“Imagination is possibly the most critical tool for a queer future.”
Our Shared, Guiding Values
Indigenous sovereign, Queer, Feminist
We are re-matriating rare Occaneechi-Saponi alluvial (ROSA) land back to her Indigenous mother’s roots. Women have been the bedrocks of our families, culture, spiritual ancestry, and carriers of emotional labor, since forever. We want to honor women, trans, two-spirited and gender nonconforming people and our relationship to the more-than-human world. The Respite seeks to be a sanctuary, a safe-as-possible community space for queer beings whose colors of the inbetween can soar high and fly.
“Queer as: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically.”
Silence and Solitude
are necessary sometimes to act our best selves. Take a pause, a breath. Rest is essential. Nature is healing. Our people are in best service to our community, the movement, and the world when we are fortified internally. We open the windows, filling our senses with the sound of rushing water, the smell of … the feeling of … . We invite you to rejuvenate and recharge here.
“Silence and solitude set the imagination free to roam, which may be why capitalism devotes itself so assiduously to creating crowds and noise. Wisdom begins in listening ; listening begins in silence; silence is rooted in solitude.”
Solidarity Scale / Economy of Exchange
We operate on a solidarity scale and system of exchange (where possible). We seek to be neither extractive nor exploitative. We believe in collaboration, not competition. We believe in resource-sharing, wealth redistribution and the tenents of La Tanda, the original giving circle originating in Mexico. We thrive outside-the-box, side-step convention, and are grateful for the labor and skills people offer, while keeping in mind our capital reality of needing to pay a mortgage and utility bills.
“We are not coming to the table just to be heard, we are coming to the table because we know something has to be done.”
Ecological Stewardship
We seek to play a part in the fight for climate justice. Honoring Joanna Macy’s deep ecology, we gawk at the sun, the sky, the stars; we honor the birds we spy and the old hardwoods that stand tall in the forest canopy. The Respite is active in stewarding and conserving the alluvial floodplain forest and land of the Tar River in the Pamlico Basin which we inhabit. We tend to the land by gleaning fallen limbs, light a fire for heat when cold, and conscientiously consume the water and electricity we use. All become mindful, deliberate actions when we are here.
“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”
Intimate and
Emergent
The Respite is an intimate incubation space - for grounding, for inter-relationships, for time spent building trust. We hope that “relational, adaptive, fractal, interdependent, decentralized, and transformative” (adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy) processes will emerge here. When we choose to spend time at the Respite, we “see our own lives and work and relationships as a front line - a first place we can practice justice, liberation, and alignment with each other and the planet.” (AMB echoing life principle of Grace Lee Boggs.)
We share this piece as a mantra, a calling in to practice Solidarity with Southern Black Liberation cultural workers (https://southernersonnewground.org/themandate/):
“I am living a life I don’t regret
A life that will resonate with my ancestors,
and with as many generations forward as I can imagine.
I am attending to the crisis of my time with my best self,
I am of communities that are doing our collective best
To honor our ancestors and all humans to come.
”
