Done with Spirituality

May 10

I’m done with Spirituality. For realz y’all. I’ve been struggling over the idea for years, questioning “Why is it important for me to believe in some prescribed system of understanding (which is really a system of proposals intended to be swallowed whole as fact) in order to gain enlightenment?”

I’ve come to believe the concept of spirituality is deeply flawed in that it takes our focus away from reality and directs us to seek answers from vagueness: “Somewhere out there is meaning.”

Perhaps, instead of seeking to be spiritual, we might seek to be aware. Awareness allows us to seek answers in everything around us. It begs the question “How do I fit in with all this stuff I see and hear and feel and smell?”

Awareness allows us to be curious and to observe and to listen, instead of pawning the responsibility for enlightenment off on some deity (or the story somebody else told about their observations). We were born with so many faculties, few of which we get to fully exercise.

I’d love to see a resurgence in deep awareness on a worldwide scale, followed by action in response to a newly developed understanding of the way things are, as opposed to how we’ve been told they are supposed to be.

Please reply away! I’d love to know what you all think.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

Done with Spirituality

Steamed about STEAM

Moratorium on Love