PART 1
Acknowledgments: Before I even start, I need to acknowledge, I am living on unceded Awaswas-Speaking Ohlone TTY. This land evolved with a people for thousands of years and is now in dire imbalance (wildfires, drought and much more) because the millennia long commitments between the land and the people have been violently disrupted and prevented from being restored. What I'm about to say here, while being primarily informed by my Neurodivergence and lived experience, would not be what it is without the work of contemporary Indigenous leaders and teachers such as Corbin Harney (who I knew in person), Robin Wall Kimmerer and Sobonfu Some. And in acknowledging that, let me be perfectly clear: all Indigenous lands must be returned: land back, land back land back. If we have animistic, so called, beliefs we should all be working towards the return of these lands which is a millennia long committed relationship exactly like I'm talking about here, disrupted forcibly by capitalist colonialism. Additionally this writing is informed by my own ancestry, by traditional Jewish mystical teaching and land stewardship, as well as my Ukrainian and Welsh ancestry. The Flower of Life is a symbol used by my ancestors in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Attachment, so-called, as I'm talking about it here, is not just an issue of psychology and coupledom. Attachment is an ecological, planet-wide issue, because the colonial disruption of ecological relationships and commitments that constitute traditional Stewardship is resulting in widespread climate disaster that none of us will escape from. As well as I propose that our hearts are still broken from losing a world with a million "secure attachments", including human ones and being dished up mostly just romantic relationships as a replacement. Flower of Life I propose an Attachment Theory modeled by Nature. Our current Attachment Theory is informed by capitalism and therefore suspect. I'm focusing mostly on Anxious Attachment, admittedly, because that is my most obvious presentation and therefore what I know the ins- and-out of as far as having had it criticized/pathologized. I'm really anxious-avoidant, so-called, but I'll speak to anxious bc that's what I've been most maligned for. They have tried in vain to cure me of it but in the end, this is what I’ve come to understand about my “anxious” leanings. I am neurodivergent, and I believe my “Attachment Style” is in fact related to an inherent animism and plurality that's intrinsic to my neurology. While most people I associate with are embracing a non-pathologizing of different neurotypes, people are still pathologizing attachment styles and trying to fix them. I’m saying, what if my attachment style is not wrong, what if it’s just as intrinsic and non-pathological as my neurotype? I have to wonder, because I seem to be wired towards animism (for lack of a better term), with an inherently ecological way of thinking and relating: when I see the kind of attachment I feel wired for all the time in Nature, how can I embrace thinking that it’s broken and wrong? Furthermore, what if my attachment leanings are reparative, an antidote to capitalism, like a pioneer species which has its own ecological niche role in remediating the land, only it's also remedial to the culture? What if the "anxiousness" of it is related to how interdependence and relational worldview is essential to life and without it we are going down in flames like actually; violently exploiting each other and the planet??? What if our"anxiousness" is driven by a biological and spiritual imperative to feel related to all living things and therefore be invested in their well-being and caring for them, because without that we're all in mortal danger??? Part of my neurodivergent weird and freaky experience is having these very ancient ancestral memories come to me since I was a child. In them I experience relational worldview viscerally, I remember what it FELT like. It is a very, very different body experience, one unlike any I've felt in this life. It feels a little like early stages of romantic love but is much more grounded and sustained. I talk about that more in my article Autism and Worldview. I'm also working on a theory (and this is a theory, ppl, a playful coloring outside the lines so don't think it's a moral absolute I'm proposing).... Based on a type of theory which already exists; that different neurotypes developed to fill different ecological and cultural roles. Examples given by theorists have been: ADD ppl would be advantaged as trackers, autistic ppl as oral history keepers or artisans or spiritual leaders, etc. I'm trying out applying it to different attachment styles. In this case I wildly speculate that ppl who are anxiously attached or maybe have like BPD or some such, could be those who specialize in relationality. Conflict mediators for example. And those with these roles must understand the importance of strong relationships between ppl; between us and non-humans and land. They would understand the life-and-death implications of it intrinsically in every cell and nerve ending. To put a person who in their whole being understands that into an individualist setting would be anxious-making to say the least, at worst, some kind of hell. What if other attachment styles are like this, too? Potentially animistic and remedial? But like I said, I’m going to talk about Anxious mostly here bc that's what has been criticized about me the most harshly, (my avoidance hasn't really bothered anyone for whatever reason, methinks because it's more compatible with the systemic individualism that is normative and socially sanctioned). I believe “Anxious Attachment” might actually have a wisdom to it, contain an essential part of what’s missing in our communities and land relations. (Seriously, Avoidants (so-called), I love you and I know that Attachment Theory demonizes you too, please believe that all I’m about to say includes the utmost care for you as well). If there's one thing ever that I would like ppl to know, it's that care and commitment and responsibility are not unrealistic expectations, they exist