TIME AND LOVE

Let us imagine particles in space.
Each particle is an energy point. 

However, nothing exists on its own,
everything exists because there is a dance. 

In this flexible cosmos,
each body that irrupts
is a new design and
transforms everything around.1¹

Anna Dantes

In my home I have learned that it takes a community to educate a child.

"nothing exists on its own"

Having the opportunity to get back to school as a community – belonging to and bringing the Selvagem Community with me – puts me in another place, an expanded one. I have worked as a teacher in schools; for many years I was reprimanded for carrying affection and smiles in the same backpack I used to carry books. I was born and raised in a community. At home, I learned how to love with my hands. We used to work while singing and taking care of eachother. My grandpa Antônio taught my dad that singing scares off fears and protects the house. We shared the work of looking after the kids. We also shared water, food, pain and joy.

Once I heard I was too happy for someone who worked as a teacher in a public school. The observation came from another teacher. On that occasion she was responsible for organising the timetable and the workload of all the teachers. In that year I was able to fulfil my workload by attending three days a week. However, after the observation, I was assigned to work five days a week from 7am to 5pm. My punishment was to spend more time at school. Full of vacant time, I took the opportunity to get to know my workplace better. That's how I learned to observe the students, employees and all the lives that made up a scholar unit. A theatre company with 6th grade students was born from that experience, the fruit of vacant time filled with poems and songs.

In an attempt to punish affections, they resorted to time. But in Iroko's domains, time is not a punishment. Time is strength. Iroko is the very representation of the dimension of time, little known to living and dead beings, to those who were born or are about to be. Guardian of ancestrality, Iroko rules the times and strengthens the links between the past and the present. Iroko is the first tree that happened to be planted on earth. For those who descend from bantus, Iroko equals the Inquice Kitembu: the transforming wind and time's tree, time's body.

I get back to the classroom in other times, I get back as a quilombed community, pregnant of beings and dreams. It's time for dancing. It's time for wide affection. Embraced affection. I see that, little by little, children, employees, teachers and staff from Professor Escragnólle Dória Municipal School allow themselves to enter our Selvagem, our Wild dance. We dare to awaken memories that were stored by the time. We are writing notes to the transforming wind; the stone quarry where the school is located was once known as Morro da Ventania, Windstorm Hill. Through art we create sensible dialogues, in an attempt to wake up, in the urbanised beings we are, the nature we also are.

In this universe called school, my Selvagem community dances expanding life. Affecting and being affected. My community backs me up.

"While the universe expands, love coalesces."²

Photo: Veronica Pinheiro

NOTAS:
1 e 2 Caderno Selvagem – Flecha 6, Tempo e amor
https://selvagemciclo.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CADERNO49_FLECHA_6.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMBCABxXCQ&t=620s&ab_channel=SELVAGEMciclodeestudossobreavida