Tag: wild woman

my womanhood is wilderness

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when asked-
what would you save from
a house on fire?
i say-
a torch,
the fire.
me.

hello out there my beauties!

it’s INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY during WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH and i feel very lucky to have been asked to perform for three wonderful shows coming up very soon..

* i’ll be performing ‘reliquary: the body’ and giving a keynote speech as an artist in public service at the 2nd annual CELEBRATING QUEENS WOMEN ARTISTS event curated by the ever-enchanting joan becht willette at queens council on the arts in astoria THIS FRI 3/10! a multidisciplinary show featuring some of the brightest lady-lights in queens [more info]

* i’m a special featured performer at the 5th annual MDAD WOMEN EMPOWERMENT EVENT curated by the powerhouse melimel at la maison d’art in harlem SAT 3/18! featuring panelists, giveaways, networking, hors d’oeuvres/drinks/dessert! ALSO- check out the brand new #WE2017 promo video we just shot last night at socrates! [more info]

* and i’m so happy to have been invited to jump in to new friend samantha kuhl’s NEVERTHELESS: A NIGHT OF NASTY WOMEN at el barrio’s artspace PS 109, TUES 3/28! another multidisciplinary show rallying for the cause and showcasing fiery women performers and artists [more info]

before that-

i’ll also be hosting for QUEENS’ LONGEST RUNNING READING SERIES, BOUNDLESS TALES this THURSDAY 3/9 at the local NYC in long island city- i say over and over again that boundless is where i got my real start in the queens literary community and with hosting, and i am forever grateful. if you’re a writer you should submit your work for consideration to be featured by the founder aida zilelian, who is a fantastic writer and curator i have always admired. [more info]

* * *

‘well aren’t you a fascinating creature,’
he mouths through mists of drink and i don’t think
he recognizes the perceptivity of that word choice
and no, i don’t mean fascinating- i mean
the other word, the one reserved
for the feathered and furred and
women like me whose bones
sing songs like fires
in the landscape

in my belly there is a house in
flames and i lit it
those rarities of space in which
we can stand inside our nakedness
human incantation of the wild
woman, incarnation of the
burning
she was the one who
taught him
he never saw
the body as an altar
how to nourish a universe
with your own blood, selfless-
WOMAN-
you need no scripture
to remind you
what is inherently
yours.

* * *

also wanted to share with you-

my beloved SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK is running an OPEN CALL / CALL TO ACTION for our famous BROADWAY BILLBOARD above our main gate. do YOU have an idea/photograph/design/drawing/piece of art/etc that you’d like to see up there?! we’re looking for ideas that relate to democracy and american identity, and you can find more about it RIGHT HERE (DEADLINE APRIL 15!)

MORE EVENTS COMING UP like inspired word NYC’s much-anticipated COFFEED open mic reunion and their fantastic QUEENS LIT FEST can always be found HERE on the events page.

some sound + vision…

i’ve had amazing time performing lately for beautiful artists affiliated with LIC ARTS OPEN and the LIC-A LONG ISLAND CITY ARTISTS groups, two of which were captured on video:

* “LUMINOUS ANIMAL” & “SOMEWHERE ELSE” at the ‘what is human?’ exhibition opening

* and “A MEMORY IS ALTERED EVERYTIME YOU RECOLLECT IT” a dance and poetry piece with gorgeous alvin ailey dancer artemis stamouli at the ‘8 LOVES’ valentines day show

next…?

i’m working on finishing up the socrates calendar for you all this month (season announcement in april! let me know if you’re interested in volunteering and i’ll hook you up!) and we’re going to have a rad, rad summer at the park.

i would also love to do a reprise of the art & mental health/mental illness show HOW WE CREATE & HOW WE COPE which was one of the proudest moments of my curatorial, artistic and HUMAN life in general. THANK YOU to all who were there in the room that night, it was beyond me..

