It’s been six months here in Te Wai Pounamu, nestled in the mountains, rivers and lakes (and… sheep, cows, dogs, horses, hawks and ten million hares). Most of the time I’m just doing life, trying not to let overwhelm submerge me, leaning in to gratitude and threads of inspiration.
I spent the beginning of this year learning about the Akashic Records, interwoven with making, jobs and Summer. A basic google search reveals, “the Akashic records are a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms, not just human.”
During this time my making practice has shifted, consolidating my energies within stone and metal. I would work with aspects of my soul from previous lifetimes to anchor in knowledge or wisdom that I already carry. Whether or not this truly shows itself (or is believable) in what I produce is unimportant, because what it shifts within me and the way in which I approach making has changed. It is deeper.
I have started mentoring sessions with Estela Saez Vilanova. We talk of the lands around us (her in Spain, me in Aotearoa New Zealand), our different journeys to other places, the things we love. Both of us dressing in so-called “mens clothing” to disrupt ideas about womanhood and/or what is expected in countries with a lot of rules. We return often to the need to deepen our self-trust, our intuition, when faced with the unknown. I’ve been figuring out where to spend my Winter, the temperature dropping and the reality of housing crises pushing me into new spaces. She says, “Trust yourself”. If only we heard this more often – were taught how to find our way back to our centre, our instincts and intuition even in the midst of turmoil.
I dream of floating down rushing rivers, heading towards dangerous waterfalls. I catch myself on a tree in the middle of the river, watch as other people rush/float past me. I dream of sex. I dream of –
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A woman talks about flowing down a river as a way to get somewhere. I imagine getting lost out there. I prefer the roads, I say.
A wasp is captured and held in resin. Its stinger remains long, outside the resin, attempting to sting me as I hold it. How is it still alive?
Wolves all through my dreams, pack, family. A woman from a past life, native american lover. We lived close to the land, in tribe, simply.
– Old hotels with big wooden beams. Keycards getting lost. My mother gives me a keycard in the morning to get into the room I was locked out of. We walk in, there is a naked baby strapped to a white wall held only by a large silver bangle. I hold it close to me as it cries and try to calm our mutual distress. I look through the dresser full of baby clothes to get it warm but she says “not those ones!” I ask why not, angrily. (Gendered baby clothes?)
– A whole room full of trans folk, with painted faces and elaborate clothes.”
Piecing my dreams together says something like – rivers, resin, insects, mammals, gender, ancestral lines.
My current making practice explores metal hairpins, inspired by art nouveau and the akashic records. I call them “spiritual antennae” to assist the mind in its intuitive processes. My stone work channels the land itself, the ancestry here, anchors into place and allows for time. I search through the timelines for keys to help myself, my communities, the planet we live on.
This planet weeps. The wars in Palestine are ongoing. My heart is broken and my soul reaches into the ether to create peace.
I break the stones I work with to find new forms, relishing the raw texture of its cracked edges.