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Manika

@notdead.yet._

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Death Worker relishing in Life
Terminally fascinated with the World
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•30• Life can just be good by @notdead.yet._
A memory popped up that we did this shoot 7 years ago. „Seven?!“ I exclaim, cheeks filled with carrot&hummus, spitting some back on my screen in surprise. It is one of those things where measured time feels both too long and too short. My felt experience is a double layer of „that was another lifetime“ and „I can still smell the scarf and feel the fern on my skin“ I appreciate these archive reminders; they make me go back in memory and review. Every time I look back I find Gratitude for all the things that happened. But this time also, with more ferocity, gratitude that these years are done and there is a definite line between then and now. I have lived through them and looking at the young woman in these photos I envy her - for she has both: so much to look forward to and she is not yet carrying what she’ll need to bear sooner rather than later. I reach out my hand to her, for a moment I touch her sea-salty skin and the precious necklace I lost in the mud that day. And then I wipe away the little piece of carrot on my screen, bringing me back into the here & now to a body and mind both weaker and stronger, more expansive and more stubborn, more fearful and more discerning. What has carried me then, carries me still: a deep love for life that is able to embrace what is. 📷 @janawillmeer @janaglaeserfotografie by @notdead.yet._
To say that I am happy at the moment would be inaccurate. An under- and overstatement at the same time, somehow. I don’t actually think I’ll ever be able to speak this sentence again and let it stand on its own. What I am though is as close to myself as I have been in a long time. I am the thing that happens when I allow the ecstasy and the ache to feed each other. And it’s pretty damned beautiful. (If you want to read more of me rambling about what I mean by that, have a look at my lil Substack I made) #grief #endoflifecare #deathwork #love #journey by @notdead.yet._
I continue to fail at shaping my body into the human image of me. But I did figure out how to grow flowers from my belly button! Hey maybe I will let you eat them.. Now that you’re here.. I’ll give you a quick tour. Gosh did you check the time? It’s a rose. There’s one that blooms right around my navel. It will only ask you for your eternity (didn’t I tell you we’d be quick) If you touch its thorns, every drop of blood you give will be collected and dripped into the river that runs underneath the bookstore (Isn’t it weird how somehow you know exactly what I’m talking about and also that there is a ginger cat wearing a tiny silver bell who guards the used comic book section) Don’t worry about it too much, come with me.. Now pray tell,have you ever harvested fruit from a salty garden before? You don’t pluck, you witness. When it is ripe, make sure to catch it with both hands. You will need all the flesh and juice to drown yourself in later. Also, not to sound too practical but their seeds are best stored in that small space in the back of your throat. The one that needs the secret command to open at all. Oh look at this moss down below. You could follow the wet grooves and maybe you’ll meet the river (the river.. that river.. how can something be so urgent and so indifferent and why do we know exactly where it flows) This is where your mouth will find true rest. You don’t know silence until your holding it makes the flowers above moan in bloom. I told you maybe I’ll let you eat them.. by @notdead.yet._
It sounds cheesy and I mean it.. Go and tell them who they are and what they mean to you. You know who. Yo mama your sissy your lover your friend. The person who helped you grow from the mud. The person who needed your support and through that somehow managed to heal you too. The one you never know if the words can fully express how deeply you feel (you’ll get close enough, it’s fine) The one where it would really, truly, reality-alteringly hurt if they were gone. Don’t wait. #deathwork #deathcare #morticiansofinstagram #griefwork by @notdead.yet._
This one’s for my beloved fellow deathies 😚 I’ve been encountering some black and white thinking in myself and my colleagues. Where we are in time currently in combination with death work is a breeding ground for heightened emotions and tension around things that matter to us. It would be easy to succumb to assumptions about each other and write us off. I am glad to see that, as death workers, we also know to hold more than just one truth and to not seek simple answers to complex questions. We seem to know that listening comes first and even in difference, there lies a potential to find a way through. And I feel we really have to do this at this point in time. It is not the 100% agreement with each other But also not the volatile fuck you Sometimes it’s the uncomfortable state between Coming away from these conversations I feel challenged, and I’m making mistakes but I also feel that we have to keep doing this if we want to actually prevent disaster from happening #deathwork #deathcare #mortuary #griefwork #deathpositive #necropolitics by @notdead.yet._
“We have to go to the protest” Mama said, so off we went. Witnessing the momentum, kindness and humour my Mama ripples into everything she does and everywhere she goes is one of my biggest life lessons. Community doesn’t feel so separated when we walk together. When times are intense we need to create all the joy we can - I learned that from her too. May this remind me one day of how precious life is and how we can never take for granted the people walking with us (another thing that, guess what, I learned from her) #meinemama #fcknzs #peacefulprotest by @notdead.yet._
I return to this often: My gaze and shoulders drop eyes almost closed Heart almost broken And I breathe out At the funeral And out At the protest And out To hold It doesn’t take long for life demanding to rush back in. But in that space between lie the coordinates It is here that I return to The resonance beneath the turmoil I sink in The physical gets fed with oxygen The soul with silence Here rises the inhale And the burials continue Those of our beloveds Those of the oppressive systems presently in their last death rattle. And we return. by @notdead.yet._
In a place where pregnant Mummas and children on shoulders are dancing with furious and passionate youth, where crying men‘s hands are being held by Arab elders and all of us are protected by each other .. maybe we don’t need 5500 police controlling it all. MAYBE we should focus on the 5500 tons of aid needing safe passage into 🍉 instead. #concept @gazafreedomflotilla @surya.sails.for.gaza @northernrivers4palestine #freedomflotilla #berlin #dieproletin #freepalestine #freepalestine #freepalestine by @notdead.yet._
Die your deaths while you’re alive, I beg you, sweet love of mine. Let me dig you up from fertile soil same as you have pulled me from the ashes of my self. An ode to last years‘ February, which was a harrowing month. It was also a blessing. I had no idea what was coming but knew exactly what I was in for. Thank you. by @notdead.yet._
I would make a table And I would make it longer No. Longer. There wouldn’t be chairs, just long wide benches so that more could sit, children squishing in between people’s hips There wouldn’t be plates, or cutlery Just hands reaching to the center with all the food we could possibly eat, feeding each other We’d have prayer in languages and tongues and laughter No one would need to eat hastily , as we’d all know the first bites are kept for those who walked before us and the last for the ones that will come later Always more than enough, somehow to carry us to circle around the fire, the sacred one, the true one, the feeding one, the one that will never cease to burn 📷 @kloesiealbum by @notdead.yet._
She did it ! by @notdead.yet._

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