Soft Opening
Soft Opening features intimate interviews with songwriters, poets, comedians, performers and visual artists who speak candidly about their personal experiences with creativity and resilience. Themes of recovery, grief, spirituality, wellness, sensuality, darkness, and the erotic unfold in each episode and safe space is created for artists to cultivate and showcase new work.
Soft Opening
A Myriad of Ways to be Human with moon
moon is a multi-disciplinary artist and creator living in the Niagara Region with roots in the Caribbean. In this episode, we dive into spirituality and the sacred as sources of healing and inspiration, the notion of divinity, the power words wield, good old magic, identity, binaries, and barriers.
There’s so much synergy and enthusiasm in this conversation, I’m excited for you to hear how it all unfolds.
Find moon's creations here:
Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.
Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp
Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner
Moon is a multidisciplinary artist and creator living in the Niagara region with roots in the Caribbean. In this episode, we dive into spirituality and the sacred as sources of healing and inspiration, the notion of divinity, the power words wield, good old magic, identity, binaries, and barriers. There's so much synergy and enthusiasm in this conversation. I'm excited for you to hear how it all unfolds. This is Soft Opening, and I'm your host, Cat Skinner.
Speaker 2:I've been putting sugar in my coffee again.
Speaker 1:So I start with all of our guests by asking them to talk about their creative origins. So to describe how they came into their creative life.
Speaker 2:I don't remember a time where I wasn't. Between my grandparents and their siblings, and my mother and her siblings, we had a whole church choir. You know. So whenever everybody gathered, we had a five-part harmony going. There was Sunday dinner is a big thing in Jamaica, probably the rest of the Caribbean too. But Sunday dinners over at my grandparents' house was filled with music. You know, if we weren't making the music, we were listening to it and dancing and all of that. I've been singing from I can remember. So um music especially has always been there. And then both my mother and one of her sisters are painters. So my mother painted murals on all of our bedroom walls growing up. Her and my father basically rebuilt the house and turned it into a whole art show. You know, so I was definitely always around creativity. The idea of there being a limit wasn't in my head at all. Beautiful. So, you know, for the one thing I can say has really shaped me was the fact that I wasn't one of those kids whose parents didn't value creativity. You know, I was doing creative extracurriculars my whole life. I was a theater kid, I did all the school musicals, I did singing competitions, all of it. So yeah, that has always been a part of my life. Amazing. Do you have siblings? Yes. How many are you? I I'm the oldest of three. Okay. I am the I wouldn't say the most musical, but I'm the one doing it as a career. Yeah. You know, we all started learning the piano. My mother taught us piano when we were children. My brother went into drums and cello, and he's now also learning production.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:He was in a metal band all through high school. And so I used to tell them to rehearsal. Well, the rehearsals were at our house. I used to hit them to gigs. And then I started playing guitar about 18. Great. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So beyond music, you also paint, you make jewelry, you design clothing.
Speaker 2:Okay, not entirely designing clothing. I print my artwork on the clothes. I'm not a fashion person that way.
Speaker 1:You create wearable art. What other mediums do you work in? You're a writer, a poet, spoken word?
Speaker 2:Yeah, poetry is something that kind of happened upon me. I started writing poetry through school assignments and then realized how similar it was to songwriting. But it was always something I did for myself. I didn't begin sharing my poetry till the pandemic, funny enough. Wow. Yeah, that in itself is a story. There's a book club in Jamaica and a business called Rebel Women Lit. And the founder of it put on this spoken word virtual event when COVID happened. And she reached out to me to perform, and I was very confused because I have I had never performed my poetry before, and I said, sis. You know, I said, What told you? Who told you that I'm a writer? She goes, Your Instagram captions. I said, Ah, well, I feel seen and called out now. And I'm gonna go and look in my archives and see what I have. And so I agreed to do it, and that was the beginning of several beautiful friendships. I performed at the event, I stayed for the other performers, connected with writers across the Caribbean, some of whom are my closest friends today. And so that was a whole trajectory shift in my life.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful willingness to just accept an offer. Yeah. What can you say about saying yes to things?
