Jewish Author Aviva Rahmani Uses Inherited Grief as a 'Trigger Point' for Healing and Change

In 'Divining Chaos: The Autobiography of an Idea,' Aviva takes readers from NYC to the Golan Heights, exploring how small actions at the right time can change the world.

~ Article by Howard Lovy, Jewish essayist

I am really angry over two things others may find unrelated: the anti-abortion folks ruling gestapo tactics against American women, including the women who are collaborators in that cruel invasion on womens rights, and the people in the West who can afford to choose to bear children and do.

A year ago, I wrote, “I fear sea-level rise and its impact on all coastal communities.

A far larger new worry is the worldwide resurrection of fascism, with its implications for global justice. The seduction of fairy-tale narratives of simple solutions is profound, powerful, and tenacious. Jane Austen’s world may not be so far from Margaret Atwood’s in The Handmaid’s Tale. Fascism and totalitarianism are the siblings of extractive patriarchies. I would defend the personal narrative I have recounted here as a reflection of ecofeminist resistance in many people’s lives to the abuse of power. Addictions, some forms of religion, and strongman politics have always offered tantalizing fairy tales of safety to the unhappy and defeated. Now is no different. I understand all too well.” p. 277-8 Divining Chaos

I fear an inevitable chaos coming for this planet. Based on modeling projections, I know the relationships between sea level rise, fire regimes, habitat migration and human population densities may overwhelm the music of this planet I tried to capture in my vision for The Blued Trees Symphony. I anticipated my own fears when I wrote about totalitarianism in my book, launching June 28.

I am preparing to complete a public artwork for the ferry. In 2002, I created a couple boulder sculptures at the local terminal. At the time, I painted onto the rock with the same casein blue I had experimented with elsewhere, a mostly linear patterned impression of waves and plants. The paint eventually faded, though the memory informed The Blued Trees Symphony, and for many years, I hoped to complete the work by incising into the granite and filling the incisions with blue ground glass. Last summer, I connected with Hugh Martin, a stoneworker to finally complete that work, and we have been researching, experimenting, testing and considering our materials and approach ever since. This week we finally had a chance to experiment on one of the rocks in my garden before we go back to the ferry.

I recently had to write another gallery statement, this time for Various Small Fires Gallery Los Angeles. Each time I write these statements for a body of work, it helps me further clarify my own thinking about art and ecocide.

At Various Small Fires, I will be showing two works on paper created with Geographic Information Systems Mapping, colored pencil and gold leaf in addition to an acoustic environment in a corridor.

I have been thinking about sea level rise for a long time but only recently took a more detailed look at exactly how humans and other species might interact with rising waters. It’s going to be complicated. Not just the forced(“managed”) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2008198117

retreat from the edges of the sea of entire urban centers, but all the contamination of waters we will leave behind as we flee and the saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers. Then there will be the tangles of other species negotiating purchase in the shifting landscapes as sea creatures move inland and land creatures mix it up with humans in ever tighter population clusters.

I think it’s important to face, feel and embrace the rage, terror and exhaustion that is part of our present reality. That doesn’t mean we’re helpless and should give up. It does mean we need to expand and honor our capacity for humility and empathy, including for how exhausting this all is.

This summer, I will teach two in-person workshops about my trigger point theory and how to apply it, one in the Pyrenees, France for CAMP and one on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Both will be in pretty idyllic venues for contemplation.

Saturday evening, I was terribly sorry to receive the sad news from the Virginia Tech curator, Robin Scully, a close mutual friend of Suzi Gablik, of her passing at the age of 87, not that old by today’s standards. I expect there will be some sort of public event because her work was so important to so many in the artworld. I hope to honor her then.