My body is borrowed
My body is borrowed from my ancestors. I thought to myself as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Examining my image, I noticed that I had the smallest and narrowest hands with the smoothest skin and when I clasped them together, my bones were easily felt. But not in some off putting way, it was quite lovely. And often I imagined what a lover, with rather large and tough hands, must have sensed when they cradled it in their disproportionately large palm.
I stood short like my paternal grandmother, yet my shape was my mother’s completely. And despite having been born with the straightest hair of my father’s own making, in recent years, as I made the sacred transition toward womanhood, I had grown into my matriarch curls. I prefer wearing them long and wild as my mother had in my childhood, a symbolism of the wild divine feminine within me unable to be tamed, though many have tried.
In most ways, I reflected my mother within my womanly shape and features, but my face was gracefully given to me by my father which had come from his father. When I smiled, and I was most often found smiling, a pair of dimples caved into my cheeks. A birth defect most people found endearing. Yet despite my father being of a medium tone, my own complexion was fair from having spent most of my life beneath the perpetually overcasted skies of the Pacific Northwest.
Beyond my features, and beyond the vision in the glass, everything that made me up physically came from a lineage of ancestors, their genetics passed down to mold me into an expression of earth called: W O M A N .
Caught up in the habit of entertaining existential dread, I hadn’t noticed how long I had spent occupying the bathroom until someone was knocking on the door. I slipped out to let that person into the only bathroom shared between nearly 20 people, so reasonably shower time had to be rather quick.
At the time it was early October of last year, and I was in attendance at an all BIPOC artist retreat in Central Oregon. More specifically, I was staying in one of the three cabins, split between the nearly-20-of-us, which were located in the forest surrounding Suttle Lake. It was an affinity event for BIPOC folx to come together in community, create their art in quietude or in collaboration, or to simply take rest given that we had just transitioned into autumn and the earth was giving us reason to.
These thoughts weren’t at all unwarranted, as I had spent the majority of my stay in discussion with other artists about our ancestry and cultural heritage. It seemed a common theme that we each explored in our work, our brownness, our indigenousness, our queerness, our blackness, our languages, our roots. It was all reason for celebration. And despite differing identities within and outwardly, it was not difficult to find the shared aspects of ourselves in another and where our experiences intersected. There was always a through line, one just had to be open and curious enough to find it.
There was one conversation that had me feeling quite like I was more observing my own roots from high clouds rather than settling deeply into them. One night in particular, while guests danced to a DJ set in the living room, I sat at the round table in the corner speaking to a Native Hawaiian and Chinese multi-disciplinary artist named Kawika. After they had asked about the project that I was working on during my duration of the stay, I explained to them that I was writing a manuscript reflecting on the pilgrimage I had taken to Mexico the previous year, and that I was about to head back down to finish my manuscript in the upcoming weeks. It was, as another guest had described it, my “cannon” event.
Kawika could relate to this as they too were preparing to travel to Hawaii in the following month to take part in ceremony for the first time in their life. Beautifully and gracefully we related to one another’s desire to reconnect to our native land after having spent little to no time there. It was healing to set our roots in the soil that longed for us as much as we longed for it. And then they mentioned something to me that changed my perspective completely on the relationship between land and body.
“In the book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass,” the author Robin Wall Kimmerer says that even if you don’t remember the land, the land remembers you.” Kawika explained over the loud music in a room filled with haze. Then went on to describe how everyone is indigenous to somewhere, and even if we have never stepped foot on our native land–we are still, in some way–a part of it because it was the land that created us.
The whole time, I had ignorantly thought that I had gone back to Mexico in the previous year to reclaim that land and my ancestry, but through Kawika’s grounded wisdom, I was humbly corrected. I had not gone back to claim anything, rather, I had heard the deep resonant call of my ancestors, of the land itself, to return home and in doing so the land had reclaimed me. I am but a small part of a rather large and complex ecosystem, I am an animal who is in the subtle process and sacred ceremony of becoming grass. The land does not belong to me, I belong to the land.
As I rejoined the artists for Abuelita’s hot chocolate after my shower, the idea flashed in my mind again: My body is a borrowed thing… like a home paid off through a limited number of breaths. And temporary, I thought finally.
The Sky Rests
As a writer and artist, I have many muses. My mother for one, my best friends, especially when they are laughing, lovers that linger long after they’ve left, but my most pure source of sacred inspiration is the earth. As I made my way through the pine tree forest toward the lodge house at Suttle Lake, I reflected on the beauty of the land where I was being given time to work on my manuscript. The forest floor was a shade of red-brown from pine needles that had long since fallen from natural shedding, or had been plucked by the ripe winds rolling off the lake which caused the whole area to smell evergreen. But despite the cold bites of wind, the sun still shone causing a perception of confusion as to what season it was. The sky was boundless and expanded itself onto the surface of the lake where it spent much of day light reflecting off of. At one point, I went out to the docks to chant a mantra of peace because I felt quite lucky to be there and I wanted all the elements to know of my gratitude and because it opened up my throat so that my heart had a clear passage to communicate. Then I headed into the lodge house where there was a restaurant and lounge.