Speaker 2:I think if it doesn't compromise your values, then saying yes will always teach you something. The worst that's gonna happen is you don't love it. It's not your favorite experience. But I think if you're open and position yourself to be a forever student of life, then you will learn something, even if it's learning that you don't like this thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because then you can sit and analyze why don't I like this thing? What didn't I like about it? Is there a way that I could reshape it to make it more enjoyable, or do I hate everything about this experience? You know, because sometimes for me personally, it's not the thing, it's maybe the crowd. Yeah, you know, for example, with vending. Some events have been terrible, but vending in and of itself is not a bad experience. I just had to learn which events were more suited to my personality, to my work, and put myself in places that are gonna support that. So I've had great events and I've had events I would never return to. Right. But vending is not the problem, it's the environment. So we have to sometimes experience a thing like you have to try a food to know it tastes bad or to know it's now your new favorite food. So yeah, I would say as long as it's not compromising who you are and it's not harming people, say yes, more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I would agree with that, and I like what you said about the idea of compromising your values because living within values is something that's sort of new. It's something I really didn't know to do in an intentional way until I think 2017, which is crazy to say because everyone talks about their values, but very few people can actually name them. So when do you remember having a conscious awareness of what you value?
Speaker 2:I don't know if this is neurodivergence or not, but I feel like I've always had a pretty strong sense of justice, even before I had the words for all of it. It would be more of a feeling. Like if I think back shows that like I used to have an issue with comedies, but I realized it wasn't that I didn't like laughing, it was that most of the comedies I was experiencing were creating jokes at the expense of other people. Yes, oh my goodness. And that never felt good in my spirit. Same. I didn't know how to enjoy these things as entertainment, especially as somebody who sometimes experienced bullying. And looking at these, whether it was a film or a TV series or something, I'm like, this isn't funny to me. Yeah, I don't know how to participate in that aspect of culture. And so for the longest time I did not watch comedies, I didn't I didn't partake in them at all. I have since found comedians and shows and stuff that have tasteful jokes. Yeah. But for a while I didn't. So I think that's probably my earliest memory of that. Not wanting to hurt people back. Yeah. If I was hurt, even if my like my family would be like, you gotta stand up for yourself. I'm like, there has to be another way though. You know, like, yes, I do want to stand up for myself. I don't believe I deserve this treatment, but why do I have to hurt them back as the only solution?
Speaker 1:So what value would that be? Would that be kindness or gentleness or I don't know.
Speaker 2:Empathy, compassion, maybe. Yep. You know, just recognizing that while there is a time for righteous anger, there is a time for violence. That violence isn't always the answer.
Speaker 1:It shouldn't be the default, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:No, whether it's you know, emotional or physical violence, because I think we forget that we can be emotionally harmed. Oh, I don't forget. But yeah, some people a lot of people are. Some people don't don't count it as violence.
Speaker 1:I can be emotionally harmed if someone looks at me the wrong way on certain days.
Speaker 2:That whole thing about you know, sticks and stones about words will never harm me. I said, but but words are energy, words are frequency.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, I did martial arts growing up, I still practice, and so I would sometimes feel like the words hurt more than being hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I could bruise and then come back and recover, and my body is fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My body's forgotten we were bruised two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:There's also a different physical context, I think. You know, like I don't know, it's it's more tangible. You can relate the physical interaction with the pain. And there's something nebulous about emotional pain where sometimes you're not even sure if the person intended it to be as harmful as it feels.
Speaker 2:So And that's why we have to be mindful of our words, and we are not taught that in the West. No, we definitely are not. I think the people who I have met who really focus on that the most are at the Rastas. It is why Rastas have their own way of speaking. And while there are other problematic things within the Rasta community that I won't get into right now, one of the things I admire about them and the ones practicing it properly is that idea of intention and everything. The reason that we said things like overstand instead of understand, because why are you beneath comprehension?
