Tag: nahko

don’t let them take away your light

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hello beautiful people,

especially in these times, it is so necessary for us to remember why we do the things we do. to reach out, to stay loving, to stay shining beacons- of hope, togetherness, ferocity, bravery, gentleness, gratitude, wildness, inclusivity, wonder.

this has been so helpful to me:

and every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, ‘this is important! and this is important! and this is important! you need to worry about this! and this! and this!’ and each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, ‘no. this is what’s important.’ -iain s. thomas

it is up to YOU. it is up to US.

i wanted to invite you to some opportunities to do just THAT, going forward…

* i am officially director of public programs at my beloved socrates sculpture park! our 2017 season will be announced in early april and i am beyond excited to welcome you to- or hopefully, BACK to!- this exceptionally special wonderland on the LIC waterfront. FREE public programs from concerts to yoga to art-making to festivals to dance to making and learning- for ALL.

* i am hosting and curating an event that is extremely close to my heart next month, featuring a bunch of brave souls i know and love.

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HOW WE CREATE & HOW WE COPE:
intersections of art & mental health/mental illness
fri february 10 6:30-8:30 at queens council on the arts in astoria

Queens native and poet/curator Audrey Dimola hosts a panel and performance evening aiming for safe space, honest talk, and open presentations about the too-often stigmatized topic of mental illness, particularly in connection to the creative experience.

Throughout our cultural history, many of the legendary artists we know today grappled in this way- yet it becomes a passing line in their bio, a tragic footnote; and their brilliant work remains. In the present day, an increasing number of individuals of all ages are struggling in similar fashion, frequently in silence and shame, for fear of judgment and unanswered questions.

How much of how we suffer makes us who we are and results in the art we create? How much of these feelings are the natural experience of the artist, and when is it time to seek help? What do those forms of help look like?

A variety of local featured artists will present their stories, poetry, visual art, and more, in addition to facilitated discussion, Q&A, and sharing of resources/experiences on these topics.

here is the facebook invite, and the registration link at queens council on the arts- tix are $5.

* a deeply personal piece of mine in the vein of poetic theatre debuted at the end of last year at the LIC-A winter gala, and was thankfully captured on film. it’s called reliquary: the body and if you’re so inclined, you can watch it HERE.

* also coming up…

2/2/17 – Featured artist on City World Radio on International Women Artists’ Salon’s Salon Radio program discussing HOW WE CREATE & HOW WE COPE, listen LIVE online at cityworldradio.com, 8-8:55pm EST
2/11/17 – Featured poet at Cyrus Second Saturdays Poetry Series in Bay Shore, Long Island
2/14/17 – Performing “a memory is altered everytime you recollect it” with Alvin Ailey dancer Artemis Stamouli at LIC-A’s Valentine’s Night opening of their Feb/March exhibition, 8 Loves. 6-10pm at the Plaxall Gallery in LIC
3/9/17 – Hosting Queens’ longest running reading series, Boundless Tales, at The Local NYC in Long Island City, 7-8:30pm
3/10/17 – Featured poet at the 2nd annual Celebrating Queens Women Artists event curated by Joan Willette at Queens Council on the Arts in Astoria, 6:30pm
3/18/17 – Featured poet at MDAD presents 5th Annual Women Empowerment Event in Harlem, 6pm
3/24/17 – Performing at Inspired Word NYC’s Pre-Queens Lit Fest Open Mic at COFFEED in Astoria/LIC, 6:30-9:30pm
4/1/17 – Featured poet at Line Break Reading Series at Q.E.D. in Astoria, 3pm
4/30/17 – Featured poet at Inspired Word NYC’s annual Queens Lit Fest in Long Island City, 6pm

you can always check the events page on this website for more details and the latest.

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so**

i am setting off on a very long bus ride to chicago tonight to explore, visit some old friends, and see a band that helped me instrumentally in continuing to fight for my journey and return to my purpose in the darkest moments i have lived through thus far. in fact, sometimes his voice was the only voice that was able to reach me.. if you’ve never heard of NAHKO & medicine for the people, please look them up. i first heard this song played on acoustic guitar while i was living on growing heart farm in summer 2015, the summer i chose to change my life- and immediately it fused with my heart. it has comforted me immensely, and i hope, if you listen to it, it comforts you too.

i pray:

MAY ALL BEINGS STAY CONNECTED TO THEIR INNER FIRE,
BURNING AWAY IMPURITIES, ADDING TO THE COLLECTIVE FLAME,
AND STAYING CLOSE TO WHAT MAKES THEM FEEL MOST ALIVE.

loving you all with brightness, fierceness, and
thanking you for what makes you, you…

XO

a.

happy birthday to me

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can there be any possibility of completely understanding who we are and why we’re here or where we are going? […] you have to keep on asking. -kunitz

