All Tomorrow's Flowers

7.30 in LA this evening

Hello angels,

Today I’m doing an event with my beloved friend writer and DJ extraordinaire,

AISHA MIRZA

, as well as the brilliant Arshia of Discostan and lastly — Habibah, a TransFeminist Sufi spiritual healer who will be performing Dhikr at our event tonight. It’s going to be incredibly grounding and healing.

Aisha and I will be reading and speaking to each other about grief so in preparation we’ve been writing love letters to one another. Mine is down below and theirs is here if you want to read it.

If you are in LA, please come!

It starts at 7.30, the tickets are available here.

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Aisha,

A love letter to you makes sense because I have a very deep love for you in my heart. It’s one of those inexplicable things that feels like fate - like soul connections often do. Even though much of our friendship has been across time and space across random moments in different cities - mainly London and New York - and now Los Angeles, too - it’s been a salve to my lonely heart to know that you exist out there and that you f e e l like me too.

The older I get the more I know feeling it all is a gift. In a world that teaches you (and rewards you for it) dissociation by severing you from your core, the colonizer's weaponry of separating us from the land and God, I have relished stepping into my emotions and allowing them to release me of the fear I once had of being too much. I know not everyone can hold me, and that hurts less too, because re-orienting and understanding that my feelings are a gift allows me to hold them with reverence for the first time in my life.

I think the world has felt isolating at times because people don’t seem to have as strong emotions as we do, they can mask, they can hide, they can pretend, they can lie. I think at times this has felt like I’m illegible to many because grief has shaped me, the shattering and imprint have made me completely who I am, and sometimes it’s all I want to linger in. But, I think that’s also the impact of abuse. I write because the page becomes a discovery and an acceptance of the self, but also because I am alone with this immensity of grief that I hold. I lean toward people like you, who have become reflections of myself because you show me it’s possible to live as yourself in all the intricate details. Even in the misery that you can move in and out of. Feelings, for both of us, are very elastic.

Actually, now that I think about it, we’ve always talked about grief with one another. In an astrological sense, we are both double Cancers, so we have always been frank about our wounds with each other. I still remember walking to Grand Army Plaza with you, all those years ago in Brooklyn, sitting and drinking smoothies on the sidewalk as we talked about dying. We both have struggled with suicidality, of being in these bodies with all these vast and spiraling emotions and yet we wade through it all to show up for those we love as well as ourselves.

It’s hard but it’s beautiful. Thank you for being a genuine witness in this journey and for allowing me to be a witness to yours too.

I love you, see you tonight,

fa

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all tomorrow’s flowers:
blooming under the heat of empire

On Thursday 5th December, please join Aisha Mirza, Discostan, Fariha Róisín, and Habibah as we come together to hold our collective grief via an evening of music, discussion, embodiment and ritual. Despite it all, the seeds of resistance are warmer than ever, are ours to nourish and sow. Grief tending is a precious part of this process and we invite you to come alchemize with us.

There will be readings and a conversation about grief from Aisha and Fariha, listening sets from Discostan and Aisha as well as a dhikr with Habibah, who will utilize Sufi chanting and visualization as she guides us on a journey from the material reality to the worlds of the heart and the soul. This will be a night of remembrance and grounding.

Arshia Fatima Haq (@arshiaxfatima) is a multimedia artist whose visual and sonic work draws deep from her Indian Muslim origins. She is also the founder of @discostan, which envisions transnational solidarities from northwest Africa to southeast Asia and their diasporas.

Fariha Róisín - (@fariha_roisin) is a culture worker, educator and writer. They have written several books including Who Is Wellness For? and Survival Takes A Wild Imagination. They are a member of Writers Against The War on Gaza.

Habibah (@habibahbeads), born & raised in Damascus, Syria, is a Sufi spiritual guide & healer, a calligrapher, a poet, and a performer.

Aisha Mirza (@uglyinahotway) is a writer, musician, artist and community organizer. They are also the creator of misery (@miseryparty), a mental health org and sober party for QTIBPOC based in London.

This event is open to all ages. Sliding scale, $10-30 suggested donation. 50% of proceeds will go to mutual aid in Palestine and Kashmir. Please note Scribble is a sober space. Masks will be available and encouraged.