bonesthrown video: interview with earth worker adwoa toku
adwoa toku is a lover, earth worker, art maker and self- proclaimed body nerd rooted in community based within Treaty 13 land in Tkaronto
Interview conducted on 9/7/2022 thru the ether, between Nelson + Toronto.
KRISTEN: Question 1: How would you describe the feeling of these times?
K: and before we go in, I’ll just say - we haven’t spent so much time together, but i feel like that one conversation we had, walking around that zone (College/Lansdowne)… and knowing that we met through the Spiritual Ecology course (hosted by Emergence Magazine onine in 2020) … I just feel curious about your perspective on Earth Work, and your perspective on grounding our Spirit in Earth Work. There’s something for me… almost resistance (and this is probably an ego thing)… resistance to the way climate change narratives have become really trendy! with greenwashing, and that kind of stuff. I almost feel protective over it somehow, because I’ve quietly done this work for a really long time. and I feel like you’re another person who has quietly done Earth tending work for a long time. and I’ve been using my intuition around who I ask (to participate in this series). Monchy was the first, she was a client + now friend, and the second is my friend / co-conspirator Roxy, who I’ve been doing climate work with for a long time. + I just felt intuitively called to hold this conversation with you. I just wanted to share why I wanted to invite you in, and express some gratitude for your Beingness! And beyond what words we exchange in this conversation, I’m just thankful to be in exchange with you. in this way, & even just through our instagram dm’s. like we’ve had some coooool conversations through there
ADWOA: yea totally. and all of that deeply resonates and I echo it back. That conversation we had walking around, I find myself going back to it many a time actually. A quick aside - I think within that conversation at some point u had given such assuredness in your trust in the universe for your own safety. And I think we were talking about vaccine shit, and covid shit, and you were just like - I actually just believe I’m protected by Spirit. And that was really wild in my brain. I had just finished a yoga teacher training, and finished up a kundalini program. And like all of it - this idea of Faith, and Trust, and deep trust, I actually reference that conversation as an example of what that deep trust looks like. Cuz there was like no question in your voice. And I was like - how is anyone ever so sure of anything?? Like, I’ve never been sure of shit in my life! So to know that there are people out there moving with deep trust, with earth, with spirit, with everything …they believe in their own safety, was wild. So thank you. Gratitude. Thank you for asking me to be a part of this. Fuckin sick! I’m so excited to talk about everything. I’m glad we were able to share that a bit.
KRISTEN: Me too. Totally. It’s so cool to hear those glimmers, cuz I just (earlier in the convo) expressed my own confusion in this moment in time. & It’s like, oh yea, I still do resonate on some levels with that Faith, for sure. & It’s what has allowed me to start from Zero. Like restart my whole life, you know?
ADWOA: Absolutely. I’ll jump to that first question then. Sooo, I’m gonna answer these from a deeply personal place, I think that’s what feels really good for me right now. And these are all questions that I think about a lot, and I’m particularly excited about the wording.
A: These times feel realllllly… Absurd to me.
*both cackle *
A: If I could be truthfulllll - they feel fucking absurd right? Because we know what’s happening… with societal collapse, deep fear, pandemics, global illnesses, poverty…. all these things are happening and yet somehow I’m still a person who really wants hugs, and wants to see my friends, and wants to like, Dream of what life could be like. And I struggle a lot with that on a personal level because it feels… frivolous. But then in the same time, literally nothing makes sense, so why not lean into it. I feel like it comes up a lot, the idea that: there have never been times that were good, and times that were safe, and still people loved, and art was made, fun was had, joy was felt. And it feels absurd in that way. Because it’s this constant push + pull, going from my own desires and seeings, of who i want to be as a person, and that getting magnified to the point of what earth could look like 25-30 years from now - it may be nothing that I’ve seen before! My life may end in a society that looks nothing like the one I was born in! And what does that really mean for the dreams I have, what does that mean for how i want to be in this world, you know?
So i feel a lot of absurdity in that, constantly grappling with all of that, constantly seeing the extreme violence that is being taken out on bodies, human, earthly, everyone. And in the same time, the extreme innovation that feels really futuristic, and really hopeful in that way, of people doing things that haven’t been done before, and thinking in ways that, at least to myself, i’ve never seeeeen people think before. and how both of those are just mashed into this one sliver of earth’s history that i’m a part of. you know? it feels really wild.
