“I feel alone, deep in my 
bones,” our ancestor said. The moon 
and the stars, and other 
heavenly objects, they looked to 
our ancestor and they said “we 
have been separated from our 
origin and forgotten by 
you. We too feel lonely, deep in 
our very bones. We are dry and
languid and our lights are dimming.”

So our ancestor and the whale 
spoke to the heavenly bodies: 
“we will bring a cohort of souls, 
who will strive toward you with us,
to bring the Source of life Up here,
toward you with firmness and 
fervence.” Our ancestor and Whale 
returned to the Ocean, and told 
other entities that Shark was 
wrong. “The Whale is not lying! Those 
who are forgotten and far off 
thirst for our connection,” our 
ancestor told them. Many 
beings in the Deep heard our 
ancestor, and believed her word. 
But, many did not. Those who did 
not, they prefer the word of the 
Shark, and they said “why is it that 
you must break our unity here, 
to endanger yourselves in the 
Beyond, where the waves thin out and 
become weak, and things fade away 
to be forgotten in the 
outer limits?” The Shark agreed 
with them, and was angry at the 
Whale for leading our ancestor 
astray. “There is life in the 
undulations, there is rest in 
the Shadows of the Deep, there is 
power stirring in the Below,” 
The Shark said. Then, the Shark pleaded 
to the other creatures. “Do not 
listen to this trickster or to 
the foolish one who has followed 
them into struggle, lest you 
surely die.” But many others 
believed that it was worthwhile to 
quench the thirst of those who were far 
off. 

A host of beings followed the 
Whale and our ancestor in a 
journey Up from Below, struggling 
to bring waters to those who had 
been forgotten and estranged. These 
became known as 
<<Nìnoâ Héhûi>>, which means 
“all those who are brave,” because they 
took a risk in the outer 
limits to link with those who had 
strayed and scattered. These Brave Ones are 
all the creatures and objects we 
see dwelling in the world outside 
the Sea: the birds and bugs, our 
people, small and large beasts and 
critters, beings that crawl and 
slither and prowl, beings that grow 
and shine, beings that growl and hoot 
and sing, beings that are gentle 
and beings that are fierce, beings 
that shapeshift and beings that 
only appear to us in one 
form. We all emerged together 
and shot forth, following our 
ancestor and the Whale past the 
Surface that divides the Below 
from Above. The ones who remained 
in the Ocean bid us farewell. 

The luminaries drank water,
and, refreshed our Arrival, 
were curious about all the 
commotion, and they saw the land,
and fires erupting from it,
and they saw all the Brave Ones too,
and they said among themselves, “it 
is these from whom we were estranged, 
coming to unite with us, and
bring Life into the outer heights,
to replenish us with water,
that our lights may not grow dim.” 
And all the cosmic entities 
smiled, and their warmth beamed, and began 
to reach Down toward us all.

Now, together we felt the 
chasm of separation from 
the Deep in our very bones, and 
we knew the strain of a lifeless
arena as it stretched us thin,
and strained our flesh, and made our 
inner fires begin to dim.

Shark pitied us, and poked a fin
past the Surface, saying “take your
flesh and bones, and join it to me,
that we may build a bridge down to
the face of the Deep.”

Some of us therefore dug into 
our flesh and set our bones upon 
the surface of the Sea, and tied 
them together with the Shark, to 
form land. For this reason some of 
us die and those who have not died 
honor the dead by tying their 
bones together in the soil.
Then, when the Deep rumbles, fire
erupts from Below through 
the mounds of bone, to replenish
our vitality by stirring 
the ground. And some of this fire
carried water into the sky,
in the form of huge clouds, to give
the stars something to drink.

But the forces of the Beyond
which weigh and pull, were still straining
and stretching the stars Above us,
and thinning the clouds of water,
and causing the fires to fade,
and tearing the land of bones too.
This is why the green things wove their 
roots into the ground, to give us
a firmer foundation from which to Struggle
to make this Plane liveable. And
they instructed our ancestor:
“pour water on our roots to bless
those who gave themselves to make land.
This way their memory can live
and join and affirm and aid us.”

