Jason's Sunday School: The Beginning

September 10, 2023

Inquiry

What practice will I (re)embrace that can (re)root me to all my ancestors, (re)affirm all my relations, (re)connect me to all that came before, and (re)envision all that is possible as I move through this Orion Season (August 2023 to April 2024)?      

Reference

Gramsci, Antonio. (1985). Selections from Cultural Writings (W. Boelhower, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1891-1937).

• “The Problem of the School.” pp. 39-40.
• “Questions of Culture.” pp. 41-43
• “Educative Art.” p. 107
• “Individualism and Art.” pp. 111-112

Introspection

This is written in the style of a series of vignettes. Each vignette has a relation to the ones that came before. And each is its own revelation. Read in whatever manner suits you at this moment. 

***

I love studying, and I absolutely hate school. That’s what I’ve kept telling myself all of my adult life. It informs a large part of how I understand the world. I exist in opposition to formal education. That’s how I’ve survived. 

***

My hatred of school is incredibly well founded. I went to Catholic school, where I was relentlessly bullied for being perceived to be queer. High school brought with it a growing fear of being found to be queer, and with it came the beginnings of paralyzing anxiety attacks and suicidal ideation. Then, I went to the seminary, where I finally came out and  was subsequently thrown out of both the seminary and the church whose school raised me. I remained at the Catholic university that housed my seminary thanks to some heavy lifting by anti-racist organizers for another year and a half. But I proved too queer for the school, and they threw me out too. In other words, school is a place of institutional trauma. 

***

This summer, I had the opportunity to help co-facilitate Queer Art School over the course of three weekends. Queer Art School took a year and a half to develop and involved the collective ideas and labor of Crystal Mason, Tray Smith, Midori, Juan Carlos Escobedo, blkcowrie, and me. It was co-created in response to all of our traumas with formal, institutional education as a salve to aid in our own healing. It brought together a cohort of 11 Black, Indigenous, disabled, neurodivergent, urban, rural, young, and old queer and trans artists from across what is politically known as the United States of America to explore who we be, what we create, and why we be who we be and create what we create. The end result being a witnessing of the infinite possibilities of what queer and art and queer art has been, is, can be, and will be. 

It was, in fact, deeply healing. 

***

I wake up incredibly early. It’s an inheritance from my mother’s side of the family. All the women wake early. Have always woke early. I count myself in this lineage. 

This past August I stepped outside to smoke a joint and do a bit of dancing before jumping into reading. At about 4:20am, I looked up at the early morning sky. Peeking out from behind the low fog was my old familiar, Orion. I had never connected Orion with August. I always related their appearance to October. Their appearance this early in the year was a revelation at 47 years of age, after thousands of days spent looking up at this same sky during these same hours. 

Dancing on my corner under the gaze of Orion, I smiled widely. I realized that Orion stretched from August to April, which coincides with my favorite time of the year. It is the period of time when I feel most aligned with the spirits of study. The dark morning hours inspire me to connect with ideas, concepts, stories, experiences beyond the self. It is during Orion Season that I seek intimacy with the Cosmic Mysteries. 

***

I am looking at an incredibly hectic Fall 2023. It is exciting to be in this place because it is the result of decades of trying my best to be in right action with who I want, need, and desire to be in the here and now. I know that I have faltered and failed. I also know there are cycles, and that being in right action means accounting for cycles once one becomes aware of them. 

One thing I know about my cycles of hecticness is that it becomes less hectic when I stay present and that presence is aided by remaining rooted to all my ancestors, affirming all my relations, (re)connecting to all that came before, and dreaming of all that is possible. I know this because my own study, inquiry, and introspection over past Orion Seasons revealed a cosmic map that helps me understand and make meaning of / from / among the Cosmic Mysteries. 

This Orion Season I want to be just a bit more intentional about how I embark on this year’s journey. I need a bit of wayfinding.

***

Sundays are sacred to me. I came out of my mother’s womb believing this with every fiber of my being because my mother came out of her mother’s womb believing this with every fiber of her being because her mother came out of her mother’s womb believing this with every fiber of her being because her mother came out of her mother’s womb believing this  with every fiber of her being because… The sacredness of Sundays is the legacy of Catholic patriarchy etching itself into the wombs of the women in my family. I am a part of this inheritance. This is part of my legacy, if ever I believed in it. 

If this is so etched, if this is my inheritance, if this is my legacy, if this is something that I will leave behind adding to the collective What Came Before, how then will I queer its existence so that I do not carry with me the etched, inherited legacy of Catholic patriarchy into All That Is Possible? 

***

I picked up my recent copy of Antonio Gramsci’s Selections from Cultural Writings this morning, Sunday, September 10, 2023. It is also my mother’s birthday. I read passages on “The Problem of School.” And “Questions of Culture.” And “Educative Art.” And “Individualism and Art.” I stepped outside to smoke a joint and dance under Orion. I took moments to simply be, to listen and receive. 

The Cosmic Mysteries responded. I walked inside and started typing. This. 

It seems that I am going back to Sunday School. 

That’s what’s been / being revealed. 

***

For Jason’s Sunday School to not perpetuate a legacy of Catholic patriarchy, I must define a few loose parameters / Guides for myself, which can help me know when I have veered from the path revealed on the morning of Sunday, September 10, 2023. These Guides are not meant to be etched in stone. They are formed in wet clay and kept so they do not dry or set. Every Sunday, I shall (re)wet them. See what may need to be reformed or reshaped. Let their mud get all over my being. Let my being be changed by them as much as my being shapes these Guides.

Here are Jason’s Sunday School Guides: 

• Upon waking, do the following things in the following order: 
• Turn on the coffee pot.
• Brush your teeth and take a leak. 
• Make coffee. 
• Roll a joint. 
• Pick your music for the morning. 
• DO NOT CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA. 
• Write down a line of inquiry. 
• Pick a book, a text, a video, a podcast, something to aid in your inquiry. 
• Pour yourself a cup of coffee. 
• Put on your music. 
• Take your joint and your self outside. 
• Smoke, dance, and drink under the gaze of Orion. 
• Come back inside. 
• Start studying. 
• Take breaks, side quests, and pit stops, as needed. There is nothing linear about this journey. Inquiry is a wandering. 
• Study requires raw, vulnerable meaning making. Don’t just read, watch, or listen. Engage. Create something. Anything. Don’t judge it. Don’t edit it (too much). Just let it exist in the form that it is requesting to exist. 
• Share whatever you create. There is a simple form for sharing that you created on Sunday, September 10, 2023. Start there. Adapt or modify it as needed. Whatever its final form, share it on The QC, a blog. Do not let “perfection” or worry about its perception prevent you from sharing. You do not need to share it beyond posting it to your blog. The goal is simply to share: who you be; what you're studying; how it's forming how you understand and make meaning out of the chaos of existence. 
• Keep with it as it aids you. Keep with it as it aids you. Keep with it as it aids you. Do not abandon the form. Do not abandon the form. Do not abandon the form. Let it evolve, grow, (re)form. Let it evolve, grow, (re)form. Let it evolve, grow, (re)form. 

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