration of an offering by Jorge Lucero called Teach Anything. It is with deep gratitude to the members of TABC that I discuss this work in the context of my dissertation research. Born from a desire to attune to the other, the conceptual project was made with the intention to get to know members of the collective. The experience of exchanging music involved holding a contemplative gaze (Han, 2017) toward another through listening—listening metaphysically to the vibration of others’ presences to make gift selections, listening reflexively to the acoustic collection that populates one’s life, listening sensorially to songs one has been gifted, and listening affectively to the stories and ideas behind the gift. The Music Exchange Project (2020) served as a powerful meditation on the concept of presence as it allowed a glimpse into knowing beyond words—a knowing that comes from moving another and being moved. Holding another person with a contemplative gaze demanded a confrontation with the unknown that is the other—or alterity. The act opened access to tangible and intangible aspects of presence. Before discussing the conceptual project, I offer some background to contextualize this gathering of people. The TABC collective works to experience and theorize on pedagogy-as-art-practice (Lucero, 2020a), a kind of conceptual art that fuses together aesthetic encounters and teaching practices. The premise of Teach Anything, at its simplest, is that during each meeting, for a certain period, one member of the group teaches the rest something—anything. This 131 approach to pedagogy comes from bracketing around what one already does to share it with others, with a de-emphasis of skillful mastery and product delivery. The commitment to a practice of sharing underscores that everyone has something to offer. The pedagogical move in the Music Exchange Project (2020) is the teaching of one’s self to another. Participants shared their likes and dislikes, lived histories with certain kinds of music, memories attached to individuals, songs, situations, and contexts, repertoires and playlists, as well as interpretations of sound. The artfulness of this project lies both in the concept and its capacity for enabling social engagement. On these notes, I turn to conceptual art and the social turn of pedagogy-as-art-practice. Conceptual Art Conceptual Art as a movement—with capitals—emerged in New York, United States in 1960-1972, but this spatial-temporal context does not exclude other works from being identified as conceptual art—lower case (Goldie & Schellekens, 2010). There are extensive art history and museum education publications that detail its origin story, with dates, influences, contexts, and players. I am more interested in understanding what conceptual art can do, evoke, and teach me about presence (and absence), in relation to how one cultivates a relationship with the unknown. Conceptual art is concerned with immateriality and the pursuit of less nothing (Lucero, 2020b). Not intended as a double negative, less nothing invites a consideration of the tension between the immateriality of a concept-made-manifest and the documentation of such a work without the erasure of what happened (Lucero, 2020b). In other words, how might one preserve and share a work that leans into nothingness, that only exists in the moment of encounter, and that is lived? By extension, how might a life lived (not) be accounted for in traces and documentation? 132 Conceptual art “can be thought of as ‘anti-definition’, or against what people have traditionally taken to be the commonsense definition of art” (Goldie & Schellekens, 2010, p. 15). As such, Lucero (2020b) asserts that “to understand yourself as a conceptual artist… comes by merely putting brackets around what you already do. Call the things you do, ‘art’” (p. 40). This approach to art (and pedagogy) calls into question established and institutionalized notions of what art (and pedagogy) might entail, which can evoke strong reactions from those who consider the artist and pedagogue as expert. Using the medium of an idea, conceptual art can be thought of as enacted thought experiments—they offer philosophical challenges that are ontological and epistemological in nature (Goldie & Schellekens, 2010). Questions that come up include: What is conceptual art and where does the work begin and end, and how might it be recognized or known as art? Though not all conceptual art lacks physical form, this dematerialization strikes at the core of what interests me in the study of presence, and by extension absence. Something is there even when it is not physically there. Even if something is physically there, the art is not that, but something else and elsewhere. It points to a tension of not-entirely-present and not-entirely-absent. Social Turn of Pedagogy-as-Art-Practice Lucero (2020b) notes parallels between pedagogy and art practice, where “[t]he imperceptibility of teaching—not unlike the imperceptibility of conceptual art—is caused by its ordinariness and size (both physical and temporal)” (p. 35). These pedagogical moments “try to occupy the realm between art and life, between object and idea, and between the visible and the invisible” (Lucero, 2020b, p. 31). Pedagogy-as-art-practice becomes possible because “[t]he conceptual artist… is a cross-disciplinary polyglot (‘speaker’ of many languages) whose every 133 move could potentially be their art work” (Lucero, 2020b, p. 30). To learn more about the different languages of conceptual art, the collective considered the instructional scores of Yoko Ono, the chance compositions of John Cage, the follow-and-document projects of Sophie Calle, among others creative muses. Pedagogy-as-art-practice involves others, which leads me to conjecture that it also draws upon “the surge of artistic interest in participation and collaboration that has taken place since the early 1990s, and in a multitude of global locations” (Bishop, 2012, p. 1). British art historian, critic, and scholar Claire Bishop (2012) names these “post-studio practices” and the turn to the “social” as “participatory art,” though it can be named “socially engaged art, community-based art, experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, interventionist art, participatory art, collaborative art, contextual art and (most recently) social practice” (p. 1). She explains: the hallmark of an artistic orientation towards the social in the 1990s has been a shared set of desires to overturn the traditional relationship between the art object, the artist and the audience. To put it simply: the artist is conceived less as an individual producer of discrete objects than as a collaborator and producer of situations; the work of art as a finite, portable, commodifiable product is reconceived as an ongoing or long-term project with an unclear beginning and end; while the audience, previously conceived as a ‘viewer’ or ‘beholder’, is now repositioned as a co-producer or participant. (p. 2) The only part of the social turn that Bishop discusses that does not seem to align with my experience of pedagogy-as-art-practice is her assertion that “the central medium and material is theatre and performance” (p. 2). Pedagogy-as-art-practice, and its conceptual art and pedagogical 134 components, is a democratized, social, authentic, and participatory philosophical endeavour, rather than one that is performative, entertaining, and theatrical. Reciprocity is built into the rules of engagement, which is to give and receive time, energy, stories, thoughts, ideas, and resources. Through being together, taking part in practices that are personally meaningful to the teacher of the day, and having discussions about the experience, members grow to understand each other in unexpected ways. Each activity develops new points of access to the other: we catch glimpses of what fascinates and troubles, what others are reading, who they think with, their lived experiences, their scholarly, pedagogical, and artistic genealogies, and their conceptual trajectories. Something happens, through following the conceptual frame or enabling constraints of ‘you have an hour to teach anything,’ and of the instructions prepared by the teacher of the week. Participants come to be present, behold presence, discern the quality of presence, and be part of a community in more thoughtful ways. The Music Exchange Project As part of the collective, I put forward a pedagogical moment where members shared music with others in the group (Figure 9). In this project, I set up a chart on Google Sheets—a spreadsheet program that allows simultaneous collaboration and editing—where there is an ‘Individual’ section and a ‘Gifts’ section to add in song selections. I then prompted members to make song selections and fill out the chart one week in advance so that others can have a listen the week leading up to our meeting. 135 Nicole Lee From: Nicole Lee <e-mail omitted> Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 10:34 AM To: Members of Teach Anything British Columbia <e-mails omitted> Subject: TABC Season Two: June 23 Hi everyone, For our next session on Tuesday, June 23, 2pm, we will be turning toward the music in/of your life and gifting each other some tunes. Sometimes when I hear something and it reminds me of someone, I send it to them. Sometimes my friends send me songs they hear/love. Sometimes I ruminate on someone by playing a song that evokes a memory, a feeling, a moment. Sometime I time travel by listening to a song. What are your sometimes? Exchange Instructions 1. Access the exchange chart: 2. Populate this chart between June 10-18, 2020. Feel free to change your mind in this window of time. • There is an “Individual” section where I have inserted some categories to guide us, and a “Gifts” section where we can recommend/suggest/gift each other a song—try to give one to everyone participating. 136 • Kindly include the title and a link to where we can listen (e.g. YouTube, Spotify). I've put in my selections and hopefully that can offer an idea of what the activity looks like (your songs can be in different languages). Listening and Sharing 3. Have a listen to the music between June 18-23, 2020. 4. We’ll share our thoughts during our meeting on June 23, 2020. Best wishes, Nicole Figure 9 E-mail Correspondence with Music Exchange Project Participants This structure can be adapted to fit any number of participants. I am grateful that the members of TABC has given me permission to share their song selections for each other below. The chart is divided into the “Individual” section (Table 2) and “Gifts” section (Table 3). Identifying details, except for my own, have been omitted. 137 Individual Person A Person B Person C Person D Person E Nicole Lee “Very me” or “I love this” “Man is Not a Bird” by Broadcast “Bloodbuzz Ohio” by The National N/A N/A “Born to Die” by Lana Del Ray “Think About Things” by Daði Freyr “Means a lot to me” “Transcendence” by Alice Coltrane “Bird's Nest” By Jordaan Mason & The Horse Museum “Yesterday Once More” by Carpenters “When You Taught Me How to Dance” by Nigel Westlake, Micke Batt, Richard Maltby Jr., & Katie Melua “Khooneye Ma” by Marjan Farsad “青花瓷” by Jay Chou “On repeat now” (if applicable) “JU$T” by Run the Jewels, Zack De La Rocha, & Pharrel Williams “Maghawir” by Mashrou' Leila “Golden” by Harry Styles The Party Freeze Dance Game “Somewhere in Between” by Jacob Lavallee “Peace of Mind (feat. Vargas & Lagola)” by Avicii, Vargas, & Lagola “COVID-19 track” (if applicable) “Ba Da Da” by Gray “People, I’ve Been Sad” by Christine and the Queens N/A “Right in Time” by Lucinda Williams “Your Place is Empty” by sabaafa N/A Table 2 Selections for the Music Exchange Project (Individual) 138 Gifts Person A Person B Person C Person D Person E Nicole Lee Song from Person A “End of the World” by Anika “Banana Boat (Day-O)” by Harry Belafonte “Marie Douceur, Marie Colère” by Marie Laforêt “In a Landscape” by John Cage & Herbert Henck “I Know” by Gray Song from Person B “Two Weeks” by FKA twigs “Visions of Gideon” by Afonso Snow “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls “Love More” by Sharon Van Etten “Sea Talk” by Zola Jesus, JG Thirlwell, & Mivos Quartet Song from Person C “Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend “Everything Goes Right” by Charles Watson “Lay All Your Love on Me” by Dominic Cooper & Amanda Seyfried “Team” by Lorde “Nostalgic” by ARIZONA Song from Person D “Think” by Aretha Franklin “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone “Where is the Love?” by Black Eyed Peas “Blue” by Lucinda Williams “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” by Jessica Simpson Song from Person E “In This Way” by Jacob LaVallee “Blooming in the Valley” by Omid Shabani “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Remastered” by Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, & Dave Stewart “Drawing and Wind” by Shida Shahabi “Futō” by Shida Shahabi Nicole Lee “These Are The Times (feat. JRM)” by Martin Garrix, & JRM “Read All About It (pt III)” by Emeli Sandé “Children” by MATTN, Klaas, & Roland Clark “Ocean Breeze” by ItaloBrothers “We Own The Night” by The Wanted Table 3 Selections for the Music Exchange Project (Gifts for Others) 139 After participants filled out the music exchange chart and had a chance to listen to some of the selections, we met and discussed the process and experience. I guided a one-hour discussion following the series of questions here: 1. What did everyone think about the process and the music? 2. How did it feel to give and receive music? How might it inform our ideas around reciprocity? 3. How did you make your selections? 4. What worlds, musical and otherwise, did we participate in? 5. What kind of knowledge(s) might you have encountered through this activity? 