PART ONE: REFLECTIONS ON HUMANITY
I have been sitting in a prayer for sweetness, for breakthrough, and for peace over the past two weeks. The honey has been slowly seeping into my cracks, sealing up all of the parts that I didn’t know needed it, offering me insight and glimpses of hope.
I’ve spent the past month sitting with what it means to be human, which is not something I’ve ever strongly identified with. I would consider myself a recovering perfectionist, and part of being a perfectionist is denying yourself the right to be human and to make mistakes. The antidote to my perfectionism has been a curiosity about shadow work, and practices that allow us to integrate all aspects of ourselves, and become whole. I started writing a bit about this during the pandemic and an initial inquiry piece that I wrote is going to be published in early 2024 (there’s a link for this towards the end of this reflection if you’re interested).
The past few months have been particularly horrifying, painful, and challenging for many of us. We have been confronted with the reality of some of the ugliest parts of humanity, and are being asked to reckon with them both personally and collectively.
Recently, I had a chance to see Ava DuVernay’s new film, Origin, which is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. I was deeply moved and highly recommend that everyone sees it. DuVernay brings to life pivotal moments throughout recent human history, collapsing time and space to connect us. The effect is haunting and humbling.
Though the film directly depicts these painful historical shadows, Origin did not feel at all like trauma porn. Instead, I left feeling a resounding connection to the bigger picture of humanity. It renewed in me a sense of responsibility to stay rooted in this human project by leaning into my own humanity and by trying to see myself reflected in all fractals of the human experience, including negative ones.
To varying degrees, we all carry aspects of the things that we wish to reject. We are each born into the same web of unhealthy structures. We experience different aspects of the same wound, our individual experiences reflecting our positionality within that web. Even with these differences, our illnesses are collective. I wonder these days what it would look like if we each could acknowledge that we’re all a little bit sick in the head, inherently flawed, and at least partially wrong.
I think about Thich Nhat Hahn’s book How to Love, where he claims that to sustain love we should know that even when are right, we are only “partly right”. To me, this speaks to an attitude when approaching conflict that allows us to sustain connection, evolve, and transform together. Humility can bring us closer to one another, rather than separate us. I am leaning into the idea that connection is the only way through the mess.
I’ve been thinking a lot about grief and emotional regulation. How can we make sure that as we push for radical transformation, we are not perpetuating patterns of harm? (This makes me think of Triangle of Sadness—which if you know what I mean, then you know what I mean) Is it possible to nurture genuine, radical transformation if we have not yet processed the deep emotional impacts of the things we’ve been through?
To what extent are our imaginations muddied by the waters of our unexpressed grief?
Even so, mud can be filtered into clay, and clay can be used to create new forms. The earth offers us materials for alchemy even through impossible situations. I tie a prayer to this image. I imagine a soft bank decorated with clay sculptures interpreting the many stories, beautiful and ugly, of humankind. I look back at the once muddied, now clear water, and it offers me a more accurate reflection of who I am—who we are.
PART TWO: REFLECTIONS ON 2023 ☯️
I did my best to reflect on 2023 with this vision of humanity and these questions in mind. There has been both light and shadow in my year. Looking at them together allows me to embrace the reality of my own humanity, which somehow helps me to accept and later alchemize the challenges. I continue to search for understanding. I continue to aim for presence with the messiness of the process. Knowing that I am incomplete and always in-process gives me full permission to just keep trying. This somehow fuels my vision and purpose as I move forward into the unknown.
Below are select highlights and lowlights from my year.
Light 🌕:
🌕 I received my first print publication, When Language Broke Open, An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent, featuring my essay Remembering.
🌕 I traveled to Rio de Janeiro to archive the album production process for some prolific musicians that I deeply admire
🌕 Despite some fundraising difficulties I managed to shoot the first segment of Matriarch. This was a huge feat because I was afraid of how deep, timely, and relevant the project felt. I was avoiding seeing things through because I knew it was going to require intense shadow work (my intuition could not have been more spot-on about that). If you’re interested in making last-minute tax-deductible donations you can do so at the end of this post, which would help immensely in getting us to the next stage.
🌕 I participated in the Oaxaca Art & Ecology Workshop through Poco a Poco. (Paid subscribers will receive an in-depth post about this experience very soon ✨)
🌕 I participated in a business and design incubator with Burntsienna Research Society
🌕 I produced demos for my first album, and explored my voice as a producer
🌕 I expanded my photography and multi-media practice through a series on femininity, safety, and sensuality
🌕 I was accepted to the 2023-2024 Soho House X Creative Futures Fellowship
Shadow 🌑:
🌑 I spent time in an ancestral land that I have a complex relationship with, and unexpectedly experienced the trauma of being in a war zone. I very intimately witnessed the shadows of humanity in a way that has also been very public, making it incredibly challenging to process. It feels strange and wrong to simplify this to a bullet point, but that’s honestly the best I can do at the moment.
🌑 I shed relationships that I didn’t expect to. As I leaned into my values I realized aspects of myself and life that some relationships were no longer aligned with
🌑 I tried to move again and was disappointed when it didn’t work out
🌑 I sacrificed my well-being for my creative projects and felt the impacts on my physical body through chronic neck/back pain and stress-related gut health issues
🌑 I got rejected from several film festivals, incubators, fellowships, and grants.
🌑 I undercharged for my work and realized that I sold myself short
Alchemy 🌕🌑:
I started calling myself a creative alchemist a few years back when I realized that anything could be spun into gold. One of my favorite Ifa sayings is Tibi tire eji wapo, which means that good and bad always come together. In good there will always be a little bit of challenge that comes with, and in bad there is always the potential for us to extract some good or make it functional.
If I can treat my life like art, and my art like alchemy, then everything that happens holds the potential to be transformed. My intention is not spiritual bypassing or blind optimism, but to locate a reservoir of internal power that I believe each of us holds within us. If we can each locate that internal vitality, and hold ourselves accountable to keeping it healthy and unmuddied, maybe then we will be able to weave it together to dismantle these dangerous, life-sucking power structures.
Life is a precious gift, and lately, I feel somatically aware of the fact. It is a gift I intend to care for through my daily actions, even as I stumble through the inevitable mess that is being human. I pray that my 2024 will be fueled by those actions in service of personal and collective healing. Signing off with an affirmation that I wrote for me, but offer to you to use (or not) as you wish 💗
—I am a creative alchemist. I have learned that I am resilient beyond belief and that my superpower lies in my ability to dive deep, confront difficult truths, and alchemize them for my personal and collective healing. I tend to myself first because without my cup full, I run the risk of misaligned action. By tending to my own waters, I naturally offer healing, alchemy, and beauty to the world around me. My life is my art. My art is alchemy. My relationships are my reflections. My community is my hope and my compass. I belong to the world. I belong to humanity. There is nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of if I am as strong, loved, and capable of transformation as I know myself to be.
🐚 Support Matriarch:
Charitable contributions can also be made for this project through non-profit CreoChangemakers (FEIN# 47-2520723) via check, Zelle (info@creochangemakers.com), or Stripe. Please indicate that the funds are for Matriarch Film Project.