New Years Eve 2023: A Reflection

A whole lot happened in 2023, I went to Iceland, and it was incredible. I realized equally the amount of stress that I carry around with me in the growth of my life as a person, a student, and a professional. Strain occupies life. There were job movements, and I finished the classes for my doctorate program. I ushered in a new era and bought a green Subaru.

I don’t believe in a higher “truth” and always find myself grounding myself in what choices I make and what kind of world I want to live in. Every individual choice sculpts the world that we live in, and what spaces you occupy takes on the shape of your choices or lack of choices. The spaces that I occupy are shaped in every moment that I choose to remain there.

I thought about movement and rhizome and centrality at the end of 2022 and that the center cannot hold. I am unsure whether it was held this year or if centrality is no longer the goal. *Where* I am is more important than its centeredness. To occupy a space changes it. Occupation is a loaded act. There is so much that has been occupied; my mind has been occupied, for better or for worse, and for worse, there are homes and lands occupied by those who would seek the annihilation of another. Theirs is an occupation of hate. I will continue to think about space and the occupation of spaces, as well as the consequences of occupation.

21 Bowing their heads devoted: and the Furnaces of Los

22 Began to rage. thundering loud the storms began to roar

23 Upon the Furnaces, and loud the Furnaces rebellow beneath

24 And these the Four in whom the twenty-four appear'd four-fold:

25 Verulam. London. York. Edinburgh. mourning one towards another

(Image/Excerpt: “Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion” via the William Blake Archive)