Honing + Homing– mission statements for the New World

101359945_10102734395701154_5416480598124396544_o

I do not come to you with an abundance of formal certifications– none, actually, save for a Bachelors in Media Studies now over ten years ago. I have learned as our ancestors learned– through the natural world, from story, in community, in communion with spirit, and from direct experience.

I did not come to this work because it interested me. I came because my life depended on it.

At 21, I was Managing Editor of a glossy arts magazine in my home neighborhood. At 25, I was managing high-level corporate clients as a digital project manager for a rapidly growing tech start-up. At 30, I became Director of Public Programs for a world-renowned outdoor art museum, NYC park, and community event space. I have self-published 4 books and performed all over the city in venues large and small.

I have wanted to end my life many, many times. I have suffered through the literal shattering of my container so that I could expand to more fully accommodate my truest Self. I was arrested for spreading positivity through poetry graffiti. Ended up an outpatient in an addiction treatment center after my relationship– with a man struggling mightily with hard drug addiction– exploded. Lived years and years of compounded, unresolved interpersonal trauma and codependency. And was diagnosed bipolar II and anxiety disorder in 2018.

With the help of alternative frameworks, earth-based traditions, radical vulnerability, community in the human and more-than-human worlds, and the “mythic remediation” that comes with recontextualizing my Life as Legend– I have arrived in this Place that allows me to come to you As I Am, to meet You, As You Are.

I am interested in Ecopsychology and its practice of Ecotherapy because it brings me new vocabulary for the deeply interconnected, reverential, poetic, mythic, wild realms I have inhabited my whole life, but especially over the past 5 years of descent and healing. I am naturally inclined to help you walk between worlds and reclaim your birthright as a wondrous creature on this precious earth, privy to the generative wisdom and inner/outer adventures that extend so far beyond our purely mental capacities as well the mortal realm.

I am here to shatter traditional narratives and disempowering, oppressive, disconnected frameworks in the way that my own was shattered– to remind you that there is a framework that already exists, that already belongs to you, as you belong to it.

During my time in the addiction treatment center, one day in group a man who never ventured to say anything, for weeks, suddenly spoke– and he said, “You have to rewrite your own legacy. Because if not they’re going to be standing around your casket saying– ‘He never got a hold of that, did he? He never kicked it.'” On the way out of the room I told him, “I liked what you said about rewriting your legacy.” And he replied– “You have to, or someone else will.”

A PRAYER TO SEE + BE SEEN

Creative Reframing.png

“An exploration of mental illness as an invitation to radical self-discovery instead of a disease with no cure.” it means the world to me to be able to share this documentary film, CRAZYWISE, that has helped me so much on my own mental health journey– and to do two events, starting tomorrow, world mental health day– with the wholehearted support of art house astoria and astoria presbyterian church– based expressly around creative reframing for mental health & mental illness, the ways we can take our journeys back into our own hands. please join us & RSVP on eventbrite: tinyurl.com/creativereframingnyc. i’m grateful for my life and for the opportunity to speak on these literally life-changing and life-saving topics, with humans whose work and being i truly admire.

A PRAYER TO SEE & BE SEEN:
Creative Reframing for Mental Health & Wellbeing
a 2-part event featuring CRAZYWISE screening, discussion & experiential resource-sharing

World Mental Health Day is a day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. During this week, we gather together in an effort to SEE & BE SEEN– to build community, share resources, and dive into alternative methods of exploring mental health and mental illness– recontextualizing it as an invitation to radical self-discovery instead of a disease with no cure.

Thursday, October 10 – 6:30-8:30pm
CRAZYWISE – documentary screening

We will screen the 2017 documentary CRAZYWISE, with time for opening/closing exercises and post-film reflections.

SHORT SYNOPSIS:
Crazy… or wise? The traditional wisdom of indigenous cultures often contradicts modern views about a mental health crisis. Is it a ‘calling’ to grow or just a ‘broken brain’? The documentary CRAZYWISE explores what can be learned from people around the world who have turned their psychological crisis into a positive transformative experience.

WATCH TRAILER / FULL SYNOPSIS: https://crazywisefilm.com/

Saturday, October 12 – 5-7pm
Experiential resource sharing with presentations/activities & discussion

Building on the theme established by CRAZYWISE– what are our options and resources for creatively reframing mental illness and founding a progressive new relationship with our inner selves? We explore and experience with several members of the community sharing their approaches, including healing practices and traditions, floatation therapy, mindfulness, storytelling and “living your legend,” with time for group discussion and activities.

FEATURING:
Satya Celeste of SacredWaters
Rebecca Gitana Torres of Healing Through The Home
Alex Tatis of Refined Inner Being LLC
Sydney Projekthandmade of innerNest
Representatives from Mindful Astoria
Audrey Dimola, ‘THE BOOK OF LEGEND’
Aldo Cano Trevino of Mental Health First Aid

FREE EVENTS – ALL ARE WELCOME
LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE, PLEASE RSVP
http://tinyurl.com/creativereframingnyc

!!! SPREAD THE WORD + SHARE !!!
Hosted & curated by Audrey Dimola
Part of World Mental Health Day 2019 at Art House Astoria Conservatory For Music and Art, in partnership with Astoria Presbyterian Church

the dangers in cartography.