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:And just recognizing the spells in our words, in our spelling, and the ways that we bless and curse each other and ourselves accidentally. I have a daily.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if this intentionality and your value system come into your creative process. Is that part of how you create? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The slogan for my business is Wear Your Intentions because I started out in jewelry. So my father used to work in a jewelry store and taught me like how to tell fake metals from the real metals from very early on. And then I held a job in a jewelry store when I was saving up for school and had to do repairs on the pieces and all of that. So I was like learning the crystals in a different way. But I was loosely into geology before that. I just learned more through this. And then when I started to learn about the metaphysical side of these stones, it just crossed my mind how many people are wearing these very powerful energy amplifiers on a regular basis, never cleansing them, never understanding that this thing might actually be the source of your crazy emotions today because maybe it's too charged up, or maybe you're wearing the wrong stone, or maybe you just need to sit and cleanse that because it's been holding too much. That stone has been through too much with you, or it needs to be let go of. When I started the business, I started making jewelry to wear on stage. Firstly, it was for myself. But when I turned it into a business, I wanted to carry that into it. That what we place on our bodies, yes, the aesthetic is important. We want to look and feel good, but you can also be intentional in what you're carrying with you, depending on what you need for the day. You know, like if you're having difficulty speaking up, maybe you should get a throat chakra stone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And or wear that to a job interview or something that's, you know, if you're having difficulty processing your feelings, you want something that might help that because the stones don't do the work for you. That's what people misunderstand.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're tools. Yeah. They're tools that can be used. Um we don't need them, but they help some people. And so if you want to use them, they're available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this idea that objects are infused with qualities is not completely abstract to me because I grew up in the Catholic Church. Uh and as much as they say witchcraft is terrible, they do spend a lot of time praying to various entities. The Catholic church is a very occult place, okay? Yeah, we can agree on that.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, the first spells I learned were from teachers in the Catholic school.
Speaker 1:Same, same. And that's actually like I follow a path that is very linked to my Celtic ancestry and the ancient peoples and my cultural heritage definitely are connected to the earth and the cycles of nature. But I found that path because I had to do a grade 12 religious studies project and I chose the subject, the evils of witchcraft. And here I am now. So you know, my first prayer beads was a rosary that belonged to my grandmother, you know, and I think it's just this idea that we imbue objects in our life with such meaning and purpose that then they hold the vibration that we instill and like invite into it almost.
Speaker 2:Well, if I remember correctly, the origin of the rosary came from people visiting India and experiencing the mala beads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2:And I think in one translation, I forget which language it is, but mala means rose. And so they took that and then brought it back to Europe and called it the rosary. Actually, changed the number of beads to fall in alignment with the Christian prayers. So it was the same. But it was the same premise. Yeah. Whether it was appropriation or not, because it's you know who's to say? There are ways we I think we can healthily learn from other cultures.
Speaker 1:Oh, I agree.
Speaker 2:Um, but also I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, uh, they adopted so many of the saints' feast days based on the ancient Celtic gods, so that the pagan people could adopt the new way. Well, funny enough, we did the we took it a step further in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2:Um so if you did not know, all of our African religions were outlawed during slavery, right? And partially because they feared them, they didn't understand it. A lot of our spiritual practices were what eventually led to emancipation, and when slave revolts were happening, they recognized that these practices were very intertwined with freedom and rebellion, and so they outlawed them. In Jamaica, they called everything obeah, but obeah is one specific practice. There are many practices that ended up on the island, but a lot of our ancestors came from Nigeria, Congo, etc. And so with Christianity and Catholicism being spread throughout the Caribbean, what some of the elders did was pretend to use the same saints, but they were actually renamed as different deities from their traditions. And so there are now correlations between the saints and the West African various traditions like in Vodún or Santeria and such. And so that was one of the ways that our traditions were preserved in the Caribbean was through masking it through the church. Wow. Which is also why Caribbean Christianity is very different from North American Christianity. Sure, that makes sense. Like it's very you'll look at it, you'll see the music is different, all of it, you know, it's very African in its inception, and some people either have forgotten or are unaware that that was the origins of the church in the Caribbean. But yeah, that's what we do to save things, you know, to try and protect culture, the traditions and the culture in some way.
Speaker 1:So people got creative. So for anyone who's listening and wondering why we're talking about this when this is supposed to be a mental health and creativity podcast. I happen to know that moon is very inspired by spiritual tradition, and so we're in a roundabout way discussing your sources of inspiration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was a part of my healing. Leaving church was a part of my healing, and while the church might help some people, it was not my path.
