Colors of Space

My intention this year was to work with space. Actually, my intention was just the word “space” - no "work with," no "feel more of," no "find more," etc. No direction at all, which is, after all, a bit antithetical to space - direction, that is.

The word arose naturally, intuitively, and would not go away, as my intention word for the year usually does. I was not surprised - I was in the middle of a  teacher training for what is called Maitri Space Awareness. MSA is a program that focuses on using colors and postures to help understand the natural energies that flow through all of us. These parallel the elements - air, earth, fire, wind - and also space. Space, in this case, referred to as Buddha*, is both an element (though not one we commonly think of in modern western society) and also the ground for all the other elements to arise from. Early on, I noticed how pure space, all by itself (symbolized by the color white in this tradition), is quite rare. It is usually colored with something - green, red, blue, yellow - eg one of the other families. And then, as I got closer to Space as an element itself and began to feel out its characteristics, I noticed there’s an uncanny closeness to Space and Whiteness. 

“The Colors of Space” is what I keep thinking of this exploration as, and it sounds quite heady, but actually, it’s very felt sense. Very in my body - noticing my reluctance to relax into space unless something is “happening” in it. Noticing how quickly I become bored with just space and want to add something to it. And noticing, on the level of Whiteness, just how hard it is to see (as a white person) and just how hard it is to tolerate in a pure form. 

Recently two strong things happened - 1. I had a conversation with an older black man in which I told him the reason why I think white people bring up their other identities so quickly when we begin to talk about whiteness is to somehow make it seem like we are less white. That’s a strong statement, but it feels true. If the conversation is explicitly about race, and white folks keep bringing up being queer, being poor, etc, we are trying to show we are a different shade of white than other people in the room. He was shocked. Really? Why would we do that? Those things have nothing to do with race. Correct, but they offer a chance to show allyship in a very funky way - to say we, too, know suffering. Just because we are registered as being more privileged doesn’t mean we don’t suffer.

The problem is, most People of Color already know that. We don’t have to show them that. We need to accept the fact that others will take us on - literally - face value - and deal with the consequences of that. Later, we can sort out how this is incongruous with our mental health challenges, with our Jewishness, or any other experiences which cut down on the privileges otherwise afforded to a standard issue White Male Cisgender Heterosexual Able Bodied person.

2. During a retreat exploring the Buddha family specifically, I placed a sheet over my head, trying to see what it would be like to walk around the world seeing it through a foggy white semi-opaque filter. It was a powerful experience - not just the filter but the fabric itself, which kept me feeling trapped inside a small space, and disconnected from external cues. I got quite panicked - this is a claustrophobic space, not a broad, open one - but then when I relaxed, I realized I had created a perfect environment for me to feel what my Whiteness actually is like. I floated around the campus of Naropa University (where such things are perhaps not so unusual), and only later realized the possibility that I could resemble a KKK member from the outside, removing the white sheet from my body.

I didn’t realize when this intention arose how strongly it would correspond with the work around whiteness and race I’ve been doing, even though I’ve been doing a lot of it in this lineage, and even though it interpenetrates with everything I do. I am grateful for how this set of teachings has let me explore, with a deep felt sense, and not just conceptually, what it means for space to have color - including white.

I got a book from the library awhile back, from a reference list to another title on race I really respected. It’s called Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, by Carolyn Finney, I was struck immediately by how even when a place is established as being as wide open as possible - Yellowstone, etc - still there is claustrophobia if one’s skin color doesn’t match.

It feels like a big part of my space exploration this year is race - racialized faces in white spaces. Powerful work, all of it.