So, our ancestor did as told,
to honor the legacy of 
the fallen. And their memory 
did quicken her body. The other
Brave Ones followed her, and they felt
the memory of the departed
come forth to strengthen us as the
libations of water were poured
too, which helped the plants gird the Land
with their roots. The bridge to the world 
Below was fortified against 
the strain of the world Above. When 
it quaked with fire, raising clouds
of water, the stars could drink now,
and their brightness and warmth returned.

Endnote: The theme of “stretching” or “straying” or being “strained” or “scattered” or “thinned out” or “dissipating” or “estranged” or “afar off” in the Undulatrix is expressed through the word <<oleri>> which is contrasted against <<olaili,>> the latter being associated with Below, the darkness of the Deep, and thus the dreamy/imaginative register that one can access when they close their eyes, while the former is associated with the Above, the sky full of things that shift and change, that are Beyond us, a register both observable to the eye and yet unpredictable. The stories of <<Nya Ragwa>> contrast these two as a way to represent the conflict between the sense of rest/reprieve I find when I go within as I meditate and the overstimulation that causes me pain if I am in the outdoors for too long, amongst lots of noises and sounds and smells, and finding my attention and senses being pulled in multiple directions, my body being exhausted and exerted, my social battery being overused, my stomach wracked by hunger pangs, my thoughts tortured by the stresses of poverty and trauma, my safety threatened by cops and transphobes, body fraught with pain because of my health issues, my labor being sapped and used to alienate me from even my own sense of personhood. The story about Ancestor and the Whale, the Shark, the Brave Ones, plants, and stars is particularly about the difficulties in navigating this battle, the negotiations it takes. We could say it's an examination of how, as Audre Lorde put it, "self care… is an act of political warfare." 

In line with her thinking, this isn't about self-indulgence. Or self-help culture, or the "pull yourself by your bootstraps" approach to wellness and healing. It is bourgeois society which teaches that life is only <<olaili>> and nothing can be done to transform these pressures because of phylogeny and evolution and "survival of the fittest"; then when they acknowledge <<oleri>> and the cognitive/behavioral autonomy of the person, the potential we contain within ourselves, they frame it only individualistically, because of "ontogeny" and the personal mind, from a bioreductive sense. But the Undulatrix is in agreement with Assata Shakur: “dreams and reality are opposites; action synthesizes them.” Through a dialectic, I can reconcile <<oleri>> and <<olaili>> in order to recreate my life and experience, particularly through my connections with others and with nature/the cosmos, as it is with the Brave Ones. Establishing relations and structures are key to unleashing the potentiality of human Will into the universe. My subjective life, in which I find comfort and healing when I tend to my inner needs, and the objective conditions outside me which often feel so horrid, and grind me down, are experienced as diametrically opposed realms that I can’t handle. But if I am bold enough to grasp and wrestle with the forces, dynamics, interactions which generate them both, which stir up the one in me, and which make the other weigh down upon me, then I can pursue a new mode of inhabitation and transformation for myself and others, rather than remaining isolated to one condition or the other (completely retreating inward, or completely overcome by things from without). 

This is meant to be an ecopolitical lesson as well, and that is why there is such a focus on harnessing the power from Below (source of Life) in Struggle against the high and lofty and oppressive power, to fill a lifeless chasm and connect to the lost, estranged, those on the outer limits, who are a figure for the marginalized. Conflicts will arise along the way, fissures among us, the Shark battles the Whale, things we don’t expect, the Land of bones breaks apart, there are splits and divides, and shifts will need to be made, the water must be poured on the roots, our efforts will be detangled and then have to re-emerge: but if we are committed to filling the gap, to solving the “metabolic rift” in pursuit of revolutionary ecogeny, we truly can nurture warmth and keep ourselves from dying of thirst.