Faith at the Border: Mike Crossley

  Our fourth day discussing Faith at the Border with our issue 05 writers. Today we’re featuring Mike Crossley, who addresses belief, connectivity, and the pressing, human reason to “trade subatomic matter.”  These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.      Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross Untitled, by Mike Crossley   There is faith in the words we say and write. Faith that the synaptic traffic merging into molecular-chemical activity, into something resembling a thought, successfully completes its route and not only retains meaning, but transmits an understanding. There is faith in the fact that this all starts as quantum intent. More or less, Einstein calculated energy turns into matter, matter into energy, neither destroyed only redistributed. We shake hands and trade subatomic matter. We stare at one another and project electrons back and forth, translating particles. This connectivity. The fundamental quality across all humanity is the need to understand. Learning a new language to translate the intent of material. Think about this. One’s intent, which began as a quantum swirl, has been arranged through a series of symbols. Then interpreted. It’s contagious. So much of...
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Faith at the Border: Kudam Taraf, Mina Zohal

  On the third day of our online symposium, Faith at the Border, Mina Zohal grapples with borders, crossings, ghosts, and language. We asked our issue five writers: in what do you place your faith during the act of crossing between places, nations, people, bodies, things, and feelings? And how? We asked that writers be free in their (re)definitions of borders and faith. The work Mina Zohal has shared is as thoughtful as it is breathtaking. These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.    Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross Kudam Taraf, by Mina Zohal Sometimes, I sit across the table from you feeling helpless in the face of the disintegration of our materials. I think: I’m reaching for a suitable praxis, but discordant sounds are taking shape between languages. Our land. Our land. Our family our land. Environs muttered through bad teeth. Rocks fall from my mouth as I try to articulate possible futures. Mother-tongue Mother-land Mother-mother. Mother me. Fals-e marg came early this year. Hawa e besyar garm ast. Da e roz haa, besyar khasta hastam, but sleep breaks like light or water in little eruptions just at the edge of: I...
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Faith at the Border: LiraeL O

  Today marks the second day of our online symposium, Faith at the Border. We asked our issue five writers: in what do you place your faith during the act of crossing between places, nations, people, bodies, things, and feelings? And how? We asked that writers be free in their (re)definitions of borders and faith. LiraeL O shares with us her indispensable meditation on the body, borders, and faith. These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.    Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross On Faith and Borders, by LiraeL O It’s all circumstantial The big reveal What are you waiting to show the world? What will life be like after they know all? The things we ask women to do to their armpits What’s your stink? The amount of nervous laughter we engender in women Faith and borders, faith and transitioning across space, bodies, emotional states etc… Faith in medical unknowns Faith in the community that holds me Faith in the self that holds me Faith in my carry Faith in my ability to pay it when I need to Faith in my sisters Faith in the unfolding Each slab of tissue reveals...
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