6. What was your experience of listening to the songs gifted to you? 7. What kinds of conversations did this inspire (if any)? Discussion and Debrief This discussion of the project is inspired by group conversations during the meeting and one-on-one communications afterward. The project of fostering relationship, building community, developing access to presences, and grounding one’s self the (im)materiality of existence is never finished, and the Music Exchange Project (2020) is nothing but a frame that facilitates the process (see Sheringham, 2006). The ‘Individual’ section is intended to allow for an attunement of the other and the ‘Gifts’ section is meant to prompt relations to form. As the teacher and facilitator of the week endeavouring to experiment with pedagogy-as-art-practice, I experienced how teaching and conceptual art “are not only invisible, they are alive, ever-present, and mostly independent from whoever has convinced themselves that they are the ones who control the situation” (Lucero, 2020b, p. 37). After sending the invitation with the structure, I let 140 go and held my palms open for whatever happens. In approaching the discussion, I worked with what the participants brought. Exchanging music is a mundane activity that stirs memories of one’s youth, when sharing music might be a common, frequent, and casual practice. It evokes a sense of nostalgia as it feels familiar and intimate. Some participants wondered why they no longer do this as much and noted that they would like to return to it, because it is a fun and delightful way to bond with others. Having moved on from simpler times, sharing in an age of scarcity and competition can be threatening because of a fear of not having enough. It can be equally frightening to be exposed because of a fear of judgement. Music is an experience with the capacity to be shared and enjoyed without diminishing, which might present a joyful playground for (re)learning what it is to share and how to share. Sharing music enables vulnerability and risk-taking, but such a space can be well-held to allow for connections to flourish. One meets one’s self through this activity, specifically in the determination of the heaviness and lightness of the space in-between two individuals. This in-betweeness is an ethical space. Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones (2016), American curriculum studies and ethics scholar, borrows James Macdonald’s words when he writes that “there were only two questions worth asking in education: ‘What is the meaning of human existence?’ and ‘How shall we live together?’ This second question is the ethics question” (p. 6). For Blumenfeld-Jones, who draws from French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas: ethics arises between two people who are in a particular relationship to each other. He is very clear about this. Ethics is not a group phenomenon. Politics is a group phenomenon, involving sets of people bound together through common concerns expressed through language that makes sense of the world. (p. 5) 141 Directing one’s attention toward another summons contemplation upon the ethics of beholding that person. While maintaining the structure of the group, this activity allows for one-to-one relationships to develop—and with this, one exercises discernment of what would be fitting for the relationship. This is an ethical act. From this perspective, the sharing of music becomes as light and as heavy as one makes it to be. I expand on this idea of weight in the next section. Participants reported spending hours on being swept down acoustic rabbit holes and making choices with thoughtful consideration around the way(s) in which one beholds particular individuals. The presence of another is summoned and sustained with thought and imagination. This meditation is distilled into a song title and a link. I appreciate Lucero’s (2020b) observation that: it’s not always easy to tell what goes into a manifested—or outward—gesture. The thing we’re looking at may look insignificant. We may have even witnessed its creation and therefore feel positive about how insignificant or unworthy it is. But the complexity of a lived life sometimes only offers us a few buds to examine. (p. 49) While the execution of form is simple, much thought has gone into the copy-and-pasting of a link in a chart. With self-critical humour, members talked about tendencies to overthink, though it seemed like everyone took care, respect, and attentiveness toward another seriously. Gifts were selected with hope and anticipation that the other receives them in intended ways, despite the one-to-one transmission of meaning being an impossible task. Some of the strategies for making selections include drawing from a shared memory, suggesting what might be new to others, offering what one thinks the other will like, going with the feeling of the individual, avoiding lyrics to evoke nonverbal emotion, and sending a message through aural means. There were 142 acknowledgements of not knowing and making a selection anyway. Trust and generosity, therefore, seemed essential in the giving and receiving process. The chart can be read in multiple ways to glean different insights. Read as one document, it displays a kind of acoustic landscape of the group. One might catch glimpses of the kind of rhythms, melodies, themes, and moods toward which someone might gravitate; the activities in which one might be engaged; the ethnocultural communities with which someone might identify or is part of; the quality of access, experiences, and ways of knowing shared between individuals; the level of comfort and trust one might have with another; the risks taken; and the invitations and openings for conversation. However, one quickly comes to the realization that one cannot really know and the other is out of reach. These understandings come from imaginings, ‘guestimations,’ and affective movements. Such points of access can bring others closer and bring them into better focus. When I listen to the music that I have posted in the ‘Individual’ section (vertical reading), I notice a yearning for the other’s understanding. When I listen the music that others have posted in the ‘Individual’ section (vertical reading), I encounter traces of their presence and come to touch the affective vibration of their being. When I listen to the music I have been gifted (vertical reading), I meditate upon who I am to others, whether there might be a story embedded in the aural, how I might be perceived by others, and whether there might be threads between the threads. When listening to the selections I gifted others (horizontal reading), I hope that there would be resonances for them and that they would forgive my misinterpretation of them. When I listen to the music given to others by the same individual (horizontal reading), I wonder how they approached their giving practice. Listening involves lingering in the mystery that is a relationship, as every being is part of worlds upon worlds. 143 0.11 Experience: Weight of Worlding In thinking about presence through conceptual art, particularly pedagogy-as-art-practice, I am led to the process of worlding. Through working with the enabling constraints of the pedagogical moment, one summons the other into focus when beholding each other with sustained attention and care. Through the process of listening to the music shared, one encounters the acoustic, affective, and relational worlds that is the other, and that the other is part of. Participating in the Music Exchange Project entails responding to Aoki’s (1981/2005j) invitation to linger in the metaphor of a bridge in an exploration of what happens in the “in-between” space and the “and” of self and other. He writes: When two strangers meet, indeed two worlds meet. How is it when two worlds meet? I have heard that a bridge is necessary only when there are two worlds to begin with and when there is a committed interest in bridging the two worlds. (p. 219) Beings dwell in the world. Each embody a world. They also participate in many worlds. As they move, they bring worlds with them. When two strangers with committed interest to connect are bridged, what happens on this bridge? What happens between the two particular and singular life worlds that these strangers embody? Encountering Worlds Upon Worlds On being as a world and being part of worlds, Critchley (2009b) notes how, for Heidegger: If the human being is really being-in-the-world, then this entails that the world itself is part of the fundamental constitution of what it means to be human. That is to say, I am not a free-floating self or ego facing a world of objects that stands over against me. Rather, for 144 Heidegger, I am my world. The world is part and parcel of my being, of the fabric of my existence. (para. 3) In other words, the world is not an extant object nor the sum of everything in it (Cheah, 2016). Upon entering the world at birth, one embodies a world because of one’s entanglement in webs of relations. Noë (2012) proposes the notion that: “I achieve myself. Not on my own, to be sure! And not in a heroic way. Maybe it would be truer to say that my parents and my friends and family and children and colleagues have achieved me for me” (p. 13). He emphasizes that the phenomenon of how “the world shows up… corresponds [to] the fact that we ourselves show up” (p. 12). Because “worlds open up that would otherwise be closed off” through this cultivation and “[i]n this way we achieve for ourselves new ways of being present” (Noë, 2012, p. 13), we achieve ourselves through dwelling aright in the webs of relations. Along with this claim, Noë (2012) recognizes the need “to give up the idea that the world shows up as a remote object of contemplation” (p. 3). Through the sharing of music, participants exercise their capacities for perceiving the other. For Noë (2012), “[p]erception is a transaction; it is the sharing of a situation with what you perceive” (p. 3). When space is held open for input and for listening to each other, worlds can grow and become together. Coming to know someone or something means one can access the other in a particular way. Therefore, one can anticipate a certain kind of dance in the interaction, though not the exact movements of the dance nor the fullness of who or what the other is (becoming). Worlds can grow together while apart if they can behold each other and sustain a connection. Worlds can grow apart while together if they do not cultivate the meeting points. This is because “[t]he world shows up for us in experience only insofar as we know how to make contact with it, or, to use a different metaphor, only insofar as we are able to bring it into focus” 145 (Noë, 2012, p. 2). When meeting points or a capacity for access no longer materialize, the presence of the other fades. People become strangers. Places become alienating. Things become unimportant and forgotten. Connections can be established again, certainly. It demands an active engagement with another and the formation of new meeting points. While spatial and temporal distances change the nature of an interaction, it does not automatically denote the dissolution of access. Slipping between zones of proximity, someone or something can feel nearer or farther away, regardless of spatial and temporal distance. The Music Exchange Project (2020) is an elastic container that can hold as much and as little time, energy, engagement, commitment, and attention as one would like to give. There is both a lightness and a heaviness to the activity that is self-directed and self-imposed because it invites meditations upon what matters, why it matters, the quality of what matters, and how much it matters. This weight might come from how a particular someone, the larger community, and the activity at hand begin to creep into the forefront of significance. Someone or something can come to matter when one hauls them into presence through the development of personal understandings and distinct epistemological access. This does not mean that the other has no intrinsic value nor that worth is solely dependent on an external granter. Worth can be attributed through understanding, whether this takes the form of self-understanding or the understanding of another being. Noë (2012) writes that “understanding is akin to an ability” and he “propose[s] that we think of concepts as tools for picking up features of the world around us, or techniques for grasping things, features, aspects, qualities. To learn a concept is to learn to grasp something” (p. 127). Understanding brings what is strange into the realm of the familiar and this is a process of worlding. 146 Worlding Adding the ‘ing’ suffix to world signifies that the noun ‘world’ changes into a verb. Worlding is the organization of relationships between humans, non-humans, and more-than-human entities. It is an inventive process of making meaning, constructing stories about relationships, and finding forms to represent one’s compositional arrangement of the world. Worlding fosters both the capacity to bring someone or something into focus and to push them into the background of obscurity, which can both be creative and destructive. Not everything matters at all times or in the same way, as that would flatten ontology. Hauling elements to the forefront of presence means pushing other elements back—some into obscurity. I approach this idea through the analogy of an artistic composition, where tonal values and perspective are important aspects in distinguishing the qualities of the world. If everything matters at the same time and in the same way, there would be a flooding of light that can be blinding, overwhelming, and damaging, because it risks losing one’s self in a sea of others. It is the quality of this light—a metaphor for epistemological access points—that allows the discernment of hues, values, tones, shades, and tints. Without the definition of dimensional volume, texture, and contrast, the blur of flatness washes over everything. Therefore, the preservation of difference is of utmost importance in hauling the world into presence. Since humans “don’t differentiate well among the unfamiliar” (Noë, 2012, p. 115), worlding requires “gain[ing] knowledge, and familiarity, and skill, and so we are able to bring the world into focus for perceptual consciousness” (p. 116). Drawing from Heidegger’s writing on the world, being-in-the-world, and worldliness in relation to postcolonial literature, Pheng Cheah (2016)—scholar in rhetoric—notes how “[o]ur worldliness is a capacity for disposing and placing beings in the world” (p. 100). This capacity allows one to triage one’s priorities, align 147 them with the reality of what is happening, and make appropriate adjustments. Worldliness grants permission to hold on and let go as the situation deems necessary. The notion of worlding has been taken up by feminist new materialist and postcolonial discourses, among other brackets, labels, and categories of scholarship. They are of note because I appreciate theorists who bring a multiplicity of things from the background of obscurity and pull them into the forefront of focus and presence by articulating their understandings of how elements—often overlooked, hidden, faded, and/or in the margins—come to matter. While I briefly discuss them here to underline some of the possibilities of worlding, these are not the only ways to world. Embedded in each field of study, genealogy of scholarship, domain of philosophy, paradigm of positioning, frame