K: yea, it’s pretty wacky isn’t it? lol
A: fuckkinnnn wackkkyy! totally.
K: i’m glad you named absurdity. it’s actually one of my favourite disruptive tools. it makes me think of this film that maybe you have seen. or if u haven’t seen, i think u might love it. have you heard of La Belle Verte? it’s directed by a woman. The Green Beautiful. she uses absurdity to show precisely how… i don’t know, i have to use the word absurd again; how absurd our current society is, in the ways we approach… driving a car, the pollution in the air… she uses absurdity and comedy… very subtle comedy tho, to point out that another way is possible. i don’t want to ruin it, i think you should just watch it.
A: i’m gonna watch it, i’m definitely going to check this out.
K: it also hits on what you’re saying, because she contrasts a society that is collapsing with a futuristic “alien” race from another planet who is living in a kind of utopia. they look like of us - (i mean, mostly yt bodies, cuz it’s a french film from the 90s but…) where she was going is really good.
aside: it features a young Marion Cotillard. peep! + follow me on letterboxd :P
A: yes yes yes. wow.
K: & i think absurdity is super underrated. and i think we kind of have to leeean into it. idono. like the archetype of the fool or clown. and u know… emojis are a kind of language, and i’ve been using the clown or the juggling emoji alot, because this is how it feels (to be alive in these times) lol
A: 100%!! totally.
K: okay, second question. speaking of those futures, and this desire / this very natural, innate desire to drea: what kind of changes do you foresee needing to happen in the near future to live in a wiser way on this planet? and i’ve been using the words ‘future/now’ to acknowledge that we have to embody it now in order for it to become a reality in the future. and i use the words in this question, living on this planet in a more joyful, thriving, healthy, wise way
A: thank you for naming future/now, right. because i think the future always feels so far away, but also if we’re talking generationally, if we talk ancestrally, it’s like the seeds are now. ok. so what do i feel for right now? i think a lot of what it feels like is what i’m actually trying to hold in myself. i think the idea of nuance is what comes to mind when i think of this. of the both/and-ness. this idea of the one absolute, or The One Right Way, feels really colonial to me - it feels like such a necessity for those systems that serve to prove that there is only One on top. and i’ve struggled with that always, i’ve struggled with that my entire life, all of it
K: me too.
A: and i think that again if we look to nature right - you can’t describe nature as one way. nature is beautiful, but it’s vicious, but it also makes no sense, but it’s also divinely put together, but it’s also violent, scary, and lush and life giving. and i think all of that is true. and i think that within my own self, i struggle a lot with this black + white way of like - it either has to be this or that, or that + this. and how i struggle with my own contradictions that show up in my own self and my own psyche. where in this one way i’m very rowdy, quote on quote, there’s a lot of characteristics there… that on the flip side, i want to embody gentleness, and softness and all these things. i even think back to when i was younger and i got into my punk phase. and i was literally like “i can’t listen to anything else but punk and it can only be punk” and struggling even with dumb shit, where i couldn’t wear certain clothes… you know - that rigidness that i was putting my own self in! and that is a funny level of it, but what happens when that becomes how i live my values? when i tell myself ‘because of this, i can’t do this or that or this’. & i feel like, for all of us, a bit of space to know that there is more than one right way. a bit of space to know that actually so many things can exist at once. and for most of us, and for all situations, there is NO singular Truth, because truth is subjective. and so how do we then hold all of that? because we’re going to have to, right. coming back to the absurdity of it all, that means, at least for me that like, YES the world is on fire, but i’m still going to have to try my hardest b/c why the fuck not? why would i not live the life i feel so deeply called to, because of all of this. because it doesn’t make sense. literally none of it makes sense. i have no clue how this is going to end! but - i can’t, and don’t want to be any other way within all that. and i think for our joy, for our thriving, for our own rest, to be able to relax a bit, there has to be a bit of room to hold contradiction. to hold opposing forces within our own bodies, within our own relationships. and u know? moving away from ‘everything has to be the same’, into everything is actually soooooo dynamic, and is aaaalways changing
K: the flux + paradox
A: exactly. it’s always going to be have to re-checked up on, it’s always going to have to be re-considered. because yea: what was 5 minutes ago, might not be the next. that feels at least for me, right now, one of the ways that maybe we can move toward that more joyful thriving future/now side of things.