Speaker 1:I work with a lot of people who have experienced religious trauma, in fact. So I know that that is a real thing. And I myself had to leave Catholicism behind because there was no representation that felt significant for me, I didn't see myself there. Yeah. There wasn't enough strong femininity, it didn't honor my queerness. There were so many factors that I just couldn't I couldn't see myself. And if this idea that God is made or we are made in God's reflection, I didn't see myself reflected there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That idea that God was strictly male never sat right with me. I I don't because I said to people, I'm like, if we're all made in the image and likeness as we are told, then how can God be a man? Yeah. I said, if we're even gonna look at at bodies on the physical plane, the male body is not the one that reproduces. And so I said, what happens to all the people who are not male? Yeah. Are we not also the children of God? Yeah, you know, and if people like myself, if gender fluid, if trans, if any gender non-conforming person are mistakes, why are there so many of us if God don't make mistakes? So all these questions that I pose to people who have tried to challenge me, I said, look, at the end of the day, there are a myriad ways to be human. If somebody is not causing harm to other people or themselves, it is not my business how they choose to exist. Yeah, I don't have to understand it, I don't have to like it. It can be weird as hell. But if you're happy, right? If you're happy and you are not hurting anyone, do you? Yeah, and like who gets to decide what's weird? That's what I'm saying. That's that's subjective. So I might find it weird the same way somebody might look at my life and find it weird. Yeah, but I don't need my life to make sense to you for it to give me joy. No, and vice versa.
Speaker 1:Because it's yours, precisely, and so I feel the same about the connection to the divine. So there are a myriad number of ways to recognize the divine, and so many ways that people choose to pray. And I don't know that anyone is better or more correct than the other because I don't actually feel like we have the capacity to decide what is right in terms of the connection that we have to a higher being, and I think it's a deeply, deeply personal experience.
Speaker 2:Um I think right or wrong is another binary we need to step out of. I'm done with binary because it's life is so much more nuanced than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is the primary takeaway from my education at the university level is that everything is a spectrum, and the more at peace we are with that, the more expansive our human experience is.
Speaker 2:Let's listen, because how much billion people we have on the planet right now? You're going to tell me the same path must work for every single one of us?
Speaker 1:Impossible. And we wouldn't like it either.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't make sense. We accept diversity in almost every other facet of existence. We will look at a strange bug or a bird or a tree and be like, that thing is so different. Look how cool it is. And then you want people to just be the same. And it's never made sense to me.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And there was this person on TikTok who has friends from two different faiths, and the three of them are different religions, very like rooted in their religions, and they love to have interfaith discussions talking about the similarities between, I think one is Catholic, one is Hindu, and one is Muslim. And it's just, they're just different paths to the same thing. And while there is corruption, that is the human side of it.
Speaker 1:I think so too.
Speaker 2:Right? Humans make things messy, humans get greedy, humans get power hungry, etc. etc. etc. And humans do messed up things in all demographics. Yes. In all of these institutions. And so that is why I have an issue sometimes with the institution. But I think anybody truly seeking their connection with God, spirit, source, whatever you want to name it, because it is a name, you will find your path. And as long as you are honest and open to that, then like why do I need an intermediary to talk to God when we're both human? Right? Why mi affi go through a priest or pastor or whoever to talk to God when we're all supposed to have the same access? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So I don't judge people. Right. You know, unless you're getting a little cultish and you're trying to control people, then it's like Yeah. Yeah, the control thing for you. Yeah, and that's why I said people, people are the ones who take these messages and twist them. Yeah. People are the ones who taint the practices. Yeah. But I think there's truth in all religious systems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. I've had a deep fascination for the parallels as well. So I wonder, do you recall any of the themes you used to explore in your creativity when you were a child?
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of them are still very much there. I mean, I've always had a very strong connection to nature. A deep, deep love of animals and just being outside, which is why winter's always stressed me out, even though I was born up here in the coldest month of the year. But the second summer came around, I was you could not get me inside. You know, I'd be out there talking to animals, catching snakes and frogs and whatever, and like yeah, that's it. So even now, like when I draw the animals, some of them I do because I just felt led to draw this animal. Maybe I was watching a documentary and decided to draw this one, but also to raise awareness about things that are endangered or different environmental issues, you know, like because the sea turtles are endangered. We have an overpopulation of jellyfish in many parts of the Caribbean, and some beaches have become unswimmable because the rising water temperatures and the lack of predators is just too much jellyfish.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And but jellyfish carry their own beautiful message, and so the picture of the jellyfish is both something I want people to find beauty in, but also learn about what's happening in the ecosystems.
