The Earth We Write

A Moving Mountains Workshop with Khairani Barokka and Healing Justice London

Sep 18, 2022

In August, resting up collective hosted Khairani Barokka and Healing Justice London for a writing workshop called, “The Earth We Write: A Moving Mountains Workshop”. Moving Mountains is a project conceived by Louise Kenward, which brings together nature writing with people living with chronic illness and physical disability.

Khairani Barokka (Okka) is a writer, poet and artist in London, and Editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. Published widely, her collection Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize.

After a warm welcome and one-word check-in, Okka led the chronic illness/disability friendly workshop for just over one hour. Okka guided participants through exercises and discussion that considered how we can write restoratively about the environment. Okka drew on disability/chronically ill positionality and examined how colonial history and geographical positioning in the Global South influence our relationship with/to the natural world. The workshop considered a range of perspectives on how certain marginalised groups can restoratively interact with the earth.

The workshop was supported by Healing Justice London, a project that centres on communities that have been marginalised, to shift states of trauma and ill-health produced by oppression and to support transformative futures for people of colour.

To catch up with the workshop, click below to view the video:

One of the participants, Romany Stott, crafted and shared this poem in the workshop:

A poem by Romany Stott that is in the shape of an hourglass. It is called tree and reads as follows: Tree inside a live energy I’ve never held currents crack golden into the soil through the earth and straight to roots I haven’t touched beneath me not stumps not ashes but networks to before ᐧ to after to the hum of seedlings waiting to be let me be their topsoil their future roots I reach and reach and brush something new the ground turns warm and lights me up — Tree by Romany Stott

If you are inspired and create work in response to the workshop, get in touch! We’d love to read your imaginings based on Okka’s thought-provoking exercises and questions.

resting up collective is currently running, as ever, on crip time. In this slowness, we are conceiving new communal projects to share with you. Follow our Instagram page for updates and, if you’d like to get in touch, feel free to! We love collaborating with our online sick friends and creating new connections against the capitalist clock.

Until next time, rest where you can.

In solidarity,
resting up collective