of storying, and ways of being in the world are a distinct set of values and things that matter. Entering different worlds involves encountering the other and being elastic in embracing multiplicities. Participating in different worlds invites one to become a polyglot in the language of what matters so that elements can be shifted, reworked, and summoned into presence in flexible ways. In the worlds of feminist new materialists, attention is drawn to the potentiality and weight of the affective, atmospheric, and immaterial within ecologies of “[d]isparate and incommensurate elements (human and non-human, given and composed) [that] cohere and take on force” (Stewart, 2014, p. 119). Barad (2007) recognizes as well that “[m]atter isn’t situated in the world; matter is worlding in its materiality… Intra-action enact[s] specific boundaries, marking the domains of interiority and exteriority, differentiating the intelligible from the unintelligible, the determinate from the indeterminate” (p. 180-181). Worlding in this way, one pays “attention to the relationship between nature and culture, turn(s) to matter, distributive agency and privileging relations, prioritizing affect, and a movement away from the linguistic 148 turn and representationalism” (Truman, 2019, p. 3). The desire to be with/in the world without categorical representation can be found in Stewart’s (2008) weak theory, where “countless moments in which something throws itself together” (p. 73), made up of “singularities that don’t add up but are always threatening to” (p. 72). Stewart (2014) notices how: an assemblage of elements comes to hang together as a thing that has qualities, sensory aesthetics and lines of force and how such things come into sense already composed and generative and pulling matter and mind into a making: a worlding. (p. 119) Such worldings can be messy, random, and confusing, but they make room for chaos and complexity. They summon one to take the necessary time to be moved by surrounding forces and become aware of the movement. In postcolonial discourses, worlding appears as part of a cautionary tale. Worlding is used by Indian literary, feminist, and postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1985) in relation to the story of Captain Geoffrey Birch of East India Company, who travels in 1815 around the foothills of the Himalayas while escorted by a native guide. The purpose of the Captain’s trip, as evident in a letter he pens, is: consolidating the self of Europe by obliging the native to cathect the space of the Other on his home ground. He is worlding their own world, which is far from mere uninscribed earth, anew, by obliging them to domesticate the alien as Master. (p. 253) In this world, the other is less than, subject to colonial power, hierarchical structures, and agendas, because “the worlding of a world generates the force to make the ‘native’ see himself as ‘other’” (Spivak, 1985, p. 254). When the colonized come to see themselves as the other through the eyes of the European imperialist and the world(view)s superimposed onto an “uninhabited” and “uninscribed” earth, the worlding of worlds can enact epistemic violence of constructing a 149 self-consolidating other (Spivak, 1985, p. 267). Worlding is about the storying of truth and history, and in this case, “the truth value of the stranger is being established as the reference point for the true (insertion into) history of these wild regions” (p. 254). Worlding becomes a dangerous and destructive force when what matters, what is privileged, what is centered, and what is focused is inappropriate, unethical, uncritical, and/or unjust. Feminist new materialists attempt to “decenter humanism in a variety of ways” (Truman, 2019, p. 3), while postcolonial theorists decenter Western imperialism and power to focus on the subordinated. Both hauls ‘the other’ to the forefront of presence. While I acknowledge a critical need to shift from the established center and assumptions around its primacy, decentering means that there is still a center, just that it is now elsewhere. The language of decentering can pose challenges for those already in the margins since the act further destabilizes their place in the world. Furthermore, decentering continues to rely on and be in relation to what was at the center. The images associated with decentering can be a bullseye with concentric circles or an autofocus frame in a camera. They are useful heuristics to think through one’s priorities, how something can be framed, and how elements might be included/excluded. Yet, it remains important to question the limitations of the center-margin structural apparatus through which one views the world. Worlding, for me, entails recognizing, challenging, and reworking these apparatuses rather than applying a consistent one to interpret the world. Different apparatuses allow for distinct epistemological accesses to the world. The world is a composition with elements that show up depending on what matters and the qualities of access to what matters. Worlding is about constructing multifaceted understandings. 150 Boundaries While understanding can illuminate the world, worlding does not mean enabling free and open access with everyone and everything, because this lack of boundaries risks a flooding of one’s composition, or “the referential space that gives [things] meaning” (Han, 2017, p. 21). Entering others’ compositions of the world demands careful discernment and critical awareness of how elements are organized and what matters are brought to the forefront of presence. Worlding does not entail automatically accepting the way others have arranged their world, nor transposing and adopting other’s entire worldviews as one’s own, as doing so would entail losing one’s own gravitational tension. As Han (2017) notes, “because of the missing gravitation, things are encountered only fleetingly. Nothing carries weight. Nothing in incisive, nothing final. There are no incisions. When it is no longer possible to decide what is of importance, then everything loses importance” (p. 25). Therefore, ascertaining and maintaining boundaries is crucial and fundamental to grounding what matters in the world. Brené Brown (2015), American researcher and storyteller who studies courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, extends a simple definition of boundaries: “boundaries are simply our lists of what’s okay and what’s not okay” (p. 126). She asserts that “[i]ntegrity is key to this commitment because it’s how we set those boundaries and ultimately hold ourselves and others accountable for respecting them” (p. 123). Integrity is held when one exercises worldliness, honours personal practices of worlding, encounters other worlds with a humility to learn what matters in other worlds, and upholds what matters to the self with an openness for the composition to shift. It is an invitation to linger on the bridge (Aoki, 1981/2005j) of self and other, which encourages the development of interdependent connections between the two life worlds without flattening them into the same category of differences in degree. 151 Boundary setting needs to be combined with the generosity and “compassion to assume people are doing their best” (Brown, 2015, p. 126). With this practice, “we’re strengthened by the self-respect that comes from the honoring of our boundaries, rather than being flattened by disappointment and resentment” (p. 126). The set of boundaries in each relation hold a unique arrangement of qualities. When communicated, negotiated, and established well, they allow respectful co-existence. Boundary setting is often exemplified visually by the drawing of lines, delineating where one area begins and ends. However, they are not as precise and unambiguous as this analogy might suggest. The line(s) can be (in)formal, explicit, implicit, (un)bending, (im)permeable, perceived, real, clear, blurred, moving, and rigid. The spaces that they delineate can be broad, narrow, (un)fairly carved, (in)appropriate, (in)sufficient, (in)finite, sacred, and profane. The nature of the contexts where boundaries are drawn can be physical, cultural, social, political, geographical, disciplinary, professional, and institutional, among others. There can be many grey areas in boundary setting as life happens. Setting boundaries is the negotiation of expectation of access between human-human and human-material entities. Like enabling constraints, they guide the unfolding of who, what, where, why, when, how of an engagement. In human-material engagements, the materiality of places and objects innately shape one’s way of being with them. Disrespecting this materiality and asserting one’s will can cause dangerous risks. Being intimately entangled does not mean a flattening of ontology or the absolution of boundaries, as it is precisely because boundaries are drawn that acts that go beyond the expected are out of the ordinary, making them special or alarming, depending on the situation. In human-human engagements, Aoki (1991/2005b) summons us “to release… from the hold of this metaphysical totality that reduce… ‘belonging 152 together’ to the eminence of togetherness in belonging together… By thinking differently” (p. 396). Bringing the world into focus through access demands an ethics of engaging with the other. 153 0.12 Learning: Toward Ethics, Perhaps Even Love In this moment of presence, one comes to find a good—ethical—way to develop each epistemological point of access and one’s compositional arrangement of the world. As elements are brought into focus through the process of worlding, what matters change, the role that calls to be filled shifts, and the actions that demand courageous and responsible attention vary. Specifically, I discuss a living ethics that involves a commitment to the good of the situation and how finding the good might be guided by love. Bondage of Ethics Blumenfeld-Jones (2016) writes that “[e]thics, at its most fundamental, is about how we live together, how we determine what is the right or good way to be with others, and how to form a society that reflects those understandings” (p. 10). There are paths that are unambiguously wrong, right, good, and bad in certain compositional arrangements of the world—and bad does not necessarily equal wrong and good does not necessarily equal right. There are also abundant paths in the in-between grey space of the spectrum. As one reshuffles what is brought into focus, the choices made available and the ways through which choices are assessed alter. Ethics come alive at the edge of becoming, hinging on one’s approach to worlding, the choices one makes, as well as one’s action (and inaction) toward the world. As situations and contexts continue to change and push and pull at the definitions and limitations of right and wrong, good and bad, no one set of ethics can govern with finality. Instead of asserting a code and establishing rules with clear parameters for judgement, ethics is more an invitation to consider how one can discern an appropriate, good, and just path. In my discussion of ethics and perhaps even love, I move away from the evaluative parameters of 154 should, which dictates how one ought to act in a moral sense as if there is only one path. The obligation of should is a heavy burden of guilt disguised as responsibility. In the translator introduction of Levinas’ (1978/1991) Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Alphonso Lingis offers that “[f]or Levinas responsibility is the response to the imperative addressed in the concrete act of facing. Responsibility is in fact a relationship with the other, in his very alterity. Then a relationship with alterity as such is constitutive of subjectivity” (xiii). Responsibility can be understood as another kind of meeting point that brings the other (and the world that is the other) into focus, and in turn, we ourselves come into presence (Noë, 2012, p. 12). There is a similar description of how everything shows up in Barad’s (2007) agential realist world, where “the mutual constitution of entangled agencies… emerge through, their intra-action” (p. 33). She articulates an ethics of mattering—a posthumanist ethics, or an ethics of worlding—that goes beyond human-human encounters (p. 391-396). In such a world, responsibility is defined as “the ability to respond to the other” (p. 392) and it “entails an ongoing responsiveness to the entanglements of self and other, here and there, now and then” (p. 394). I appreciate Barad’s version of the world because it holds space for how a situation can come together. Simultaneously, I am struck by the absolute necessity outlined by Levinas and Barad to be create bonds because it makes up the whatness of being. While I understand that one is always already in relation and have no theoretical objections to offer, it seems that these compositional arrangements of the world lack boundaries in the actualization of responsibility. Must one create bonds with all others, as in every thing—is that even possible? What might be the quality of such responsibilities if one must attend with ongoing responsiveness to all others? When might it be an ethical act to turn away and revoke access? When might it be an ethical act to push something to the background of obscurity? 155 Situational Ethics There are many set of ethics that I am drawn to, though abiding to each as doctrine across all situations poses immediate complications. One can always find at least one circumstance where the rules do not and/or cannot apply. Situations are complex matrixes of temporal, spatial, contextual, relational, cultural, historical, geographical, and ecological entanglements. Attempts to articulate ethics demonstrate the impossibility of having the final say on the ‘thing that works’ that can be used for judging everything, once and for all, for all eternity. There is no doubt that my discussion here will meet this dilemma as well. Aoki (1987/1999/2005i) reminds us that: Mindfulness of the situation allows the person in the situation to recognize that application is a hermeneutic act, remembering that being in the situation is a human being in his becoming. This mindfulness allows the listening to what it is that a situation is asking. (p. 155) For a person like myself, who lives in the multiplicity of ands, the third space, the liminal, as well as the zone of in-between and neither-or, ethics lie in hauling various compositional arrangements of the world into focus and filling the gap of necessity in a situation. It means constantly assessing one’s choices and actions in relation to several frames and worldviews. Ethics lie in the conversation and process of considering what would be good and appropriate for particular circumstances, places/spaces, and contexts. It is a living ethics that is embodied, one that unfolds in the in-between space of situations, and one that requires a different set of considerations each time. Pinar (2019) notes how “[t]he complexity of ethics—‘right conduct’—resides in not only summoning the courage to proceed when there are no alternatives; it resides also in determining where to go when several paths—with uncertain destinations—present themselves” (p. 263). 