Speaker 1:And beyond nature, are there other themes that you've carried with you?
Speaker 2:Identity. Yeah. You know, I think all of my work kind of intertwines in that way because even the themes of identity tie back to nature in some form or fashion, which comes back to spirituality, which it's like a web. But I've always been fascinated by the different ways that we exist and the different intersectionalities of the titles we either take on by choice or because they're given to us, like you're from this country, or you're male, you're female, you're whatever. Right. And just how all of those different pieces form us and shape us. And some people resonate with one part of their identity more than others, and that informs their work, or it doesn't, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Uh do you ever feel like you're creatively blocked?
Speaker 2:Not for a long time. I remember recognizing years ago, many years ago, that what people what it felt like people were calling writer's block or creative block was more tied to I had written everything I could write about everything I'd experienced so far. And so I now needed to go out and start living again. I needed to have new experiences because I had exhausted these experiences. I'd thought about them from every angle. I'd felt all the feelings I could feel about them and I needed to keep living.
Speaker 1:I love that idea because I think people feel like they're hitting a wall when in fact it might just be an invitation.
Speaker 2:You might be hitting the wall. If you're sitting in your room looking at your walls, you might be begging the wall for something it cannot give you. It's given all the you know, the the wall might be there going like come out of your room, get out of your office, get into the world, go outside, you know, go and literally put your hands in the dirt, go for a walk, go meet a new person, talk to somebody you don't like, just have an experience, right? They talk about artists sometimes living chaotic lives. And I feel like maybe there are artists who have had that idea and sought experiences, maybe not in the most healthy ways, but from the same drive of just needing to live and wanting to experience everything the world had to offer so they could create from it. And I get that, you know. If you think of there was a book I read that talked about God being the ultimate artist. Right. When people say, you know, why is there evil in the world? Why is there this or that? I said, well, let's for the sake of this conversation say that God is the sole creator of all of it, one hand. As the ultimate artist, do you not want to see the expanse of your creative capacity? Some of us make ugly art because we have ugly feelings inside that we have to get out of our bodies. And it's okay, you make angry art, you make dark art, everything isn't going to be pretty. And so it's all valid, it all has value.
Speaker 1:Do you approach your emotional landscape with the same kind of permission and expansiveness?
Speaker 2:I do my best. Honesty is one of the most important principles to me, if not the most important. And so when I catch myself playing it safe or having those very unrealistic but very human fears, yeah. That that was when I know it's time to sit down and do some very intentional work. And whether it is painting through the fear, singing through it, writing through it, whatever it is, that thing that is feeling like a block is usually exactly where my attention needs to be focused. That's the next step, that's the door that's going to take me to the next level as an artist, as a person. So yeah, it takes time. It's much easier said than done. But whenever I find those moments, I try to treat them with the same integrity.
Speaker 1:At Niagara Falls Community Health Center, we know that health means more than medical care. It's about community, connection, and support. For over 15 years, we've offered free, low-barrier services that support the well-being of the entire Niagara Falls community. That includes open access to mental health counseling, wellness workshops, newcomer programs, and supports for families. If you have a child under six without a family doctor, our Care for Kids program offers well-child and acute care appointments, breastfeeding support, and help navigating early childhood needs. Visit www.nfchc.ca or follow us on social media to learn about our upcoming events and how we're building a healthier Niagara together. Niagara Falls Community Health Center. Strong, connected care for everyone. What are your signals that you need to look at slowing down or more self-care? I know you just mentioned fear is an invitation to pay attention, but what are other signals that you get when you need to tend to yourself a bit more?
Speaker 2:Escapist tactics like inability to slow down or just feeling pressured to work even when I know that like I should be resting. Pain in certain parts of my body, holding tension in certain parts of my body. But that usually is you know the sign that maybe I need to dance more, maybe I need to stretch more, maybe I just need to sit at my altar and just be for a minute. My thoughts are racing, I might need to journal or paint the feeling out, or sketch the feeling out. Whatever it is. I think if you listen to your body, it tells you, you know, once we learn our bodies, they're very intelligent. Yeah, they hold a lot of wisdom. But we I find up here especially it's easier to ignore my body than it was in Jamaica because society is different.
