wayfinding + a little extra

wayfinding + a little extra

If you haven't gotten my poem + zine yet, you can check it out here :)

to hear the poem in my own voice~

finding my way playlist 🎶

One of my favorite rituals is making a playlist around a certain theme/vibe and listening to it while going on a long walk in nature, not going anywhere in particular - just exploring.

This is a playlist I made with this poem and zine in mind :) I encourage you to put it on shuffle and explore with curiosity.

Playlist tracks:

  1. Holy - Jamila Woods
  2. Where This Flower Blooms (ft. Frank Ocean) - Tyler, the Creator
  3. Reality Check (ft. Eryn Allen Kane) - Noname
  4. Alaska - Maggie Rogers
  5. Have Mercy - Eryn Allen Kane
  6. I Like That - Janelle Monae
  7. Alone & Unafraid - ELIZA
  8. Still Strange (ft. Priya Ragu & Sainte Ezekiel) - Oddisee
  9. Greatest Gift (ft. Lila Iké) - Jorja Smith
  10. I Am Blessed - Desirée Dawson
  11. Intuition - IYAMAH
  12. Look Up to the Sky - Nicole Bus
  13. Way Up - Jamila Woods
  14. Agape - Nicholas Brittell
  15. Indecision - Sampha
  16. Stay Right Here (ft. Xavier Omar & Mick Jenkins) - Saba
  17. Speed of Light - Chance the Rapper, LION BABE & BJ the Chicago Kid
  18. Faith's Hymn - Beautiful Chorus
  19. Everybody Needs Someone - Victoria Monet
  20. Butterfly - Cleo Sol
  21. Lady Lady - Olivia Dean
  22. HEAVEN ALL AROUND ME - Saba
  23. I.L.T.S. - Sault
  24. Thicker than Water - rum.gold
  25. You Are (ft. UMI) - Smoko Ono & Corinne Bailey Rae
  26. Free Mind - Tems
  27. Wonderful Everyday: Arthur - Chance & The Social Experiment

a bit more wayfinding wisdom

(more things I want to give space and room for)

  • In addition to monarch butterflies taking 4-5 generations to complete a migration cycle, other creatures like the Common Green Darner dragonfly, also take 3 generations. 
“Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling… As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas.” - Audre Lorde, Poetry is Not a Luxury
  • Marshallese navigators use wave piloting to find their way in the ocean. This is the practice of navigating by laying down in the boat and feeling the sensation of the waves in their stomach. They are able to use waves to determine the location of land over hundreds of miles.
    • Include picture of traditional wayfinding stick map? (unique to the marshall islands?)
    • Additionally, nuclear weapon testing in the Marshall Islands in the 1950s and the following radiation fallout, has significantly stifled the passing down of traditional wave piloting practices and rituals.
  • The U.S. caused catastrophic destruction when they held 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, including Castle Bravo which was 1,000x more powerful than the bomb they dropped on Hiroshima. 
  • M. R. O'Connor (Wayfinding) speaking to Margaret Katherine, a Jawoyn (Indigenous Australian) elder, about what she does if she gets lost in the bush:
“She laughed. She took my notebook and illustrated how the termite hills always pointed north-south, how the stars showed the way at night, and how all of the rocks, trees, gorges, and escarpments were created by her ancestors who traveled the world in the Dreamtime. Their journeys and landmarks were recorded in songs that she learned and memorized throughout her life. In this place, which struck me as unmarked and bewildering wilderness, it would be nearly impossible to become disoriented because everywhere was home.”

a few resources I used to deep dive into this topic:

I would love to learn more about this topic, so feel free to send me recommendations!