K: thank you - my heart is BUZZING. i feel all of that so much. i remember in my undergrad really writing, or somehow always coming back to the multiplicity of things
A: yessss
K: and leaning into the multiplicity of things, and understanding that paradox is kind of part of the earthly game. and if you can accept that, i think there can be a bit more peace. while you were speaking it also made me think of pema chodron’s when things fall apart.
A: yes
K: so i picked it up recently after not reading it for a while, and there was a chapter on not harming. and something that stuck out for me as you were speaking was pema chodron’s reminder that when we think of these ethics or laws that we want to live under, around not harming (you know, she’s a Buddhist scholar and thinker) - not harming doesn’t only apply to other creatures including insects, bugs, plant life and other human beings, but should also apply to ourselves! and i’ve been thinking about the way that i - and you very eloquently touched on this - the way that i harm myself, often, mentally. not physically. because i think there is a whole other dimension of physical harm which is not what i’m gesturing towards. but the way that the average modern human mentally harms themselves through the colonial capitalist conditioning that we are existing within, and through the tools like instagram that have us in certain kinds of neural ways of thinking. that was something that just a few nights ago, really stuck out to me. i was like damn- in my lower moments, in my moments of confusion, in the heavier feeling times, i can be really like, harmful to myself! in the way that i think about, i think for me… a lot of it has to do with failure, with thinking of myself as a failure. like… stillll, the not enoughness. and even though i know that not enoughness is not true, there’s still a part of me that struggles with it. so thank you for naming the both-andness as being part of the medicine. because i think there is this conversation needing to be had around the way that we think about ourselves: because it really does affect the peace that is possible on this planet, that all of us claim to want so badly.
A: Wooooooooof. yea. yea yea. that really struck a chord right there. it’s true right. the peace that we want on earth actually can’t exist if it’s not within ourselves.
K: yea, for sure… like duh lol
A: you know!! like frikken duhhhhh lol. but it’s so hard. again it’s that frivolousness. why the hell am i going within my own psyche’s weird ways of holding. but then of course, if i can’t hold multiplicities of my own self, how can i sit in front of someone… whether i’m in relation w them as acquaintances, or i don’t know them… and hear them? and actually hear what they’re saying, and hold that: i may or may not agree with this person, but there are also layers and things that brought them exactly to where they were, and for them this feels real. regardless. & what comes from that after comes from that, but at the base level, i want to be able to do that - to hold those things, to at least see the humanness of it. i think that’s really it too. to hold myself to a standard that is above human, means then that i can’t see other peoples humanness. if i’m not even acknowledging my own, the fact that things i do don’t make sense, things i say don’t make sense. and there are things that i’ve done that contradict what i say i believe in, and things i will do that will go against what i say i stand for, but like, nothing is less true because of that, you know? and i would hope that people would see that in me, but that also means i need to see that in myself so i can see that in others too right? to really give them that time for it.
K: this is like basic human kindness??
A: literallly!!!
K: and presence. but it’s so difficult! again, in these modern cultures, to be fully present! yea… for me mindfulness has been such a helpful tool in actually being really honest with myself. i think when i was - i’m 31 now - when i was in my 20s, especially my early 20s and late teens, i thought i had my shit together!! i thought i was near perfect! which is absolutely ridiculous to admit out loud, but i think very common at that age, like the boisterousness, and the bigness of the ego at that time. and at least for me, there were certain responsibilities that i didn’t have that allowed me to be in that position. but now - yea i don’t know - there’s an honesty through more regular mindfulness practice for me, which has been the tool + the access point to more honest seeing of myself: of the anxietyyy, the worryyy, the things i didn’t think i had! i would judge other people who had those conditions - the anxiousness, or the worry - and i could see it in other people, but i wasn’t able to see it within myself, which is so interesting.
