Page 86 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

This time I started with something skeletal. I sewed remnants of cloth, burlap and old curtains, onto thin

branches. I punched holes into the edges of old x-rays of my body and sewed them into a central space in

each curtain. I was thinking about Tibetan Thangkas as devotional images, with their central imagery of the

sacred. I journeyed into something I could not yet visualize, ripping out many threads as things began to gel.

For a brief moment, I wanted to place dystopic images

on these hanging altars, but I rejected that impulse

early on. Dancing into the nightmare can be

therapeutic, but my intention was of a different sort. I

encouraged myself to make beauty that speaks about

this precious moment, a beauty that expresses my

gratitude for the sweet, imperfect contradictions in this

life. In other words, when I began to open to the

suffering, the grief of losing so much, somehow I

found that beauty emerged.

I started listening to Joanna Macy (one of my early

teachers) while I worked. In her talks and her writings

she discusses the “Great Turning” and what might be

necessary to shift our world into one that is concerned

about future generations.
She talks about the legacy

we are

leaving the
In Honor of the Creatures of the Sea, 2014
future

beings and she does it in a way that resonates deeply. I began to

meditate on those generations to come, the ones that will be

contending with a radioactive planet with fewer species and less

access to clean water, clean air, topsoil, healthy food, shelter and

any sort of well being. As I was stitching, I allowed images to

dance, like hidden energy behind each curtain; images of people

connecting through their pain to morph into vast networks of people

educating each other, finding new tools for creating a just & healed

planet, bubbling and juicy with diversity, fertility and possibility. I

imagined people all over the planet turning their shared grief and

gratitude into a resonant and luscious chorus that cannot be

silenced until the shift occurs.

In Honor of Human Beings, 2014