One participant off-handedly used the metaphor of anemones for the feeling of protecting herself from colleagues and institutional conditions that sought to put her in her place, to make her feel like she wasn’t enough. She reflected that sometimes she could feel herself becoming like an anemone, closing up and stinging predators and threats.
I imagined this: She wanted, instead, to open up and move with the waves and communicate via electric pulses with her community, a cross-species cluster of sea stars, kelp, sponges, coral, rock. She wanted to move weightlessly.
I imagine a future when we won’t feel as if we can’t open up because we are stranded without oxygen above the water line. I imagine we will all fulfill our responsibilities to each other by communicating and contributing according to what we were designed for. We will be vibrant colors and we will be electric.
Studies
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