In the corner of the lodge, I found a lonely office with a single desk set near a window overlooking the water. It was a perfect nook to hide in for the only writer at the retreat. This is where I spent hours in the daytime writing my manuscript, within the solace of the forest.
Nature is important in my work, but also for my general values. Having a connection to nature provides one with a perspective of gratitude, peace and tranquility. Nature has the effect of helping people access higher states of consciousness and obtain invaluable wisdom. It can heal, it can teach forgiveness, it can offer truth about our physical and spiritual nature, it can provide humility by helping a person understand their role in a large ecosystem. There are innumerable gifts that nature can offer us. For this reason, I, a Mexican woman with native ancestry, feel so moved to highlight my reverence for the natural world in my work.
Given all the benefits that nature has to offer to a person's health and overall quality of life, it is especially important for BIPOC folx to take up space in the outdoors and to be involved in recreational activities. When we go outside, and connect to the earth, we are able to heal our bodies and in turn we heal past and future generations. This is why a retreat just like this, which focuses on giving BIPOC artists space to rest, commune with nature and create their art is specifically meaningful. We deserve to take up space outside, we deserve to have access to recreational activities, and we deserve to rest.
Because of this, I was moved to write the following poem about my time at Suttle Lake resting, playing and creating among other artists. The Sky Rests was written on my typewriter in the main cabin one afternoon, and was then overlaid on film photographs taken by queer Korean and Venezuelan multimedia artist Hanna (instagram, @maracuya.jugosa).
Months after the retreat, many of the artist in attendance and planners of the retreat held an exhibit to showcase their artwork. There was a small feature on the back wall that commemorated the retreat, which was an extension of their creative and collaborative efforts. It was a sweet little surprise to find my poem The Sky Rests, had a tiny feature on the wall. Thank you and endless gratitude to Art Heaux Studio (instagram, artheaux__) for featuring my poem and for allowing me to participate in the retreat.
FROM THE VOID
“What should I write?” I asked Marcel who was observing me with the same astute attention of an owl at night, or maybe like a mountain lion slowly stalking the woods with acute awareness of its complete surroundings. He was fully embodied, as he studied the light and shadow resting against my face.
He lowered the camera from his face and shrugged, “Just pull something from the aether…” Then he raised his camera again.
In a momentary pause, I felt into a poem floating around us in the darkened woods wanting to be given a body. I tapped in, and then I began to type…
The following photos were taken by Ghanaian photographer Marcel Mawulorm Johansen and the poem From the Void and its title were also inspired by him.
RESONANT ROOTS
It started, as any good conversation does, with the exploration of “God” as the sun, or as a large incomprehensible void of neither goodness nor badness, or as universal entities taking on multiple forms. Then slowly, and naturally, we wondered about death and then, of course, we danced on the topic of a yearning to reconnect to our roots, hearing our ancestors' own desire of wanting to know us. Time seemed to largely pass without any trepidation or hindrance and we were well into the late night when Kawika and I noticed that Marcel had spent a long while listening to us as he sat at the table near the corner.
“Do you want to join our conversation?” I asked, extending an invitation to Marcel.
“Nah, I just want to listen.” He said plainly.
Then a comment was made that our long philosophical discourse had sounded like a podcast as others had been listening in to our natural rhythm and flow.
“We should record our conversation and turn it into a podcast.” Kawika and I joked before we took our conversation outside to the last of the embers from the fire that had been lit hours earlier to warm the cold fingers of artists and roast their marshmallows as they made s’mores. We looked up at the sky, and I wondered about the indigenous names of constellations seeded above our heads, all while the idea for a podcast still lingered between the two of us.
Months later, after the both of us had taken pilgrimages to our native lands, we had convinced Marcel to join in on the idea. We met for tea and shared in a lavender and chamomile joint as we spoke of philosophy, existential dread, spiritual insights and ancestral connections. We are by no means experts, just humans trying to understand this very strange existence that is composed of beauty, chaos, love, violence, memory, echo, and various dimensions. And we are excited to share with you our first episode of Resonant Roots Podcast~
STARFLOWER ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
When asked to describe how I felt after the retreat using just one word, I said, “Starflower!”
Why? I was further and gently questioned. It was because I was feeling softly held in admiration and affirmation by the kindness of others who encouraged my work despite us having just met in the previous days. And more than they could know, it allowed me to equate being seen for my creativity with the sense of safety and a thing to be celebrated.
Reader and friend, if you have made it this far, if you are just now tuning in, or have been along for the narrative since the start of the plot, I thank you for witnessing me. You have been a part of a great personal unfolding and your support has been what allows me to share so much of myself vulnerably. I look forward to continuing to share my creativity with you.
Please stay in touch, and until next time, stay d r e a m y. ⋆。˚ ☁︎ ˚。⋆
p.s. this is the song that inspired that response and feeling