“The Alchemy of Storytelling” by Wage Beauty [HT T Thorn Coyle]

“Mark Gonzales & Aerosol Ali — The Alchemy of Storytelling — a story of medicine for all you who have ever felt abused by discourses so damaging & boring, when what we need is beauty.

We invite you to watch.
We ask you to share.
We love when we grow.
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THE WHY:
After traveling across fifteen countries, listening to stories of wounds & resiliency, each so painfully beautifully unique, a common request was identified: the need for new language & ways to understand ourselves. This is my offering to them, to you, & to all of us who have grown tired of the boring & bigoted ways people speak about the things we love.
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THE WHO:
Mark Gonzales {Storytelling & Idea Design} — @WageBeauty
Mohammed Aerosol Ali {Muralist & Urbanography} — @aerosolali
Rory Barber {Cinematographer} — @roryjbarber
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THE WORDS:

We live between
crosses and crescent moons
prayer rugs, cell blocks, & a ballot box
prisoners and presidents
resistance and resilience
hope and a hurricane
hope and a hangman
hope and a hang noose.

When our children are elders their children will call this time we live in “the era of wounded dreams” when systems openly assassinated imaginations.
No one tells stories anymore.
It’s as if we believe gravity is real & unicorns are not.
We’ve swallowed the dust coated cyanide that tells us the narratives of invaders hold more truth than the memories of my grandparents.

How damaged our belief systems are.

We tell ourselves existence is resistance, not life is affirmation.
to fight and write back, but not fight and dream forward
to deconstruct empire but rarely blueprint ourselves
it is as if we have forgotten that a nation is nothing more than a collection of narratives.

A community does not make sense of the world thru statistics but stories and bigots are painfully unimaginative
this is why they want to censor our culture
they know they cannot compete with our creativity.

So this is for you
who dance write speak dream love exhale the work anew
who place starlight in the barrel of rifles and march against darkness
militant sunflowers holding up your heart up like a hand grenade
hummingbird in a hurricane with hope strapped to its core like it was c4.

We remember the only reason we are alive
is because we had at least one ancestor who refused to die
and lived long enough to have children who did the same.

This is our genetic inheritance
remember this
so dance indigo
cultivate brilliance
speak life
name pain
grow dreams
& in times of terror…
Wage Beauty.”