156 When frozen with anxiety about whether I am proceeding in the best possible means, I am comforted by Indian American author Deepak Chopra’s (2004) words as they seem to alleviate, at least slightly, the weight of decision making: If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. (p. 92) This approach to forging a path ahead empowers one to step boldly forward, allowing one to embrace kindness toward the self while proceeding with the best intention and effort. It does not absolve the lack of responsibility toward the other and an absent commitment to the good. In the context of teaching and leadership, Aoki (1987/2005f) talks about following the pedagogic good, where a leader “must lead by following that which is true to that which is good in the situation within which he dwells” (p. 351). Because one teaches the self to find a way through in the process of cultivating a relationship with the unknown, one also leads the self with a commitment to that which is true and good in the situation. Commitment to the Good While the good seems to be a nebulous aspiration, it seems recognizable when one encounters it. My understanding of the Good is influenced by Grant and Levinas’s use of the term as another name for God, and by Plato’s theory of forms, where the Good is a timeless and absolute idea or form that one accesses. Whether from a religious or a theoretical perspective, the good is something that is in the beyond and pursuing it seems to be a spiritual endeavour. Pinar 157 (2019) asserts that “the manifestations of ‘the Good’ must mutate, not opportunistically nor at the expense of others, but the justice of ‘what we are fitted for’ shifts in time even if the maxim does not” (p. 331). A living ethics that involves a commitment to the good of the situation can “sound too mystical,” as Chopra (2004) suggests, and if this is the case, he advises to “refer again to the body. Every significant vital sign—body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, hormone level, brain activity, and so on—alters the moment you decide to do anything” (p. 92). Listening to the body is imperative in the navigation of ethics as it influences the direction to which one turns. The responsibility to face the other does not demand a betrayal of the direction toward which one feels called. While alterity matters, the self also matters. By dwelling in the middle, one comes to an understanding of respect for others and one’s self. Ethics emerge from balancing the value of existences in the world, including one’s own. The expression of that value need not be uniform nor simultaneous. Rather, it takes on the quality that is tailored to all involved, the time, and the situation. One needs to take care in these expressive acts because overextension and over-giving can lead to the festering of resentment. When responsibility—discerned by Lingis as “a bond[,]” “a relationship with the other, in his very alterity[,]” and a “form of recognition… of the force of the other, of alterity itself” (Levinas, 1978/1991, p. xiii)—becomes one-sided, toxic, abusive, manipulative, violent, and/or too heavy to bear, a commitment to the good allows one to choose self-love. Perhaps Even Love For me, a commitment to the good means acknowledging the guidance of something beyond a responsibility to the other. A responsibility to the other does not mean one becomes 158 locked into a relationship for the sake of ethics. Considerations of the good that goes beyond the other can be most apparent in the remnants of broken relationships, particularly ones touched by love in all its forms. Ruti (2011) suggests that “whenever we accept love’s invitation, we also extend one: we open the door to another person so that he or she can, metaphorically speaking, set up camp within our interiority” (p. 4). Through love for another, Ruti describes how an evolving space develops in the in-between of partners—one that belongs to both who enter a relationship and one that is “a bottomless spring of mutual expansion, provided both partners remain committed to tending it” (p. 154). Such love is “the very antithesis of a static commitment” (Ruti, 2011, p. 154) as the shared space is about growth rather than restriction. Ruti (2011) considers one’s fidelity to love as “staying dedicated to love as a process” (p. 154), and she elaborates: the aim of love may be less to make us satisfied or comfortable than to initiate us to nuances of human experience that might otherwise elude us. From this perspective, there are few mistakes in love. There are no mishaps, but merely fresh opportunities for learning. Even the worst of love’s disappointments can, over time, yield things of consequence. (p. 155) Embracing this approach to love allows for both a hardening and a softening as well as adjustments on how light and how heavy something might become. It enables compassion, forgiveness, and release even while the grips of love remain strong. This “fidelity to love includes our willingness to enter into a process of elaborating the meaning of even its most traumatic disenchantments” (Ruti, 2011, p. 156). Beyond the love that is directed toward another, an ethics guided by the beyond of love is a love for and as the process of shepherding the good. Barad (2007) states that “[e]thics is 159 therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part” (p. 393). This responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming is toward the good. This involves being truthful, realistic, and practical about one’s capacity to shepherd the good without inflation, overconfidence, and overpromise. The good is not the “moral-intimate-economic thing called ‘the good life’” (p. 2)—the should—that Berlant (2011) critiques, which espouses “good-life fantasies… by which people hoard idealizing theories and tableaux about how they and the world ‘add up to something’” (p. 2). With the recognition and acknowledgement of one’s limited capacity, the good does not demand that one breaks to satisfy self-imposed or external expectations. There is a point where good enough is the good, as it is the path where one puts their best forward in the realm of what can be controlled, given the circumstances. The rest remains with the universe, or God, or whoever/whatever sets all in motion. A commitment to the good involves making peace with what good enough means. This chapter considers how one might establish epistemological access points to find presences, how a pedagogy-as-art-practice offering may inform one’s understanding of presence, what it means to haul the world into focus, and how the process of worlding leads one to an ethics informed by a commitment to the good that might perhaps be love. Leggo (2011/2019), who has often promoted the need for love in education, advises that “[i]n order to love others, we must first love ourselves. We cannot learn to love by attending to the abstract and universal. We need to begin with small acts of love” (p. 60). To love one’s self means finding a home within the self. In the next turn of the square of cultivating a relationship with the unknown, one reaches—and returns—home, transformed from the movement through the unknown, attunement, and presence. 160 Hold for 4 | Home In 2016, I set out from Toronto, Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia on my journey to search for a sense of peace, security, and stability that one would hope to find at home. Between then and at the time of writing this, I have repeatedly left the shores of comfort and lived through the square again and again. If the unknown is always on the horizon of becoming, attunement to the beyond is an engagement in possibilities of what one might be fitted for, and presence is process of worlding and bringing aspects of the world into focus, then this moment of reaching home is one of dwelling in-between the overlapping lifeworlds that have been hauled in. Such dwelling means curating and organizing which elements to bring into focus in the private and interior. What was once at the horizon of becoming can grow familiar and even intimate. Kaag’s (2018) sentiment that “[p]erhaps a pilgrim triumphs not in hardship but in the rare moment when they learn to accept something soft at home” (p. 138-139) touches me deeply. Each time I finish a square and return home, I seem to find a piece of the mystery that is myself. While I have not landed on a conclusion on where home is physically on this Earth, and this exploration of home is at best unfinished, I feel more comfortable within myself after taking the numerous journeys around the square. 0.13 Concept: On Home Researching with the term ‘home’ yield texts about the practices of making a home (i.e. interior design ideas, cookbooks, Do-It-Yourself manuals, and lifestyle guides), how individuals search for and come to (not) find home (i.e. autobiographical memoirs and fictional stories), and how one finds peace within (spiritual and religious materials). Though one can critique many of these as not being serious enough for inclusion in a theoretical discussion, all seem to me to 161 reflect important aspects of home. In the process of writing about the concept of home, I fostered a Chihuahua named Chance for close to a month, from October 24, 2020 to November 18, 2020. In a short time, she had lost her master who passed away, her mother from whom she needed to be separated, her uterus from a spay surgery, and most of her teeth from extensive dental care. The experience of getting to know Chance, attending to her as my gravitational center, and making my dwelling hers taught me much about home. The understandings in this turn are informed by my time with her. It was Chance who taught me that home is a place where one lives and returns, shaped by a set of practices, routines, and rituals that ground one in the creation of a shared reality and history with others. While rules, customs, and habits can be stifling if they do not change with the currents of the present and if they do not accommodate all who are expected to follow them, they can provide a stabilizing foundation for roots to develop. Thinking about home in relation to Homer’s Odyssey in which Odysseus travels home after the Trojan War, French philologist and philosopher Barbara Cassin (2016) remarks that “[o]ne recognizes it, I think, because one is recognized there, that is, because one has one’s identity there” (p. 15). Recognizing, being recognizable, and being recognized can strengthen attachments to place. Over time, one can develop attachments to a place of return that offers safety, comfort, and rest. My Lived History with Home As both a personal and universal experience, home is a complex and delicate subject that remains intricately connected to the specificity of one’s context and experience, accessed from one’s rootedness in the present moment. My move to Vancouver was not the first time I had relocated, as my family immigrated from Hong Kong to Toronto, Ontario in 1997. Our 162 immigration was not driven by a fear of losing our freedom and prosperity under the impending Chinese rule as popular discourse of Hong Kong-Canadian immigration of that time might suggest. Our reasons probably throw a wedge in the savior narrative of Canada: My father had experienced this land when my grandfather sent him to study abroad; any Western education is regarded as superior to what is offered at home due to British colonialism and my parents wanted a better future for me; everyone else was applying at the time; and most important of all, my parents believed that it was ‘meant to be’ when they found out our family’s application was approved despite it being a notoriously selective process. Over the years, my family struggled and learned how to be Canadian in Toronto while maintaining close ties with Hong Kong, returning every year, then every other year, then every three years, and eventually every five or more years. Continuing to observe customs, make foods, dance around traditional expectations, speak Cantonese, and watch Chinese dramas, we stayed vigilant in defending against cultural loss in the private realm. In the meantime, I navigated and participated in a multiplicity of practices and ways of being in the world as Chinese Canadian in the public realm. While my parents continued to dream about the possibility of return, I wandered further away to find home. Chambers (1999) notes how “home is a very ambiguous notion for most English-speaking and immigrant Canadians. Many of us are unsure where we come from, where here is, and whether we belong” (p. 147). When I lived in Toronto, I thought Hong Kong was home. Now living in Vancouver, Toronto became home. Home is paradoxical idea—both intimate and faraway. The concept poses unique tensions: between being physically at a location called ‘home’ and feeling at home; between knowing what it might or should be conceptually speaking and finding an actual manifestation incompatible with the idea; and between longing to be rooted somewhere and yearning to escape 163 the confinement of locality. 24 years after immigrating to Canada, I am still wondering where home is—a quintessential Canadian condition grounded in the real, embodied, material crossing of borders (Chambers, 2006, p. 7). Bringing together the paradoxes and multiplicities of the concept, Chambers (2006) calls for a radically different imagining of home: as the places where we live, walk, write, work, and go to school; the physical, emotional and spiritual places where we learn to be at home with others, as well as, ourselves; the place where others means not only neighbours but ancestors—spiritual and familial —theirs and ours—as well as our descendants. We need to offer a home that recognizes we inhabit these places with all animate beings (the land, the stars, the animals, the plants) those with no power to purchase comfort or survival. And perhaps most importantly, as curriculum theorists we must proffer the reality of a home where we learn the hard lessons of living with our enemies, the ones who bring us suffering, as Thich Nhat Han says. (p. 8) As such, my conceptualization of home is tied to my lived history. Its compact complexity is akin to a knotted and twisted ball of yarn that I am trying to comb through, untangle, reorganize, and re-wind into a workable construct. Homesickness and Homecoming Having spent extended periods away from what I consider home and being immobilized by estrangement and alienation in the new place, I was constantly filled with nostalgia and homesickness. By new, I mean the place where my becoming is unfolding, and as such, the place continues to be new even if I have lived in it for close to 20 years (as is the case of Toronto). On homesickness, Heidegger (1983/1995) notes that “Novalis on one occasion says in a fragment: ‘Philosophy is really homesickness, an urge to be at home everywhere.’ A strange definition, 164 romantic of course” (p. 5). This urge is paralleled, as Heidegger explains, by how “[p]hilosophy can only be such an urge if we who philosophize are not at home everywhere” (p. 5). Cassin (2016) makes a similar note: “[f]or what, in the end, is nostalgia nostalgic? Nostalgia for the same, or nostalgia for the other?... nostalgia has two sides: rootedness and wandering” (p. 24). Not being at home anywhere and longing to be at home everywhere brought me to a certain melancholic resignation where I concluded that I would simply drift on looking for camps that I can stay with for a while before moving again. Conceptualizing home as moving from camp to camp shaped a disposition that propelled me to philosophize through and about my discomfort in the world brought on by the estranging unfamiliar and the fear-inducing unknown. Homesickness does not come with a map with exact temporal-spatial coordinates for return. Wherever I was located, I ached to go back to a past that no longer exists, (mis)remembering it as better times. This fantasy of the past epitomizes the if-only, the path not taken, and the possible self that might be more comfortable in the world. The seemingly backwards movement of return—physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically—sets one forward. Each attempt to return does not, and indeed, cannot, take one back to the exact same place, time, and world. In each of my returns to a previous home, I notice the difference between what exists there and my (limited) memory of what existed. I always make it a point to revisit the locations that mean something to me and listen to the stories of the people and place to update my understanding and catch up to the changes. Over time, however, the pace and nuance of these changes go beyond my ability to piece together what has happened there. I am left with snapshots of before and after, and at some point, my window of homecoming seems to expire. This is not that I cannot physically go home, but the return takes on the quality of a visitation rather than a homecoming. 165 The expiration of homecoming is explored in Cassin’s (2016) rumination on the Odyssey. She questions: whether Odysseus, the only one of the survivors not to have returned home, is “returnable,” nostimos in Greek, whether he is ever going to know “the day of return,” nostimon ēmar, or whether this has been taken “away” (I, 9), whether his day of homecoming “has perished” or been “lost” (I, 168, 354). (p. 10) One can get sucked into the loss of what was and is no longer, but the gap can also fuel a sense of accomplishment of how much one has grown—how far one has come. I envision the movement of return resembling a series of cursive e’s (Figure 10). With each upswing of the curve, the line comes down in a loop that looks like it is going backwards, but then propels the point of becoming into an upswing of what comes next. The idea of returning invites a consideration of one’s relation to the past and dreams of the future. A return to the same place, with the same people, in the same moment is an illusion to begin with, as time’s arrow only marches forward. Figure 10 A Series of Cursive E’s 166 Turning Camp to Home The conceptualization of home as a camp was a camp in itself, from which I gradually moved on. While I recognize value in dwelling in one’s discomfort as expansion can be challenging, I became increasingly dissatisfied with dwelling with/in discomfort all the time. Evidently, the excessive exaltation of discomfort and the unfamiliar can be problematic. Now, five years into my stay in Vancouver, I am beginning to turn my camp into a home, albeit a temporary one. Making a home requires the slow and persistent work of the everyday. Tangibly, the experiences that helped me become more rooted include: coming to know what is around my locality; understanding the history of the land and what came before my arrival; developing relationships to which I feel called to return; cleaning my space and getting to know every corner intimately; expanding culinary proficiencies to absorb tastes of home; acquiring objects and furniture that enables an unfolding of possibilities; (re)organizing and (re)arranging things so that there is a place for everything; and establishing a commitment to a rhythm of living. These practices are paired with Chambers’ (1999) urging: to search within the physical and imaginary landscape of Canada for the tools we need to see our home, to help us understand how we have come to be “out of place” in this home, and how we can finally come home here. (p. 147) Making a home is a process of making a life one’s own. In this sense, home is something that one continuously creates rather than something that becomes finished. My hesitance to turn a camp into a home comes from the impermanence of the situation and the inevitability of departure. Yet, the risk of not doing so means living in a constant state of suspension. One drifts in the uncomfortable safety of suspension until one concedes to belonging and rootedness in place. Sometimes one becomes accustomed to the state of suspension without 167 conscious awareness and only comes into realization through the shock of comfort and the possibilities it affords. The shock of comfort came unexpectedly for me in Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver, an exhibition held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2017. I remember seeing Paul Chui’s Stain #6 (1977), finally coming to understand the nostalgic familiarity that my colleagues and professors in art school often found in the Canadian and European collections in the Art Gallery of Ontario. The acrylic on canvas painting is a 93” x 44” slab of concrete grey with a single off-centered spout from which glossy dark liquid poured down. Looking closely, one notices a delicately painted fly beside the stream. It reminded me of the mountain roads in Hong Kong, where mounds of soil are covered in concrete—I assume this is to prevent landslides. The spouts help to drain the soil. I stood in front of that painting, stunned to find that I had been suspended in a state of being out of place for so long that I had forgotten that I was in suspension. Moved by the comfort of familiarity, I learned that I yearned for it—for the relaxation, pleasure, warmth, and satisfaction of resting in a place of safety and security. Like the fly in the picture, I wanted to land. Home in the Eternal Being at home means being able to rest easy in the world. Heidegger (1983/1995) writes that: to be at home everywhere means to be at once and at all times within the whole. We name this “within the whole” and its character of wholeness the world. We are, and to the extent that we are, we are always waiting for something. We are always called upon by something as a whole. This “as a whole” is the world. (p. 5) 168 The desire to be with/in or belong to a whole signals something cosmic and spiritual that transcends temporality and becomes part of the eternal. Reaching the cosmic whole, or going home, might mean returning to the eternal from which one comes into being. Speculative fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin (2017) composes, in relation to William Wordsworth’s ode, that “a soul enters life forgetting its eternal being, can remember it throughout life only in intimations and moments of revelation, and will recall and rejoin it fully only in death” (p. 124). Though no one knows for sure what awaits a human beyond the threshold of death, it is comforting to consider the possibility of a return to the eternal, since a return suggests that one has been there before and is therefore less frightening, and the eternal suggests continuation of some kind in some form. While one might be gripped by homesickness, surely there is no need to be overly homesick for the eternal because one is always already homeward-bound and will land in it sooner or later. The lives of all are marked by impermanence, but the span of one’s life is too short for discomfort and suspension all the time. The concept of home invites one to find a place where one can dwell and rest in the comfort of familiarity. 169 0.14 Art: Thinking Through Textile and Installation Art Through the textile and installation art of knit yarnbombing, I contemplated on the concept of home: what it can mean and where I might be able to find it. In December 2017, I completed a textile-sculptural-installation art project titled The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (Figure 11 and Figure 12). Despite having had the opportunity to call Hong Kong, Toronto, and Vancouver home over the span of 31 years, I continue to look for it. The three cities have distinctly unique characteristics, but the colours that stand out to me in photos are different shades of greys and greens. Inspired by the two common colours in all three cities, I covered a chair with grey (soft grey, periwinkle, grey fade, grey, black heather, Whitesburg, and urban) and green (absinthe, hot green, aloe vera, emerald, leafy, rick rack ombre, and peridot) yarn. Figure 11 The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2017) Side and Back Views 170 Figure 12 The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2017) Top View 171 Poetic Vignettes Accompanying The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home is a series of poetic vignettes I wrote in 2017 and 2020. They express my personal connections with the three cities I call home (Hong Kong, Toronto, and Vancouver), based on what the colours grey and green remind me of in each space. Through evoking an image, I aim to express a feeling of what it is like to be there. It reveals the contemporary moment from which I understand places and reflects the distance from which I see the space. Like traditional Chinese poetry, the vignettes offer descriptions that immerse one in a scene that one experiences and explores in the imaginary, rather than provide explanations and arguments. 2017 The grey Of Hong Kong: Of steel skyscrapers trying to be the tallest, biggest, loftiest Of sharp shadows from the scorching midday sun Of tropical cyclones with impulsive, impatient, irascible tempers Of snot with filtered remnants from the air Of street food stalls emanating enticing aromas, requiring discipline to resist Of construction sites paving over history, favouring the new Of hazy childhood memories places, things, relationships that exist no more 2020 The grey Of Hong Kong: Of 484 square feet concrete boxes that house families of three or more Of scarcity leading to everyone fighting each other Of bleak futures plagued by residues of colonialism Of hardened hearts choosing Western imperialism over ancestral roots Of tear gas released during police-protester confrontations Of bricks that my father laid taken apart to strike the opposition Of miasma of polarization and danger closing windows for return 172 The grey Of Toronto: Of asphalt concrete pavement shifting, cracking, crumbling into potholes Of slushy snow uncovering regrets left behind last year Of undercover police cars catching broken taillights and not much else Of pigeons, raccoons, and people living off of scraps Of social justice ideas identity politics about Blacks and Whites Of my father’s hands that built bridges and roads, and now serves food Of hair from just hanging in there too long The grey Of Vancouver: Of dreary winter drizzle cleaning streets but dampening spirits Of the sea wall receiving affectionate licks from the waves Of dusty bodies struggling to live without shelter Of fog comforting the city like a blanket Of bottles drowning logic, sorrows, voices, memories Of bridges suspending individuals from what awaits beneath Of busses the ones you wait for never come *** The grey Of Toronto: Of the potholes in the asphalt those annoying ones I now miss Of my parents’ hair turning paler as they await my return Of tin take-out containers with nourishment and hope for coming together again Of the television from which news of new lows became unsurprising Of blurring time days into months into years Of planes that bring us to each other in safer times Of relationships seeing them with better perspective from a distance The grey Of Vancouver: Of the dust that finally settled in my dwelling Of the incessant winter rain offering comforting acoustics Of my bathrobe wrapping around me while I listen Of my ashened toes from lengthy sitting and typing Of beach stones reminding me to venture outside Of Chinese newspaper ink staining my fingers when I take out compost Of the moon illuminating my way through the darkness *** 173 The green Of Hong Kong: Of neon signs clawing over each other for attention Of tramways from a colonial past inspiring nostalgia for an unfamiliar time Of land reclamation to make space for humans to live Of highlighted succinct points as no one has time to listen Of envy and jealousy because so and so always has it better Of exotic avocadoes, kiwis, and matcha, antioxidants to reverse the effects of living Of tropical jungles encircling urban structures from which creepy crawlies come The green Of Toronto: Of wide expanses of plant varieties but all in the same colour Of murky rivers and lakes chilly even in the warmest Summer day Of pine trees apprehensive to go through deep freeze again Of my mother’s diet I never understood until I moved away Of new condominium buildings sprouting among monochromatic skylines Of recycling bins provoking reflections on ecological footprints Of blurry views from transit windows everyone rushing to get someplace other than here The green Of Vancouver: Of well-manicured lawns The green Of Hong Kong: Of fresh produce stacking in wet markets critiqued by the world Of green onions garnishing all the local dishes Of emeralds and jewels that used to attract mainland tourists Of kalamae imported Thai sweet coconut sticky candy Of tea leaves aromas from China, Korea, and Japan Of my permanent identity