Speaker 1:We are a very disembodied culture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very robotic. Yeah, and I like I grew up here. You know, I went to high school here and everything, and then I left at 19 for several reasons. But one of them was that I was not healthy here mentally or physically, and I needed to connect with my culture, I needed to reconnect with myself, I needed to be around better people. I was in a very toxic environment. Um I don't think the people were intending to be toxic. That's just also where they were at in their lives. But I had a moment where something happened and I was like, if I keep going like this, I probably won't see 21. And I had to just sit with that for a second and say, okay, okay, we have some choices to make. Okay. You know, you can either keep operating like this because it's become easy, because it's become habitual, because it's familiar, or you can make some very difficult changes and shift your life and live in a way that you know you're capable of, that you actually want for yourself, even though it feels impossible right now. And so I did that. And that is the only reason I'm here talking to you today.
Speaker 1:What a bold and brave choice to have to make at such a young age. I feel like this is a good time to shift to the pieces that you brought to us.
Speaker 2:Because um, so the first song that I told you about was tied to that moment. I don't remember if it specifically came before or after, but it was around the same time frame. I think I was 18 or 19 when I wrote it. And it's it's called Darkness. I had dealt with depression for many years, even before I really knew what it was. But it always felt like this hole in my chest that was trying to suck me in from like from the inside. You're like caving in on yourself. Yeah, and it was strange, especially as a child, you don't have all the language. No, you know, but I could feel it. And I remember being out. I was like shopping with my parents when I wrote the song. And I don't think they knew that I was depressed. I didn't want anybody to know, yeah, so I don't even like hold that against them. Um, I just wanted to keep going to work and saving up for school and whatever else, you know, and just maintaining the little social life I had because I've always been kind of introverted. But yeah, I wasn't really trying to bring people into it like that, but I used to self harm for a bit, and then I had this idea to personify depression like as a separate entity from myself rather than this thing that lived within me, and so the song was talking to it. I don't perform it except for the special occasions. Like I sang it at my friend's book launch because she's also a big mental health advocate, and the book was about her journey with her mental health, and so I sang it there because it was appropriate. But it's not a song that people would catch me singing because words have energy, and I'm not trying to perpetuate that in my life anymore. Yeah, but that is why I agreed to sing it here. Talk to me, tell me everything will be alright. Tell me that I'll see the morning light. Right now I can't see me making it through tonight. Oh hold me. Wrap me in your words of comfort and fear. Whisper softly that you'll always be near. I can feel it in my bones. I love you. You're my friend. I know you'll be there with me till the end. The silence speaks a thousand words in my mind, and in the safety of the dark I see the light. Listen. Careful what he tells you to do. He knows the simple things mean more to you. So he plays upon your mind. Listen. When meanings sharp as truth that cuts like pain. It's how he draws you in time and time again. I love you. You're my friend. I know you'll be there with me till the end. The silence speaks a thousand words in my mind, and in the safety of the dark I see the light. In the safety of the dark I see the light. In the safety of the dark I see the light. In the safety of the dark.
Speaker 1:Wow. Thank you for gifting us that. Thank you. I feel like I know that entity that you're singing to. And I'm very curious about how you have now come to understand shadow.
Speaker 2:So my shadow is different. I think the shadow is often parts of your identity that you are afraid of expressing. Maybe there was shame put on it. So I wouldn't classify that as my shadow self. How it more so felt to me was like a liar living in my head. You know, it would say, you know that that that spiral, anybody who's been through depression knows that when you are feeling like you don't deserve to be here, your mind lies to you. It says the most horrible things to you. You're you're more cruel to yourself than anybody else could ever be. And I had um undiagnosed, but I'm very sure I was dealing with bipolar for a couple years. And so when I would come out of a manic episode or something like that, I would sit down and I'm like, but I don't actually believe any of this. You know, when I'm not in the throes of it, I don't believe it. I know it's not true. And so it was about finding the way to remind myself of that in the midst of those moments taking over, of combating the lies with the truth, of remembering who I am separate from how I'm feeling in this moment, reminding myself that the feeling will pass, even though it feels like shit right now, and just again easier said than done, but it does get easier over time.
Speaker 1:It's a muscle you have to strengthen. Yeah. It's like rewiring that part of your brain that doesn't want to believe that there is hope or goodness. It's just like a practice over and over. So, what can you say about hope now?