everywhere in Nature and are essential to life. We can see them everywhere-earth and sky, algae and fungi making up lichen and other long standing symbiotic situations. Life is built on pillars of commitment. Nothing would hold together without it, all of life would turn to formless goo. Love and desire are the inception of life, the fertility, the juice; but care, commitment and responsibility are the structure, the ionic bonding, the cellulose, the fascia that enable life to continue. That enable YOUR life to continue. Kinship bonds which span millennia. Contracts of reciprocity between species maintained for 10 geological epochs. As someone who has rarely known consistency, much less commitment from humans, as in dominant culture it’s mostly only those lucky enough to have a supportive family (which I did NOT) or be selected for long term romantic partnership (a lottery not everyone even has tickets to), who get to experience that, I have been shamed for believing in it. Called Anxiously Attached. For the way I am devastated and somehow surprised (no matter how many times it happens) that passionate and enspirited love relationships seem only to last for a couple of years, that care work and responsibility are undesirable, unattractive, scary. It's mostly those two things. They don't make sense to me. I can't grok them like I can't grok why eye contact puts so many neurotypical people at ease. I can't come to terms with that being such a widespread norm of relating which puts the onus on “Anxiously Attached” people to be more independent and “work on themselves” if the brevity of romance and the lack of depth but also care and commitment outside of romance really bothers them a lot. For various reasons, I have not experienced consistency and commitment in human relationship but I have observed it in the land. I have been graciously committed to by non-humans, and inherited commitments forged by my ancestors. Such as those with certain beings whose bodies make up traditional foods. Such as land spirits and gods who ppl maintained connection with for millenia. Such as from benevolent ancestors. Not so much with living humans. My human relationships have been tragic beyond belief and I’ll spare the gory details at least for this piece. Because of what a gnarly mess I kept getting into with humans, I imbibed Attachment Theory, allowing myself to be pathologized. Shouldering the blame myself, conceding to a *disordered* concept. Yet I dreamed something else, I dreamed it with my ancestors and with the land. The dreaming kept me alive all this time while abuse, romantic normativity that undervalues friendship and maintains it's disposability, and desirability politics based on ableism were killing me in literal ways. I no longer trust people (at least ones raised in dominant culture under capitalism and patriarchy) to define what is and isn't healthy relationship. I don't trust ppl who claim to be experts on attachment. Who can do that when we don't have intact culture and healthy land relationships, and we`ve been indoctrinated with toxic individualism, amatonormativity, ableism, and care phobia for centuries? Attachment theory and other psychology modalities are literally attempting to do that? Who made them experts, no seriously. My relationship models will come from the land and I will write, paint and dance about them even if they might not be realized with other humans in my lifetime. Even though the spirits speak to me of commitments like that of the earth and sky, like that of a people committed to a land, and to care and stewardship and defense of that land for millennia, of ancestors who continue to care for and guide us generations after their death, even reincarnating back into the same lineage sometimes. To be made up of indelible, interwoven commitments. And hell, maybe it’s my hypermobile connective tissue which fails to keep my body parts in reliable connection to each other which makes me so invested in secure attachments, who knows? It is pretty anxious-making to not know if your knees are going to keep together on any given day. Mostly joking. But I have seen it in Nature and also know it exists/existed in traditional cultures the world over, and also have ancestral memories of it. Knowing that, I find it hard, nay, impossible to accept contemporary Attachment Theory that arises from capitalist and colonial society without having a million “yeah, but…”s… I probably should be very clear: this is not meant to be fodder for people in romantic relationships to use on each other to guilt each other into not breaking up when they might actually need to. This is not centered on romance like most attachment theory (imagine not centering romance, LOL). Attachment theory is based entirely on nuclear family structures and romantic relationships. Ecological relationships and extended kinship networks, ancestors and spirits, none of that has a place in contemporary attachment theory. But don't think I'm not also naming human relationships as having lengthy commitment structures (in a non-alloromantic way). I believe that our most basic way of organizing relationally is a clan structure or tribal affiliation. Most of us have verifiable histories of this. Within those structures there are lifelong and multi-lifetime committed relationships, but they usually aren't the romantic ones. All this is to say, clan or tribal commitments are left out of attachment theory completely!!! (One of the many ways psychology centers whiteness) Yet because for most of our existence we naturally organized this way, we must have a strong, strong evolutionary expectation of this kind of commitment, one that is driving us from our very DNA but which yet is never even mentioned. Instead we seek the kind of attachment we'd experience through strong extended kinship structures both human and ecological, in romantic relationships with One.Single.Person. I very much recommend reading The Spirit of Intimacy by Sobonfu Some, if you want a really great example of how romance is not even close to central and primary in a traditional land-based relational context.
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