card verifying where I come from Of pedestrian crossing lights indicating the need to keep walking The green Of Toronto: Of my indoor aloe plant overgrown monstrosity awaiting pruning Of mother’s lavender garden gathered as dried bundles of fragrance Of mulberry trees in front of the house from which I make jam every year Of the tall pine in the backyard providing shade and cover Of the maples along the wooden fence my father and I built Of abundant broadleaf plantains weed turned poultice, salve, and tea Of the northern lights that I dream of taking my mother to see The green Of Vancouver: Of interactive maps guiding my travels across the city 174 demarcating boundaries of wealth and poverty Of tall emerald cedar hedging trees concealing doors and pathways Of lime moss on bark awakening to the call of Spring Of distant mountains lurking, watching just above the clouds Of ecological revival projects inviting wildlife and marine life back Of marijuana dispensaries selling happiness everywhere like Starbucks Of bottomless waters in the harbour reflecting the prosaic and banal Of my foster dog’s blanket keeping her warm and cozy Of “ugly” sweaters ready for holiday festivities Of measuring cups for trying out Cantonese recipes Of greens in my diet evidence of improved food management Of my polaroid camera documenting precious impermanence Of treasure boxes holding everything safe The Project I knitted every day in December 2017. Covering the chair with knitted patches inspired me to consider how a home comes to be everyday through the labour of continuously ‘making it work,’ by pulling, matching, and stitching pieces that sometimes resist living alongside each other. I would often produce patches that are bigger or smaller than expected due to gauge (tension) miscalculation and need to improvise on the next best place to put them. Each knitted piece is unique in their size, colour, and texture, just like aspects and characters of a home. In this process, I created 17 double coin knots and 59 patches of knitted rectangles to cover the chair. The double coin knot is the oldest knot to be recorded in China as it dates to the Warring States period (475-221 BCE). The prototype was found on a pedestal box excavated from Zhao Qing’s tomb in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province (Chen, 2007). Lydia Chen (2007), culture keeper of traditional Chinese decorative knotting, writes that the double coin knot “represents two antique Chinese coins overlapping one another, which connotes both prosperity and longevity” (p. 106), and the knot is synonymous with the love knot described by ancient Chinese 175 poets. I came to this knot serendipitously through a design problem. I needed to cover the seat and a search on the web suggested large Irish knot pillows, which inspired me to study other knots from my ancestral cultural heritage. Averse to cliché traditional and cultural symbols that can be immediately pegged to a box, I often avoided them in my work. Yet, making double coin knots in green acrylic yarn instead of red silk or paracord (the way it is traditionally done) made them strangely exciting. Stitched together, the knots resemble moss, fern, or grass—something alive and organic. Each knitted patch that covers the rest of the chair was an opportunity to learn and experiment with a different pattern from a YouTube tutorial video, including the rib, stockinette, garter, chevron seed, raspberry/trinity, worm/roly poly/spring, seafoam wave drop, Indian cross, herringbone, diagonal cross, basket weave, moss, lattice, honeycomb, bubble, horseshoe lace, drop, popcorn, daisy/flat knot/star, butterfly, knitted flower ridge, and overlapping waves stitches. On YouTube, I watched an elderly woman who teaches in tandem with a granddaughter, mothers who share their affective labour and care work through making garments for loved ones, young people fascinated by the possibilities of DIY, and individuals who run lifestyle blogs. Through the web, I share in the long histories of patternmakers, patterns, and knitters who learn these skills and pass on the knowledge. Participating in the cultural inheritance, history, and generational succession of working with fibre arts, from making double coin knots and experimenting with patterns, gave me a sense of belonging and community. Knitting, Crochet, and Yarn Bombing The Grey and Green (Dis)comfort of Home draws from the art of yarn bombing. Blending street graffiti, installation art, and fibre arts like knitting and crochet, yarn bombing (also called 176 yarn storming, knit graffiti, and guerrilla knitting) is a practice of attaching handmade fibre items to elements in the urban environment without permission (Mann, 2015; Moore & Prain, 2009). The emergence of yarn bombing is attributed to Magda Sayeg, who wrapped the door handle of her Houston, Texas store with knitting and titled it Alpha Piece (2005). Her yarn bombing brings inanimate objects to life and encourages personal connection to the environment by “enhancing the ordinary, the mundane, even the ugly, and not taking away its identity or its functionality” (Sayeg, 2015). Sayeg is quoted in Vancouver-based knitters Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain’s (2009) book, to say that “[the inanimate object] not only turns alive, there is something comforting and loving about it… you are happy” (p. 15). Since 2005, yarn bombing grew to become associated with social and feminist activism enacted in the public domain—of bringing the gendered act of crafting into the urban sphere and of moving bodies and affective labour from private to public. However, geographical sciences researcher Joanna Mann (2015) notes that “[t]he majority of practitioners… indulge in yarn bombing without these motives, and create installations just for a fun way to use their craft skills, because they can” (p. 66). As yarn bombing became popular, cities requested artists to do this work for placemaking initiatives, ironically undermining its use in political activism. For cultural events researcher Louise Platt’s (2019) knitting group research participants in Liverpool, England, “[c]raftivism was seen as problematic in relation to placemaking as it has become subsumed into an official narrative of what a creative city should be like” (p. 372). I am intrigued by how the traditionally gendered craft of knitting and crochet broke free from its domestic domain—used to make statements in the traditionally patriarchal urban and public realm—has now been co-opted by the official. Perhaps it is the impulse of resisting the hold of power and control of others that my yarn bombed chair remains in the domestic space. 177 Performing my comfort and measuring myself against the standards of others seems needless if I am truly at ease. Bringing a practice that has moved from private to public—originally intended to prove and argue for something—back into the private, is an act that strengthens and protects one’s capacity and agency for storying the work. If one is at home in the world, the unique confidence that comes from such comfort radiates into one’s engagements and animates them. For me, knitting and crochet mixes whimsical play, the meditation of tuning out and tuning in, the following of a rhythm, and the management of unrest with unproductive industriousness. Mann (2015) notes how “whimsy arises in between our familiar conventions to present itself as disconcertingly both recognisable and obscure, without any obvious reason to exist” (p. 65). She remarks how: yarn bombing uses the lightness of whimsy to exploit the openness and circumstance of the everyday, and expose the contingency of discursive and material forces in a way that is not just conceptually ungraspable, but ungraspable in and of itself. For as soon as we begin to apply logic and sense to the encounter, the whimsy—the joy and caprice of the initial event—disappears. (p. 69) My textile practice is rejection of the practicality, efficiency, purposefulness, and functionality of neoliberal rationality. Knitting and crochet questions what usefulness means and what is considered useful. I make objects because it is fun, and then I give them away, as the value remains in the process of making. Turning into gifts, resultant objects transform into gestures of concern and care. Spending a month to cover a chair with yarn might be considered time ill spent in terms of productivity, but I developed a connection, an intimate knowing, with the object and the space in which it is housed. In turn, it exudes an affective presence, grounding me with the embrace of a warm and familiar welcome. 178 Chair I chose a brown-black IKEA STEFAN wooden chair that I have in my rented temporary space. It is one of the first pieces of furniture I purchased for my current Vancouver address. The structure of the chair provides space for one to spend time doing activities on/in, but one needs to get up/out from time to time, leave it behind, and come back to it later. The chair serves a practical function and provides a temporary space in which to dwell. As the uncomfortable stiffness of the wood renders the chair difficult to be in for long hours, my original intention for the work is to make the chair and my living area more pleasant to dwell in. However, American art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto (1987) suggests going beyond constructing the chair simply in relation to comfort and pleasure as it is “an object so connected with authority, domination, autonomy and power” (p. 161). One of the reasons why home remains complicated for me is because of these very concepts. They evoke questions of: which individuals have authority and what paradigms, values, and frames hold sway in the home; what larger social, economic, historical, political, and cultural forces dominate the atmosphere of the environment beyond what can be controlled by individuals; who has autonomy to make decisions regarding the organization, rules, and regulation of what happens to things and to bodies; and where is the seat of power? These might be some of the factors that influence the level of comfort and discomfort in a home. Moving to each new place, one faces a new set of dynamics in the challenge to discern one’s place in the world, which is influenced by one’s relationship with authority, domination, autonomy, and power of a specific spatial-temporal moment. Danto (1987) notes how “the chair… occupies the chair of pre-eminence in the community of pieces of basic furniture” because “none of the others—tables or beds, to take the obvious examples—are ever said to rule or judge or decide or determine, as the chair, the throne, the 179 bench are said and expected to do” (p. 159). The chair has served as a “philosophical metaphor for some five millennia, and… it is the sitting position that is spontaneously invoked in the philosophy of mind when one speaks of the seat of the soul, or of intelligence, or of wisdom or reason” (Danto, 1987, p. 160). Tracing the importance of the chair across Western and Oriental cultures through the examples of the ruined Buddhist stupa of Amaravati, Vincent Van Gogh’s Chair (1888) and Gauguin’s Chair (1888), Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat chair (1930), and Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair (1964), Danto goes on to argue that its pre-eminence relates to freedom and dignity. It seems that one can become more at ease in the particular temporal-spatial context of home if one has the freedom and dignity to establish one’s position and orientation toward the world. In the next section, I consider how exploring the concept of home through The Grey and Green (Dis)comfort of Home has led me to the notions of position and orientation. 180 0.15 Experience: Position and Orientation Exploring the concept of home through the chair project has illuminated for me how one’s home is not simply a physical location. Like the chair, one’s home can be moved and relocated. Wherever one finds a spot to plant a chair and extend the roots of home, this location provides the inhabitant with a certain perspective of the space, people, and world surrounding one’s self, which leads to the concepts of position and orientation. Furniture and Orientation For Sara Ahmed (2006a), a British-Australian feminist and independent scholar who writes in relation to Husserl, the table acts as a central motif to expand a queer phenomenological orientation toward objects because “the familiar world begins with the writing table… it is from here that the world unfolds” (p. 546). For me, the chair is prominent because of its role in the history of discerning, judging, and ruling (Danto, 1987). It delineates a space for the self, epitomizing one’s power, autonomy, and capacity in making decisions while working within the parameters of one’s circumstances, even when no choices seem available. The space of the chair accommodates one person, and this serves as a reminder that one always has the option to withdraw into the intimate privacy of the self—even and especially when the world feels unhospitable. The space within the self is one of human dignity, where one can simply be without a necessity to apologize for existing. The chair also enables the joining of collective gatherings when one desires an engagement with community. The structure outlines a powerful space for witnessing because it supports the possibility of sitting, dwelling, and resting while remaining conscious to the whirling happenings in one’s surroundings. It suggests an inner 181 stillness of equanimity where one can be both inside and outside of the bustle of the everyday. Critically, the chair as a mobile object lends itself to a mobile conceptualization of orientation. This moment summons the concretization of one’s attitude, beliefs, or feelings in relation to a particular subject or issue—toward what one faces and from what one turns away. Such an actualization demands that one stakes a position, or a claim, that one is willing to defend, based on what one has come to learn and understand through the previous three turns of the square—of finding abundance in the unknown, reaching for the beyond to attune to what one might be fitted for, and hauling a world full of others into focus. Ahmed (2006a) states that “[o]rientations are about the directions we take that put some things and not others in our reach” (p. 552). Indeed, an immersive embeddedness and a set of assumptions develop from being situated, which point to the importance of finding a position that resonates with one’s living truth. This embeddedness operates as the point from which one discerns and judges. Beyond the direction one takes to create relationships with others in the world, however, this moment of position and orientation calls for the formation of a rationale behind one’s choices and their significance within a larger trajectory of one’s becoming. It means being awake to, honouring, acknowledging, and taking responsibility for one’s intentions through which one establishes a certain directionality, whether its expressivity and articulation come before, during, and/or after the discovery of one’s bearings and movement toward something. The illusion of an orientation’s permanence can intimidate and make it a challenge to articulate a direction as if it sums up the totality of one’s being for eternity. Even though such an orientation is, at best, an educated guess that offers ground for one to stand on for the time being, it is important to take such a stab seriously. The moment of articulation and storying the what, the how, and the why is both a culmination of the past and a starting point for the future. 