Speaker 2:How I've worded it before, because it's you know, I've done some mental health work and I've talked to people about this, and what I recognized was that any time I felt like I needed to not be here was actually there is something that needs to die. It's not all of you, but in order to heal, we have to bury the parts of us that have unhealthy habits. We have to bury the parts of us that are tied to the identity surrounding our pain. Maybe we went through a horrific experience and we were in survival mode for a time and that got us through. But do you want to stay in survival mode forever? No, and so that part of you that part of you that may be so dear to you because it helped you live, it's now old. Yeah, you have to let it go, you have to bury it. In other words, kill that part so that the rest of you can live.
Speaker 1:Have you ever done ritual around that sort of an experience? Definitely, yeah. I think that's a really powerful practice.
Speaker 2:So recognizing that that feeling of I need to die, it's not necessarily far off. It's not you, it's not entirely untrue. A part of you does. Your healing is calling for that.
Speaker 1:I love that so much.
Speaker 2:You understand? Like your healing is calling for you to let go, and you are there holding on to the parts that are keeping you back. And so this is where the medicine of snakes, of lizards who shed every spring, has always been very potent for me because even the butterfly, like I can only imagine what a caterpillar goes through.
Speaker 1:That can't feel good. That when I learned that inside the chrysalis, they dissolve into goo. Oh, that changed my life. I found that information out at such a poignant moment in my own experience, and it was like the thing I clung to every dark day that I had where I just did not know how I was gonna get up in the morning the next day. I was like, I'm goo right now. I'm goo right now.
Speaker 2:But for real like that is a death of some sort. A caterpillar has to die for the butterfly to exist, right? Because both of them cannot have they can't have the same life. The caterpillar served a purpose, yeah. They're not less valuable than the butterfly. But to become the butterfly, it has to say, All right, I'm done being a caterpillar now.
Speaker 1:Oh my god.
Speaker 2:Give thanks. Let me move on.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Can we talk about Yamaya?
Speaker 2:Let the waves drown me. Let them drown my fear. Let them heal me. Spent too many years praying to a god up in the sky. You were right below my feet this whole time. Yamaya Yamoja, she is an orisha in the Yoruba pantheon. She is the mother. In the Caribbean, she is tied to the oceans, but she is initially the orisha of all waters.
Speaker 1:Can you tell folks what an orisha is if they don't know?
Speaker 2:They are, for lack of a better word, deities. But is more than that. They have walked among us. They're just from a different time. And so there are people that are actually from these lineages that exist today.
Speaker 1:It's like the fairy folk in my culture.
Speaker 2:And there are fairies in Africa too, that's what people don't know. Most of these, most of these quote-unquote mythical beings, they weren't always believed to be myths. Literally, I hold colonization of all places responsible for that. Because when you take the magic out of the world, people are easier to control. Yeah. And some people forget that Europe has a pre-colonial history too. Yeah, it's true. Um, all places suffered at the hand of that. So, yeah, there are there are fairies in Africa. There's um mer people across the continents, as like I've read about all of it. Something I'm very passionate about is collecting folk stories and learning about the different cultures through their folk stories. But the song, Yamaya, is about my connection to the water, and in turn, my connection to her. But from I was a child, the water has been medicine for me. The ocean, especially, has been a healing space. I've always had a deep, deep love of the sea. And as I dove deeper into my ancestral work and started to understand the different spiritual practices within my lineage, because I'm mixed as well, everything just became more clear and more potent. And so, yeah, water is a very sacred space for me. And that song talks about the ways that I heal through and with the water.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. I want to ask you how it felt as you started to maybe have a deeper understanding of this idea that there is divine in the feminine and as well divine in the space between well, it was um the first song I wrote about that actually is Earth Soul.
Speaker 2:There were books that I read, and I don't know if they'd have the same impact on me now, because I haven't read them for years, but at 19, at 20, coming out of the church, they were extremely impactful by Paulo Coelho. Oh yeah. And he so everybody knows the Alchemist, but Alchemist isn't even my favorite one. No, it was the first one I read by him at the recommendation of someone, and then somebody gifted me Brida.
Speaker 1:I haven't read that one.