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! <3 (leo grrlz throw ya paws up!! ;))

thank you all for helping make it a crazy-beautiful and incredibly memorable trip around the sun..

for all the words, the enthusiasm, shows attended, inspiration shared, hugs exchanged, hearts touched, collaborations made, opportunities presented, magic conjured, and LOVE given freely.. thank you, thank you, thank you.

for this one life, this voyage of mine that sometimes veers into the wildest of waters- i am so grateful.

i realized the other day that the gorgeous moments of life are a lot of like bright islands in a shadowy sea.

each moment stands like an island circling light like a beacon in the darkness- it can’t be compared to anything else, it just is. even lost in the wild sea, know that- a few more breaths, strokes- the light will fill you, find you again. be witness to what it is you feel. the grace in almost drowning and finding another island. life is like that. light-filled islands in the dark, wild sea. shifting, eroding, flooding, so you can’t quite stay, but god.. so beautiful while you do.

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my birthday wish is to remain cognizant of how lucky i am, every. single. day.

i want to share 29 pieces of wisdom with you that have been helping me through the wilderness of this particularly heart-cracking summer.

with fire-filled thanks for my twenty-ninth year..

out of darkness lion heart pumping,

XO

a.

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29 for 29 / how to make it through the wilderness:

1. don’t forget that this too is part of the magic you have to offer the world. this pain we go through. our wilderness years. –nick calder

2. in other words, fear doesn’t go away. the warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew everyday. –the war of art

3. discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing […] instead of facing them, one runs away; one escapes- into depressions, nervous breakdowns, drink, love affairs, or frantic, thoughtless, fruitless overwork. anything, rather than face them. anything, rather than stand still and learn from them. one tries to cure the signs of growth, to exorcise them, as if they were devils, when they really might be angels of annunciation. –gift from the sea

4. we insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity- in freedom. –gift from the sea

5. maybe that’s why i have a fragile heart. you can’t accept everything, or you become a monster. –the golden legend (film)

6. the kinds of discoveries that are made through practice have nothing to do with believing in anything. they have much more to do with having the courage to die, the courage to die continually. –when things fall apart

7. you don’t have to have a college degree to serve. you don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. you don’t have to know about plato and aristotle to serve. you don’t have to know einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love. and you can be that servant. –MLK

8. being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. it’s like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. –when things fall apart

9. if you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin. –women who run with the wolves

10. there must be a little, and in many cases, a good deal of blood spilled on every story, on every aspect of your own life […] if a person is to carry a true medicine. –women who run with the wolves

11. listen to the birds always. –shane hobel, mountain scout survival

12. and though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. for that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night. –the prophet

13. do it with all your heart and then don’t care when it breaks. –eduardo, on the metro

14. I placed one foot on the wide plain
of death, and some grand immensity
sounded on the emptiness.

I have felt nothing ever
like the wild wonder of that moment. –rumi

15. for horror not to repeat itself endlessly we have to understand its makeup, be willing to look at it, get close to it, at the same time not burn up with it. what we avoid corrupts and deforms us- we are always twisting away from it. and it shows in our writing, in the way we sit and walk. –the true art of writing

16. it is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. it is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. when one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. if one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. […] only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, i am beginning to discover… –gift from the sea

17. only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us. –when things fall apart

18. ask not of things to shed their veils. unveil yourselves, and things will be unveiled. nor ask of things to break their seals. unseal ourselves, and all will be unsealed. […] if, then, your world be such a baffling riddle, it is because you are that baffling riddle. and if your speech be such a woeful maze, it is because you are that woeful maze. –the book of mirdad

19. if there’s a god or any kind of justice under the sky
if there’s a point, if there’s a reason to live or die
if there’s an answer to the questions we feel bad to ask
show yourself, destroy your fears, release your mask… –QUEEN [listen]

20. ’i’ve been through all this before,’ he says to his heart.
‘yes, you have been through all this before,’ replies his heart.
‘but you have never been beyond it.’ –coelho

21. i am always being overwhelmed, i require it to sustain life. –everett ruess

22. TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR MY EGO TO DIE! –nahko [listen]

23. what the hibernating winter in their blood/ needs to become- some dreaming scene/ of humans lumbering away, walking/ on their tongues and tasting/ the truth of the earth. –hochman

24. how sublime is the silence of nature’s ever-active energies! there is something in the very name of wilderness, which charms the ear, and soothes the spirit of man. there is religion in it. -wilderness & the american mind

25. TODAY, TODAY LIVE LIKE YOU WANNA
LET YESTERDAY BURN & THROW IT IN A FIRE
IN A FIRE, IN A FIRE
LIVE LIKE A WARRIOR –matisyahu [listen]

