Peery Sloan
LABOR ROOM
I tried to identify the ingrained Protestant-colonizer-capitalist beliefs and work to undo them. Naming helps to see what I've inherited versus what I claim.
To work is the will of God.
Nobody cares, work harder.
Don't waste your potential.
Winning never gets old.
I spent an hour each day bound to a desk with ankles tied and wrist weighted by a radio and a pile of bones while unraveling months of knitting. I thought I could unravel those beliefs too.
But they don't actually unravel. They're still stuck to me. The yarn piled up in the room for visitors to take. The tapestry disappeared. The mantras kept repeating.
I learned that the practice isn't erasing them. It's recognizing them when they operate: which turns out to be most of the time.