* * *

but i am self-willed.
the word wild is a contraction of
the word willed
and this is self-willed land
this is
bones cleaving so
shoulders can crack and
wings can breathe,
fanned full against the space-
inward, seeking wonder!
i said i saw myself
in the ground
he said, in the gesture is
the treasure, what
do i want my fellow
souls to remember?
see me as the movement
of standing up out of
your own grave
icarus returned as
the messenger
they plucked my
heart from
inside the ribs
of lazarus
i said
my
womanhood is
wilderness
and i will never
apologize
for that.

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foto by the amazing george mcclintock

ever,

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.

sea shanty

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things have been tumultuous.

today, on a whim, i got in a cab and told the driver: “anywhere in coney island.”

in my entire life, i don’t think i’ve ever been to the beach completely alone.

after having so much trouble writing.. relating. feeling. loving. believing.

in the sea, by the sea, as the sea- i was accepted, broken.

and in the space- i wrote.

i.
it is always as if- i am
seeing it for the first time.
i must believe as the first man did
god is in the ocean.
god is in the earth.
i no longer believe in one god.
i do not know of omniscience.
i only remember what healing is
when my feet touch scorching sand
particles glittering in a force
as wild
as i am.
nature is my only echo.
i am part and parcel.
crash of wave in my roiling heart.
murky depths.
unexplainable.
home to everything.
home to nothing.
home- forever changing.
i must have been a sailor.
because i can’t remember
what it’s like to not be in motion.
dwarfed and frightened and
awed by
majesty beyond your
mortal life.
when i arrive here:
I Arrive.
seagull shadow on
pen and paper.
leopard crabshell
discarded on the beach.
i want to walk
straight out into the
water
and never look back.
as hard as i try-
i cannot understand
anything else.
my heart on fire
has cooled
to floods, to this-
giving and taking
away, giving and
taking
away.
my mind which
never lets me
rest now
dissolving to
foam, bubble,
fragments. seabirds.
i know now
even the barnacles,
the ocean moss, the
crusted shells in
cluster-
have a place here.
i, too, would
latch on
and never leave.

ii.
i love
everything about
the ocean.
even, suddenly, things i couldn’t
bear to behold.
here there are no
notifications.
no guilt, no
smashed
hands or
phones.
you cannot force me
to feel.
i, who in these moments
have felt nothing,
now feel
all.
or at least-
the smallest glimmer
from a match-flick
of something.
an ocean whisper-
don’t leave us.
not yet.
we still have
things
to say.

iii.
if i could lead you
into a poem that is
my life
right now it would be
sounds and
only
darkness.
the slightest shrill of
wayfaring birds, the
slightest swing of
contained flame
in the distance
on the end of
an
outstretched arm,
the prow of a ship,
a billowing sail
saying only- i can
do this.
you must try
to move with me
in the dark.
walking will
do you no good here.
nor any knowledge
of four walls.
only sandy stretches
glittering like nebulas
a sky made of
bluing mussel shells
and fading
footprints.
there is no way
to make me see
otherwise-
the worldly things
besides
ankles tangled
with seaweed,
the crash of wave,
the
infinite
motion.
please do not
ask me to
stand still.
please do not beg me
to feel something
when i am curled
inside
these shadows.
only remind me
of the cycles.
the dusk and dawn
of the sea.
remind me that
these waters
in my heart
my head
this poem
are home for all
who have no
other place
to simply be.

iv.
i feel so infinite and
at peace.
like nothing exists
but this.
if i have to, everyday
or every other day or
every friday
i will return to
this ocean.
i feel as out of place
in the world as
a girl with fins
on land.
i am singing my own
sea shanty
in my heart
always.
i told him this morning
my heart feels like
a piece of driftwood
with the ocean crashing
against it.
and now here i am-
standing in the
water.
calmed by the sea
crashing into
me.

v.
this glittering sand
feels like
the most beautiful thing
i have ever seen.
it reminds me what i am a
part of and
what is a part
of me.

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thank you, coney island.

XO

a.