26. But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us- to know
Whence our lives come and where they go. -m.arnold

27. We want so much,
When perhaps we live best
In the spaces between loves,

That unconscious roving,
The heart its own rough animal.
Unfettered. -tracy k. smith

28. an animal flowers in the elements. it grows wings. –humanimal

29. the solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it. i must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between these two extremes; a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return. –gift from the sea

& one for luck**

when you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself. and i think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. that work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life. –kunitz

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lose your self-consciousness
gain your self-awareness
back.

be the light on the underside
of leaf
move like the forest teaches
you to move

the goal for you is to overcome
restriction

it is up to you to be a human
translation of the wild

be the wolf they can see in the
shine of your iris in sunlight

help them remember how. –notes from my treehouse

origin story

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But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us- to know
Whence our lives come and where they go. -m. arnold

the journey, my friends, the journey. walking these unfamiliar paths, meeting souls that feel familiar. on the land which always, always feels like home. working on the farm. learning wilderness survival and so much more about awareness, presence, movement. these days- i will never forget them.

You will erase everything you had written in the book of your life up until now: restlessness, uncertainty, lies. And in the place of all this you will write the word courage. By beginning the journey with that word and continuing with faith in God, you will arrive wherever you need to arrive. -p. coelho

in that spirit- here is my origin story.

this is my retelling of the story of LA LOBA, wolf woman, passed down to dr. clarissa pinkola estés in the incredible book, women who run with the wolves. inspired by recent experiences, my tribe, and the wild spirit that keeps me traveling forward. forward. forward.

* * *

Out under the milky moon after a day of scorching sunlight there is a woman moving slowly but purposefully through the desert. She has many names, but in this case we shall call her the wolf woman. La Loba.

She moves about almost undetected- you might catch a glimpse of her silvering hair amidst cactus flowers, her gnarled fingers stretching between jagged rocks or sifting sands. La Loba is silently searching through this landscape to uncover the bones.

These are the wild parts of ourselves- the indestructible, even by flame- the bones, and the wild life force within that gets buried, hidden, stolen away without us even knowing it.

Many of us find ourselves undertaking what seems like an impossible journey through the desert. Grains and grains of sand, rocks, spiked plants, cliffs, dunes. The landscape tricking our eyes, all seeming endless- the same. But we must do it. We must trust that each movement has a purpose, that this search is not in vain- like La Loba does.

As she finds these buried bones, each, one by one, she brings them back to her desert cave, piecing the wild skeleton back together in the dust beside the glowing firelight. And in the space between each placement, each adjustment, La Loba begins to sing.

Singing over the bones is what our soul is calling us to do when we feel displaced unrest. To go into that desert of the psyche, retrieve those lost parts of ourselves- and sing. Sing with our whole soul, our utmost and fully alive- for all the things we love and long for every morning at the break of day, in the quiet unfolding of night, and all the moments in between. Just SING. Without fear of what it sounds like, but only with heart.

And little by little as La Loba sings, the skeleton of bones in the dust winds itself back together- sinew and muscle, tissue and fur, little by little- this wild creature, almost lost to the dunes, begins to twitch, shake, stir- begins to BREATHE again, pump blood again, open its eyes and awake into full being again.

The wolf gets up as La Loba beams gently through the shadows and flickering light of the cave- and with a tail swish and its ears pricked up, it darts out into the distance, out of the cave and into the desert- eyes shining, howl swirling through its ribcage, paws beating in the moonlight, faster and faster until that wolf, that wild soul, searched for and sang back to life by the light of the fire- that creature becomes a girl running through the dunes and desert flowers.

And she is laughing. She is grateful. She is whole.

* * *

This girl will remember where she came from, and dedicate her life to the spirit of wild love that resurrected her. And in so doing, she will become an aspect of La Loba herself. It is this way the circle of discovery and rediscovery, losing and finding, wandering and wishing, leaving and returning- is never broken.

We sing our wild souls back to life- and then we help others do it too.

It is this way we keep the flow of gratitude moving.

It is this way we reassemble our tribe.

–

holy, holy grandmother we sing
wash us clean of our pain and suffering
give us strength for our new beginnings
from my deepest thanks i sing…

love to you warriors, wish-children, wild souls, spirits of light.

if you’re in the NYC area and enjoy arts/music/lit/mischief, come see me at LAST FRIDAYZ at local project on 7/31 or queens lit fest on the wkend of aug 1 & 2 at LIC bar in queens! more performance info on the events page.

also- my piece ‘whenever you fall i will be there to catch you’ will appear in great weather for MEDIA‘s latest collection, Before Passing, out august 1. nothing like a sweet hard-copy.. excite!

flickering,

XO

a.