Love is Strong as Death http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/ A web log addressing ideas about the politics of friendship between women, and how “acts of political love” could be activated and embodied as new possibilities in our lives, in the surrounding community, in the world. en Copyright 2008 Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:20:36 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Traces For your viewing pleasure, we've posted a few images of our feast preparations: some of the handmade invitations Faith and Hyla worked on in Chicago and Pittsburgh; snapshots of the farm where our mesculin greens came from the morning of the feast; the farmer's market on the Brown campus; Louella the yogurt maker; the beeswax candle & goat cheese vendors; Liz, Faith, Hyla and Paige preparing corn chowder and pizza in Paige's Kitchen, and a cornucopia of ingredients that hosted a lucky squirrel the next morning. The artist Julie Kumar, a student at Brown, made some beautiful drawings while we ate and gave toasts. The menu featured fruits, vegetables, goat milk cheese, bread and other ingredients from local farmers.

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/09/traces.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/09/traces.html Brown University 2006 Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:20:36 -0500 Love Aims to Close All Distances I can't make the feast. The distance between us, Nashville to Providence, is outside the realm of financial justification. Let me tell you how I learned of the feast. I was visiting Faith at her home in Chicago where Barbara Yontz and I were graciously allowed to bunk in Faith's studio. It was filled with traces of caring preparation for the feast. She was adorning the invitations with individual watercolors, thin red string and a wax seal. She explained to us over dinner the nature of the project and the origins of the phrase Love As Strong As Death.
I thought about the meals she has shared with me-tongue tacos, steak we shared off the same plate, my first taste of lamb, homemade preserves and marmalades, greens from her garden. Conversation seems to happen while you chew. Histories are told. Love happens at mealtime as we feed both our bodies and our hearts. It is the taste of love that I will miss in Providence and the memory of the special evening that you will share.
So here's my plan subRosa.......I'm hosting my own satellite feast in Nashville with 13 of the wisest women I know. We'll bring to the table the same concerns of conversational love, engaging discourse and good wine. That night there will be a small movement of love happening from Rhode Island to Tennessee in the way Berger described love closing all distances.

We will drink a toast to you and your project.
love to you
Kristi Hargrove

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/09/love_aims_to_close_all_distanc.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/09/love_aims_to_close_all_distanc.html Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:27:19 -0500 Political Love The following bits of texts were reprinted in subRosa's invitation to the Feast, in order to stimulate dialog and responses to the idea of Political Love.

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/post.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/post.html Suggested Reading Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:57:29 -0500 Welcome to Loveblog from Faith Wilding To introduce myself on this blog and to initiate a conversation, I first of all want to speak about the moment of beginning. As I write this at the end of a long, task-filled day, I feed myself with a light white wine and with fresh bread and goat cheese I have bought at the farmer’s market today. I try to treat myself well as part of an every-day politics of self-care, and maintaining a viable life—a life worth living.

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/welcome_to_loveblog_from_faith.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/welcome_to_loveblog_from_faith.html Introduction Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:37:19 -0500 Song of Who? "Love is Strong as Death" is inscribed on the Carrie Tower, a memorial clock at Brown University.

What does that mean to me as I read it while walking across the busy college green of an ivy league university? Not knowing its origins, it is little more than a sentimental riff realized by a moneyed person.

Growing up, I was not indoctrinated--as a believer--in any singular biblical canon or organized religious faith. So, thanks to my friend Faith, I quickly learned during my first visit to Brown that "Love is Strong as Death" is taken from the Song of Solomon.

I can now make the bold presumption that the people whose money erected the tower were most likely of Judeo-Christian faith. (this is not necessarily true of the brick-layers or stone carvers or students who pass the tower today, although it most likely is).

Who was this Solomon/Suleyman? Did he author the Song of Songs? His name means "peace" - did his assigned name influence how he lived and loved and expressed power? Is it possible to discuss the literary or historical possibilities of Solomon without becoming entrenched in politically correct debate of contemporary realities realities realities in the Middle East or of hetero-normative marriage?

I don't know if I agree that Love is Strong as Death. I suppose both can be corporeal or emotional states as well as political conditions. I wonder how Carrie Brown would have addressed this song?

What if Love were a culture of the shared journey before Death?

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/song_of_who_1.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/song_of_who_1.html Love is Strong as Death Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:21:54 -0500 Distance Love aims to close all distance. Death achieves the same end. Yet whereas love celebrates the unique, the unrepeatable: death destroys them. ...Love aims to close all distances. Yet if separation and space were annihilated neither loved one nor lover would exist. Between space and love there is the first opposition--that opposition which is contained as energy within the original act of creation.

-John Berger, our faces my heart, brief as photographs, p. 90

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/distance.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/distance.html Suggested Reading Tue, 01 Aug 2006 17:55:58 -0500 An Invitation subRosa invites you to prepare a gift of discourse reponding to the phrase Love is Strong as Death addressing ideas about the politics of friendship between women, and how acts of political love could be activated and embodied as new possibilities in our lives, in the surrounding community, in the world...

]]> http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/an_invitation_1.html http://www.refugia.net/loveblog/2006/08/an_invitation_1.html Political Love Tue, 01 Aug 2006 17:50:25 -0500