182 (Dis)inheritances Drawing from the context of sexual orientation and familial anticipations, Ahmed (2006a) asserts that “[t]he concept of orientations allows us to expose how life gets directed through the very requirement that we follow what is already given to us” (p. 554). Within this thought is that orientations can be inherited—that someone or something has, through the sheer fact of being a part of one’s life in their presence and/or absence, made an impact in shaping the lines of one’s path. This includes ancestors who came before, whose absence-presence may continue to inform one’s orientation. On inheritance, Lucy Bailey (2018)—scholar in education, qualitative inquiry, and gender and woman’s studies—offers that: The legal, propertied roots of the term “inheritance” speak to its profoundly classed, racialized, and gendered and historical associations with status, prestige, and propertied males. In this sense, inheritances are tangible objects, characteristics, or accounts that ancestors bestow, typically things of substance and social weight that can contribute to reproducing power relations. They can also be borne of and carried through bodies. (p. 98). Bailey (2018) points out how “[h]istorically, inheritance refers to physical objects, statuses and rank, or corporeal characteristics one might receive ‘genetically’ from one’s ancestors” (p. 97). Affectively, inherited materials might also include “stories as plausible explanations; beliefs and defenses; and emotional ‘contracts’” (Wright, 2017, p. 59). Because “[b]odies as well as objects take shape through being oriented toward each other, as an orientation that may be experienced as the cohabitation or sharing of space” (Ahmed, 2006a, p. 552), the mutual shaping of becoming seems inevitable. Ahmed (2006a) theorizes the following of inherited orientations as lines: 183 Lines are both created by being followed and are followed by being created. The lines that direct us, as lines of thought as well as lines of motion, are in this way performative: they depend on the repetition of norms and conventions, of routes and paths taken, but they are also created as an effect of this repetition. (p. 555) When the inherited nature of lines is hidden, one’s orientation can become unclear and ambiguous. After all, “we only know which way to turn once we know which way we are facing” (Ahmed, 2006b, p. 7). The task then is to uncover the implicit influences and assumptions directing one’s orientations and seek to make decisions regarding which way to face, which to turn to/from, and which to follow. Some inherited lines bear significance, and the act of honouring, respecting, and observing them makes up a meaningful component in one’s identity. Such an act offers a connection to the past, history, and those who came before us. For Indo-Caribbean Canadian English language educator Prabha Jerrybandan (2018), who searched for family stories and material artifacts as aspects of inheritance, “[i]nheritances validate lives—they leave proof of having lived” (p. 52). In the work of piecing together fragments of family stories with a caution to not blame others for silences and gaps (p. 51), Jerrybandan (2018) resolves: “My stories become my own legacy—an inheritance for those who will have them—family members, readers, or practitioners of family methodologies” (p. 53). Yet, Canadian visual arts educator Ellen Wright (2017) poses the reminder that “[i]nheritances are unpredictable, sometimes desperately sought or, sometimes, completely undesirable” (p. 58). Since bodies acquire tendencies as “effects of the repetition of ‘tending toward’” (Ahmed, 2006a, p. 553), the option to disinherit a repeated rhythm in favour of an alternative way to “tend toward” seems important to keep open. 184 Drawing from Bailey’s (2009) “genealogical refusal” (p. 113) as an approach to resist a romantic biographical interpretation of a racist ancestor, Wright (2017) discusses the necessity of disinheritance and the allowances afforded by “step[ping] aside from implicit assumptions of acceptance… and reconsider[ing] the narrative, the memories, and bodily inheritances that happen to us” (p. 59). With the privilege of choice, inheriting lines may inspire rootedness and safety, though it can be accompanied by a sense of confinement to the old; disinheriting lines may inspire freedom and adventure, though it can be accompanied by a sense of loss. Blindly following the well-trodden path can get one wedged in the past, lost in the sea of others, and resentful for the crushing of one’s desires under the tectonic plate of others’ desires. Breaking connections to the past through repeated genealogical refusal, whether voluntary or imposed, can result in a loss of knowledge, culture, traditions, language, and identity. Aoki’s (1986/1991/2005h) concept of “and” as the in-between space of multiplicity offers a reminder that this construction of the (dis)inheritance binary can be artificial and deceptive. Within such an in-between space, possibilities to both inherit and disinherit within the same moment remain imaginable. Careful discernment is needed to determine what is suitable for the situation. The notion of (dis)inheriting lines reveals how orientations can be found through the storying of desire. Through narrativizing one’s pursuits, movements, pivots this and/or that way, pauses, interruptions, and returns, one comes to find a ‘starting point’ in the indistinct flow of events. An account of what happened, how something happened, and why it happened presents a stabilizing force to gather and make sense of the fragments collected from one’s becoming. One’s orientation is strengthened by this narrative as it forms a pillar that one can lean on when challenged by internal and external forces to defend why one has taken a particular path and not another. The intensities of one’s conviction and confidence are shaped by how much one 185 believes in the woven tale, which carry both risks and potentials. As Jerrybandan (2018) notes, “the questions must accompany the stories in an attempt to keep the ethical integrity of the search” (p. 54). While carving one’s path is essential to arriving home in the world, striking a balance between believing in the ground on which one has chosen to step and acknowledging with a deep sense of humility that one’s choice in stepping this or that way may not be entirely and exclusively right. Finding a Way Home Orientation is closely linked etymologically to the word orient. Based on the Oxford English Dictionary, orient as a noun (n.d.) refers to “the eastern part of the world, the part of the sky in which the sun rises, the east, the rising sun, daybreak, dawn” (para. 1). The verb to orient (n.d.) means “to place or arrange (a thing or a person) so as to face the east” (para. 2). As a person from the Orient who left the East for the West, who is read and constructed as someone from elsewhere, but can only gaze at the orient from not-there, I could not find my way home or be at home where I am because I occupied a migrant orientation, which Ahmed (2006b) describes as “the lived experience of facing at least two directions: toward a home that has been lost, and to a place that is not yet home” (p. 10). I looked to the East as it changed without me, and looked to the West to learn my difference. I looked to the East hungry for a cultural inheritance and looked to West with a desire to disinherit my roots. I looked to the East for home and looked to the West for home, not finding one in either place. This alienating disorientation stayed with me for many years. It was not until I abandoned my quest to find a way back to a mythic home of imagination that I was able to begin establishing where I currently am as a reference point for subsequent return. Letting go of what a home ought to be and have grants me 186 access to my current position with heightened clarity. Not measuring it up against a state of perfection allows me to avoid the disappointment and discomfort of finding lack everywhere. When I first approached the concept of home, I searched for an inheritance of home—with a fully fleshed out manual for what it means, where it is, who is (not) part of it, and how to attend to it. At the same time, I felt trapped by the fragments of inherited lines regarding who I am, what I can do, and what I have the capacity to become. By writing myself into being in this moment of position and orientation, I am forming new lines and growing into distinctive ways of inhabiting space, developing rituals and habits, and finding value in my practices. While “orientations are about starting points” and “about how we begin, how we proceed from here” (Ahmed, 2006a, p. 545), starting points are part of the structure, place marker, and plot anchor for the narrative that one constructs and tells of one’s life. Such a story with a clear starting point seems to be crafted through retrospection. The present moment is always budding with abundance that plucking a single thread for imminent narrative coherence can be tricky. What one can do is making marks along the way to keep track of possible significant moments that might be constructed as starting points later. While one can establish reference points for subsequent return, it cannot be assumed that one goes back to the absolute same spatial-temporal moments. Thus, the kind of return upon which the individual embarks is one of arrival. Ahmed (2006b) remarks that “[i]f orientations are as much about feeling at home as they are about finding our way, then it becomes important to consider how ‘‘finding our way’’ involves what we could call ‘‘homing devices’” (p. 9). Everyone has a different set of homing devices. With the aid of methodological compasses that is a/r/tography, currere, and contemplative practices, I repeatedly throw myself into the unknown so I can arrive home with more fragments of self-understanding. The magic of arrival is about the crossing of thresholds. 187 When one relaxes into habitual and ritualistic practices of arranging the world in specific ways, one comes into a private and intimate space of feeling as if the current reality is how it has always been. In this space, “the work of arrival is forgotten in the very feeling that the arrival is magic” (Ahmed, 2006a, p. 555). One can no longer go back to the version of self or state of being prior to setting out into the unknown and making the journey home. An immersion into the comfort of home can pose challenges to imagining how one’s arrangement of the world can be different. When one becomes excessively wedged and rigidly locked into a way of being, particularly when it is no longer appropriate for a current reality, it signals a time to step courageously into the unknown once again. As “nothing progresses without returning” (Han, 2017, p. 66-67), this cyclical course gathers sedimentations and condensations that forms a gestalt that is the self. 188 0.16 Learning: Thresholds The journey through the unknown, attunement, presence, and arriving home is a process of moving through thresholds. Each conceptual moment was a turn away from the previous and toward a distinct set of concerns. While the previous phases of the square may be more fluid, the last part of home necessitates a deliberate crossing, out of the comfort of arrival into the apprehension of the unknown once again. This transition demands exceptional courage to move away from the familiarity of what was hauled in and brought home. It is a crossing that one takes when one has exhausted the generative potentiality of the stasis of rest—when the stillness has become a kind of confinement, when one longs for escape, and when the unknown beckons. Marking and Crossing Thresholds Because there is no set amount of time that one should remain in any of the conceptual moments, the duration in each can be as short as seconds and as long as years. The push toward stepping through the threshold depends on how one differentiates stages of becoming, the timing of life’s challenges, and one’s readiness to engage them. No conceptual moment needs to be glorified as the dominant way of being in the world, as this exaltation pushes one into what is next (and then next again) upon the foundation of guilt. Instead, I consider these conceptual moments as inevitable phases of human becoming. Make the crossing when and as necessary. Thresholds are psychological boundaries marked by a designated engagement with materiality. In a house, a threshold is a strip at the bottom of a doorway that is crossed when going through different spaces. Materially, thresholds connect spaces and mark the boundary of each. However, thresholds can be found whenever one transitions from an area with one name to another area with another name. Thresholds flag difference and call for bodily and sensorial 189 awareness. Psychologically, the crossing is both a letting go and a forgetting. One releases one temporal-spatial position in the movement toward another, which affects one’s mental-emotional state in one fluid motion. In an embracement of what one is facing in the act of stepping forward, one abandons what is left behind, even if only for the moment. This abandonment entails a forgetting of the journey that one took to reach the previous temporal-spatial position and mental-emotional state. The crossing promises a new beginning to another series of transformative transitions. When one unknowingly moves through a boundary that signals difference, the significance of the crossing is not recognized. While this happens often, as one moves from one area to another in a place of comfort for example, this act can invite pressures of