Céline Chuang
Dear Child of the Future
Back in these past eras, some of us talked about white supremacy like an iceberg, with the bulk of its mass below the surface, but this articulation was limited: there was nothing natural or inherent about whiteness, or capitalism and colonialism, machines finely-honed after centuries of cruel operation.
for the love of lowly things (for Mary)
In December, it is the season of Advent in the church calendar, and in the sanctuary, large-scale artwork of a pregnant belly adorns the stage. I wonder at the quiet fury and joy of Mary, her declaration in the Magnificat that God has “filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty.”
On bee-ing free: racial justice, surviving apocalypse, and paying attention
White supremacy doesn’t just uphold police brutality and mass incarceration, migrant detention and colonial extraction on Native land; it’s death-dealing and ordinary and wants to last forever.
On bee-ing free: racial justice, surviving apocalypse, and paying attention
White supremacy doesn’t just uphold police brutality and mass incarceration, migrant detention and colonial extraction on Native land; it’s death-dealing and ordinary and wants to last forever.
the practice of hope: reminders on how to be (or, contemplative practices against capitalism)
Share: meals, music, resources, festivities. Create alternative economies based on generosity and care. Sit on front porches. Feast well, and often.
Life, abundantly: on everyday Easters, resurrection, and time travel
Octavia Butler said God is Change. She also said our destiny is to take root among the stars. Did she know back then that we are rooted in the stars at a molecular level, made up of remnants of explosions at the universe’s birth?
for the love of lowly things (for mary)
I knew Mary Oliver's work well enough to mourn her, to recall the way some poems snag you with their fishhook beauty and won’t let you go until you have reckoned with them. Perhaps most of all, the sacred imperative to give your whole self to a place and time—the endless and proper work of paying attention.
greening our golden hour grief: how not to be afraid of the end of the world
When I’m feeling optimistic, I wonder what kind of future world we’ll live in, how children could sit around imagining the monsters of eras past and whisper climate change between cupped hands. When I’m feeling pessimistic, I don’t like to wonder about the future.
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Ruminate Community
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The Waking is an online literary magazine and a part of the Ruminate creative community that houses high-quality literary writing about what it’s like to be human. We are interested in short-form prose and image-text hybrid work. This art can be beautiful, it can be strange, we just ask that it feels true.