Screen Shot 2018-10-13 at 11.18.04 AM.png

the terrifying thing about choosing your own context for mental illness is that you often end up hurting/scaring the people closest to you, and hurting/scaring yourself.

it is not like an outwardly manifested affliction in that- no one would say to you, just stop having cancer. get up from your wheelchair. get your vision back. look how much everyone loves you- stop dying.

no one makes you feel like- you are doing it on purpose. you are willing it. you are purposely isolating, not picking up the phone, disappearing, not going to work. no one makes you feel like what is happening to you is wrong. like it’s your responsibility for failing everyone you love, for failing yourself.

what IS the same, though- is how people react upon choosing an alternative path to healing. in a similar way you would in choosing a raw food diet instead of chemotherapy. a visit to a shaman instead of a hospital. time communing with yourself, your spirits and guides, and your rituals- instead of a trained professional. this is the hurt that everyone who chooses a different way feels- that what they are doing is dangerous. that no one trusts them with their own healing. that maybe they should not put so much trust in themselves.

mental illness is particular in this fashion. and once you choose not to follow the paradigm given to you- that you are broken and need to be fixed, that you have a chemical imbalance that endangers your life- the road you proceed to traverse has no map.

and in making the map for yourself, sometimes, like last night, you will find yourself in willing seclusion. hiding like a child, getting as small as you possibly can in the darkness, while three of the most important people in your life stand on your doorstep, on three separate occasions- ringing your bell, scratching your window, calling to you. txting and calling, communicating to each other, in increasing alarm.

sometimes no disappearance is enough disappearance, for the hurt you feel. the hurt that washes over you, primordial and unending. you are told you are loved. you are told you have a place to go. you are told you can have anything you want. threatened, even, by this immediateness, franticness, of affection- you get even smaller. but the space is opened up, somehow- in which to trust.

how do i know which impulses to listen to? sometimes the path leads you away but it is only so you can trust enough to find your own answers. you know the path is true if it leads you back to your community, to the people you love.

despite how much you anger them. hurt them. how much you don’t make rational sense- it is not isolation indefinite. it is isolation to hear the answers- so to heal. so to return.

today i understood why i am creating my next show, PROVENANCE.

to show how this instability is the key in the lock to the power of my origin story. to show what it looks like, in actuality, to choose to create your own map. to hurt yourself, hurt the people you love. to bear the guilt and shame inherent in your affliction. to want to answer, open up, speak, accept an embrace, receive help- but simultaneously be completely unable to.

to dance at the edges of death, creation, eternal life. to find safety in the perceived danger. growth and fecundity in the darkness. so to understand- your holy wild self. so to ascribe sacred meaning to- your finite moments on earth.

i look forward to continuing this journey.
and sharing with you, in three dimensions, what i’ve learned.

XO

a.

WILDLIGHT LIVES.

29060849_10102002886596264_3198722151639382782_o.jpg

HOW TO BUY:

WILDLIGHT is available for purchase directly from the author via PayPal, for $18.00.

btn_buynowCC_LG.gif

Please note you do not need to have a PayPal account- simply choose “Pay with Debit or Credit Card” to check out as a Guest.

If you would like to use another payment method- feel free! You can send $18 via Venmo to audrey.dimola@gmail.com, or contact me for other options.

///

the fact that this book exists means that there is triumph of the holy wild spirit over heartache, darkness, ruin, illness and dis-ease, lack of self-worth, addiction, depression, sorrow, death.

i cannot describe how proud i am of this piece of my heart, blood, and bones.

3 years, 258 pages.

i proudly present my third book of poetry and prose, WILDLIGHT.

available for you. NOW.

///

WILDLIGHT: POETRY & PROSE FROM INSIDE THE FIRE

MARCH 20, 2018 – SPRING EQUINOX

[MORE INFO ABOUT THE BOOK]

three years of blood, sweat, fire, heart, and LIVING have gone into this collection, plunging into the wildernesses of love, spirituality, addiction, sex, shamanism, mental health struggles, self-love, and rebirth.

///

“to all those
who reclaim their
spirits from darkness-
who resolve to protect
the body as an altar,
and keep the fire safe-
know there is an energy of
resilience that unites us all.
we may have to fight everyday-
but we never fight alone.

this is a book about reclamation.

about staying close to the fire. trusting in your wildlight.

it is a book about struggles with honesty, with identity. about all-consuming loves- passion, destruction, regeneration. about leaving and returning. about lack of self-love and self-worth. about mental illness and addictions. about the indomitable power of the human spirit. about reasons to live. about what happens when you break away from the life you thought you wanted- to walk into the wild. to be taught in ways only the universe can truly teach you- with blood, with sweat. with grief, and wonder. with fire. with heart.

it is a book about trying and trying and trying again…”

crack the spine of this book and the author will know it. this is an alchemical document- rubbed with earth, singed with flame. found curled inside the inmost core of an animal, fanged and feathered. each word a bone picked from an endless desert, blessed with tears and triumph from the road. “WILDLIGHT” was written from 2015 to 2017 by a shamanic poet and journeywoman who is most often likened to wildfire or supernova- this third collection of poetry and prose an act of sacred invocation that will keep howling at you even when its pages are closed.

THE POET IS UNAFRAID TO BECOME FULL WILDERNESS.

///

NYC PERFORMANCE & RELEASE PARTY:

March 24, 2018 3-5pm at Q.E.D.: A Place to Show & Tell in Astoria [Facebook]

more upcoming SHOWS

///

READ SELECT PIECES FROM “WILDLIGHT”:
+ lazarus was a house on fire (WOMAN)
+ reliquary: the body
+ blue sky
+ peter (i want to be real)
+ studies in reaching
+ somewhere else
+ two wolves

THE JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM: #wildlightbyajd

VIDEO FROM THE DAY I RELEASED THE BOOK:

XO with ecstatic love and FIREFIREFIRE,

a.