various intensities upon the self and those in one’s surroundings. Particularly in momentous contexts, this unobserved movement through boundaries can mean carrying the past as a kind of excess that remains active as if it is not yet the past. Not recognizing the crossing of a threshold means that the self and those in community cannot be fully present in attending to the demands of the shift. It is like a situation of collectively having one foot planted inside and another foot out the door and being caught in perpetual transition. Though one always embodies the past as it is what brought one to the present, leaving the past unfinished and letting it haunt can pose challenges. A crossing archives what has happened, freeing one’s capacities to tackle the fresh problem presented by the unknown. A deliberate ejection, from the comfort of home into the apprehension before apprehension that is the unknown, carries with it the heaviness of traversing substantial psychological gap. Anticipation, encapsulated as rituals, can motivate, energize, and strengthen the crossing. At the same time, too much anticipation can immobilize and prevent movement, so one needs to find a 190 fitting balance. The weight of the context calls for an adjustment in how much significance needs to be placed in the act of crossing a threshold. If the weight of the context and the crossing is disproportionate to each other, it can open one up to a fragmentation in one’s being and relationships. A good crossing is an affirmation of intention and commitment and it imbues one with energy to move with more ease in the unknown. It serves as a request and a call for others to bring their energy to the crossing, sending one forward with hope, enthusiasm, and confidence. I write this having experienced and listened to stories of difficult crossings: of immigration to new places and not being fully immersed in the current moment; of unmarked unions that family members mourn not being able to celebrate; of attaining an academic degree and not having an in-person graduation ceremony due to a pandemic; of being accidentally baptized in a faith tradition not of one’s own; of overlaps in friendship and collegial relationship that cause tension in both personal and work environments; of quiet birthdays full of existential crises rather than joy; and of the resistance to write a eulogy for a loved one because of a desire to let the past to haunt the present. I have also experienced and heard about good crossings that sent me and others forward rejuvenated: of beginning new education and career experiences; of moving through milestone birthdays with grace and wonder; of fostering a dog in need and bidding farewell; of birthing art, conceptual, writing, and publication projects; of moments of vulnerability and courage that brought relationships to a new point of intimacy; and of counting down from December 31 without regrets of how one spent the past year. Though the window of time for traversing through thresholds in specific contexts can passed, it is never too late. Crossings are psychological endeavours and the time is right when one is ready. Any engagement with materiality can be attributed and designated as a marker. 191 Sometimes circumstances push one toward transitions without time for preparations and readiness. It takes more time to resolve these tumultuous challenges and find the fragment of understanding to bring home to one’s self, though it is not impossible. I am doing this writing to make a crossing, of the completion of a doctoral degree and of reaching equanimity for the loss six years ago. This dissertation work is an offering that marks the crossing of both thresholds. Rebirth, Rituals, and Gestures of Concern The crossing of each challenge posed by the unknown, attunement, presence, and home is a death and a rebirth, where “[w]e are required to die to the old image of who we thought we were and step across the threshold into a radically altered sense of self” (Weller, 2015, p. 24). The process of cultivating a relationship with the unknown is an “ongoing ritual of shedding outworn skins, of being remade time and again” (Weller, 2015, p. 124). In my curriculum of loss (Leggo, 2017/2019), I have learned multiple ways to navigate in the dark unknown, felt the guidance of the sacred through attunement, touched and entered other worlds of presences, and brought pieces of myself home to myself. I am not the same person as I was when I started this journey and this work. The only certainty is that I will keep changing, especially with every great love and every great loss. Embracing a radical honesty with myself in the fostering of aliveness (Weller, 2015, p. 124), I carry with me the understandings and learnings of what came before as I prepare myself for my next crossing, whenever the time arrives. To bestow upon myself the wishes for and blessings of abundance, eternities, love, and home, I created a portable version of the Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home. It is a vortex shawl made with the same colours and textures as the yarn covering the chair (Figure 13 and Figure 14). 192 Figure 13 Portable Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2020) for Crossings Figure 14 Portable Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home (2020) Worn and Detail 193 Transcending the physical fixedness of the chair and carrying with it the enchantment of blessings, the shawl comes with me and embraces me like I have held my loved one in memory and in spirit. Wearing it is a ritual, which is “a covering, a mantle that protects… in times of great need” (Weller, 2015, p. 87). I made another shawl in a different set of colours as a gift for a friend with the same well wishes. Making to give away, emulating the process of building up and letting go, has also become a ritual for release and renewal. The work of becoming and making crossings is one that keeps evolving with gifts. Its lessons manifest in the transmutation of artistic, research, and pedagogical forms. The gifts become what communication scholar Chris Ingraham (2020) calls gestures of concern: “an expression into form of an affective relation” (p. 1). The enchantments, blessings, and magic that I speak of takes on an affective force rather than an instrumental effect, which “affirms a sense of something more intangible” (Ingraham, 2020, p. 52). Working through grief, loss, and trauma has nurtured my capacity to be more authentic in expressing my concern, a bracket term Ingraham (2020) uses to describe kinship, empathy, solidarity, and kindness (p. 52). He continues to say that “attending to the gestures that express such concern becomes a viable way of worlding a commons—an affective commonwealth” (p. 53). This work of cultivating a relationship with the unknown has pushed me toward an attentive artistic, research, and pedagogical focus of fostering mutual concern so that the community can be well held when individuals make their own crossings. 194 Epilogue Each of life’s challenges can be mapped along a square. Cultivating a relationship with the unknown entails traversing the paradoxes, dilemmas, multiplicities, and complexities of each turn in the square. In the process, one breathes, becomes, and beholds—slipping through the grips of immobilization. One can be on the path of many squares at once, at different phases and paces in each, as challenges do not wait for each other to wrap up to appear. Each square is a curriculum that teaches and provokes, opening one up to the possibility of living an artful, purposeful, and meaningful existence. For some journeys, one might linger in the comfort of home. For others, one might be lured into a fresh adventure. Working through multiple smaller squares can be part of the journey toward an arrival in a larger pursuit. Cultivating a relationship with the unknown is an invitation to keep living in and moving through situations of stress. Even when it does not seem like there is a choice and a way ‘out’ at the time—a kind of immobilization—the square promises that there is a next moment if one keeps living. The specificities of precisely how are to be worked out by the individual. Traversing the unknown provokes both the possibility of the not yet that will come, and an acceptance of the finality of loss—what is no longer or what can no longer be accessed in the same way. The embracing of new possibility demands a looking forward, and the letting go comprises a looking backward. Engaging both temporal directions is needed to move through the unknown. The hope for this square is that one can trust that there is always a move to make so that one does not, prematurely, prevent themselves from making the next turn. This is an understanding that requires constant practice. It is an understanding that I wish my loved one could come to know with time. 195 I was thrust into an acute relationship with the unknown because I was undone by the suicide of a loved one. Along my search for equanimity, I made numerous moves and turns—some better than others in hindsight, though they were right for the situation at the time. I entered a doctoral program in Curriculum Studies with a concentration in Art Education at The University of British Columbia. Without knowing how to articulate my intentions in the beginning, I have come to understand that I did this to honour the future my loved one and I envisioned, to explore the expansiveness of the academic fields that hold my passion, and to embrace my capacity to be in the world as I am and can become. Over the course of six years since my loved one’s passing, I have moved through a multitude of unknowns. Academically, I finished a series of courses, discovered scholarship that moved me, wrote three comprehensive exams, compiled a research proposal, applied for funding, presented at academic conferences, published chapters and articles, edited books, and composed this dissertation. Professionally, I served as a department peer advisor, supported the organization of conferences, curated an exhibition, assembled a catalogue in collaboration, and taught undergraduate courses. Personally, I learned how to maneuver around a new city, navigate an unfamiliar transit system, create a home, assemble furniture, cook select Asian and Western dishes, wash laundry, clean the house, crochet objects, read tarot and oracle cards, interpret birth charts, manage my health and well-being, and care for a foster dog. As I craft these words, the globe is facing the COVID-19 pandemic and I am coming into knowing how to be with myself for long periods of time. Vaccination and post-pandemic recovery make up the next unknown in the course of this worldwide phenomenon. Though each one of these endeavours, events, and happenings poses unique challenges, the stabilizing force of the square offers structure for figuring out what to do in chaos. Each has enabled my plunging 196 into worlds of relationships, connections, practices, languages, and understandings—some intersecting other worlds so that there can be foundations upon which to build understandings, others more insular and novel, at least to me, which require a beginner’s mind. With each unknown and each arrival, I haul in a fragment of myself and piece the mystery that is myself together. I am arriving home to myself. My becoming is far from complete and I am still in the midst of wandering through many squares. In my travels, I have picked up strategies not only for surviving but for thriving. Sometimes I envision that I carry with(in) me a kit with a range of tools, medicines, practices, heuristics, methodologies, approaches, and philosophies to brave the unknown. Though one can plan for situations, surprises always arise. Such strategies do not diffuse every crisis, but they grant places to begin. Importantly, in this process, I learned how to be alone without crushing existential anguish: I no longer feel alone in the world, nor do I mind being alone. It is not that I do not lean on and appreciate the pillars of strength that my family, friends, and colleagues embody, or that I am fearless in the face of the unknown, or that I am never doubtful about how everything will turn out, or that I know what lies beyond the next threshold. Moving through challenges with the guidance of the square quells my inner turmoil because it teaches me that there is a time for everything. In this practice of “friendly gentleness” (Han, 2017, p. 113) towards one’s self and others in the face of the unknown, there is no rush to be anywhere but here and now. There is a time to confront the unknown; to move from scarcity into abundance; a time to attune to possibilities without certainty regarding what might be the right course; to look to chance, timing, and the beyond for guidance; a time to consider the presences that accompany one and consider multiple worldviews; to adjust the heaviness and lightness of what matters in one’s aspiration for ethical 197 and perhaps even loving engagement; and a time to arrive home for rest, rejuvenation, peace, solitude, and solace; and to venture out again. The square seems to have become a manifestation of my resolute commitment to listening keenly to what the situation is asking and doing my best to carry out what needs to be done. Missing from the written account of my conceptual exploration is the sheer number of times I have tripped trying to make a crossing. Falls can hurt, bring suffering, and cause trauma. These interruptions can mean revisiting moments in the square multiple times before arriving home and are part of the journey through the challenge at hand. These ruptures set the context for embracing self-love, learning from setbacks, rising from the ashes, (re)affirming one’s direction, leaning into one’s courage-vulnerability, and moving through the trauma with grace. There is a time for hurt and one for healing as well. While I continue to walk through my personal path of grief and loss, I see now that I am simultaneously walking numerous other paths. The slippages between life’s challenges, possible pathways through them, frames of understanding, and multifaceted stories have thwarted the over-dominance of one endeavour, event, and happening. The weight of my loved one’s passing has become lighter over time. I carry him always and sometimes forget that I am doing so. Crossing the threshold of home into various unknowns has necessitated a letting go and a forgetting. 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Curriculum Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Irwin, Rita L., 1955-
Squares for breathing, becoming, and beholding : cultivating a relationship with the unknown
Text