K: and i think that part of our seed, our seed laying work of this time, as a generation, is that more honest seeing of ourselves. like that interior world: that is exactly where the external world is coming out of - the interior. so i think our generation, while there is some confusion, there is some calling to be with that multiplicity, a calling to be with that both/andness, more than maybe previous generations, because we’re in this liminal, pivoting zone? because we’re orienting towards something totally different, that our imaginations can’t even conceive of, in this moment. **but we’re doing the work! the shadow work is turning the soil so that something else can be born. and it’s a very strange position to be within. *********
A: mmmhmmm
K: and i think making peace with the strangeness, and the absurdity of that feeling. feeling like The Shit one second, then feeling like Zero the next…
A: yea!!!!!
K: There’s something… there. There’s something to that kind of Labour. It’s a kind of Work
A: of course
K: that maybe is not validated by older generations. But I think that within… our own.. you know, those of us who are doing it *gestures between us, it’s quite amazing the kind of courage we have in facing things that maybe previous generations just didn’t have capacity to. not judging them, you know, conditioning…
A: yea, exactly
K: ….u know, the support system wasn’t necessarily set up for them to. and it’s somehow here for us through the internet, and through the magick that Spirit is weaving through these kinds of relations with these kinds of tools (picks up phone) that are simultaneously like, black holes of doom, and also! ripe portals of magic
A: absolutely absolutely. and i think you touch on a great point right, the generational aspect of it. i think of my parents generation, i think of the generations of elders where there is a right and a wrong: and that right is not questioned.
K: and it’s so clear for them
A: it’s so clear. it’s so clear that it becomes forgotten that we have Choice. you know? and what’s good for you might not be good for somebody else, and the consequences and the things that come out of - ‘well this is what you do and so you do it that way, and if you’re this person you do this, and if you’re that kind of person you do that!’- but actually it’s like you know, what parts of themselves did they have to deny to be able to fit into that role, and what did that really do to them? and again, no judgment right - its capacity, it was survival. if you were traversing countries and seas and leaving family and creating new ones… yea there are things that you have to hold on to, that you don’t realize you had to until you have kids! or there’s another generation and they’re like, ‘why are you all like this?’ and i think that’s also part of this holding, that’s also part of this multiplicity, again - it’s the liminal spaces of it all.
A: being first generation, being the child of immigrants, knowing that where i was born and where i live is actually nowhere near my ancestral lands, and what that has just done to my psyche - period. you know? it has always been both/and because its had to be. i am both Ghanian and Canadian. i am both, you know, this person to my family, but i’m also this person to myself. and to my friends, and to my coworkers, and this + that. + i feel like a lot of my work has been bringing all those pieces together. i think that for however and whatever it was necessary to be to survive and to thrive and be in my childhood, that meant like, certain people got to see certain parts of me. and those parts were kept very separate. and so much of that work is actually just holding them all together, and being like, i’m literally just All of that. its always been me. it has literally ALWAYS been me. i just thought i could control those things. and i think control is a big thing that comes up when i think about these things, because there is a certain sense of loss of control that we feel right now, you know, at least i do…
k: gestures in strong agreement - for sure.
a: and you know you wake up in the morning and you’re like - alright, what’s next??!?!??!?!? let me just wait to see what the world said they’re gonna do today. i just think of the idea of generations that grew up and believed in this semblance of safety, and how so many of us born after a certain year, growing up in a certain age, just know that this isn’t real. you know. to grow up and be like, there’s actually no such thing as safety, we’re just like floating on this gaddam rock, and somehow sometimes some things work out great, but it’s very very easy for things to not work out that way. you know? and like the push and pull that does to our own psyches, and how we have to exist. it always goes back to that both/and, because that’s how so much of this was born, and how so much of this has to keep going. i can’t say there’s one way because i’ve never even been part of a one way, you know. every part of my being has been jigsaw puzzle pieces from so many different places, you know. and to deny that, feels like important parts of myself just won’t make it. and that doesn’t feel good at all.
k: to deny that is a kind of violence.
a: exactly.
k: absolutism is a kind of violence no matter what form it takes in my mind. there’s none of it that feels like, good to me lol
a: i totally agree. i totally agree.
~
k: do u have capacity to go into the other two questions?
a: let’s do the other questions, those are the ones i’m excited for…
END OF PART 1 / question 1 + 2 of 4