Speaker 2:You might like Britain and if I'm correct, it's a true story. I'm pretty sure he wrote something saying that it was written about this girl he actually met on his travels, and she is Celtic because she was the same age as me when I read the book, she's 19, and it's about her spiritual journey and meeting a Wiccan elder and like all these different things. And while I never went into being Wiccan, it was one of the first experiences I'd had of people talking about the goddess and all of that stuff. And I was like, this makes sense though. Yeah, because as I said before, why would God be only masculine? Yeah, right? Obviously, we need all of it, you know, in plants and everything. There's male and female energies. So why is it with humans it would be no different? Yeah. So yeah, that book was, I don't even remember all of it anymore, but that book was very powerful for me. One of the lines that I took from that book into my song is um God being the word. So in the song I say, you know, if God is the word, you better speak with no regrets, you know, tying back to the whole Rasta premise of using words exactly how they are meant. And that is spell work in every spiritual system I've come across. Yeah. Whether they're calling it that or not, that is prayer, that is all of it. It's being very direct and specific in your intentions. So even with my music, that's why there's certain songs I don't too sing or cover. I remember feeling that as a child and my teacher calling me stubborn, vex, she vex, she vex, because she gave me this assignment and wants me to sing this song. And I was like, Miss, I don't like the song.
Speaker 1:I can't.
Speaker 2:You need to sing this song. I can sing any other song. This song is teaching you this technique. It cannot be the only song on the planet to teach me this technique. Please find me another song. We fought. I must have been like 11 years old. And in hindsight, I can probably say something about that song. Energy did not resonate with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my body found it very difficult to sing, but I didn't have that language at 11. I just knew that I couldn't sing the song, I wasn't doing it. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Um we we but heads. And so masculine, feminine energy, but then so I just completed an undergraduate degree like in January, and it was in psychology, but I minored in Indigenous studies because I want to know the true history of this land that I'm living on. Makes sense. And one of the things I want to focus on in my psychotherapy practice is gender-affirming care. And so this is where I first understood the idea of two-spirit nature, yeah, which in many indigenous cultures is very sacred and revered because these people were recognized as being able to move fluidly between the energies.
Speaker 2:And you hold a specific space in a medicine circle as a two-spirit person. I don't use the term two-spirit for myself mainly because it seems specifically tied to northern Indigenous people. Yeah. And even though we have our Indigenous people in the Caribbean, like in Jamaica, we have the Taino and the Maroons, it's not a word that I have found in our Taino language.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is why, I mean, as much as I hate the labels, I use gender fluid the most because that feels most accurate in English.
Speaker 1:And this is an interesting conversation too, because we talk about labeling as well in gender-affirming studies and human sexuality studies. Because there is sometimes power in having a label, because there's a name to something that has been maybe nebulous or difficult to identify, and so there's some recognition and being seen and having a name for something, because language, power, all that good stuff that we've been talking about. But then there's also something that happens in labeling where you become pigeonholed and you have to be a certain way once the label has been attached to you. So I do know that there are many cultures in which these people who are able to transcend the binary or move fluidly between the binary are attached to a sacred nature. So two spirit is in many Indigenous cultures in North America, but then there are different names across the world. So let's talk about your last piece that you brought forward to us.
Speaker 2:Well, that does actually tie into even what you're saying now. I didn't want know about the term two spirit until just a few years ago, I think. I mean, relatively speaking, I didn't come out as queer even to myself until I was 25. I was very, very suppressed again, tied to the church and things I was taught about what it meant to be Jamaican, etc. But then meeting so many other queer Jamaicans shifted things and it was more I had to be prepared for the loss that I could face. Yeah. With family, with friends, with whatever. The the loss of the life I was living as well, even if I wasn't fully satisfactory. Yeah. You know, that grief period where you can know a thing isn't good for you, but you still have to say goodbye to it. Yeah. And so I didn't come out as gender fluid immediately. It was more just recognizing that I was attracted to AFAB people and allowing myself to experience that. But I had always felt like I was doing this girl thing wrong from I was a child, from I was a teenager, like there were rules that did not make sense to me. And I remember cousins, friends, whoever was being like, but you can't do that. I'm like, why?
Speaker 1:Tell me why.
Speaker 2:Well, because you're a girl. I'm like, I don't get it. My body still can do it, I can do it. What who's stopping me besides you and this made-up thing you have in your head? And just always confusing and disappointing people, but also not wanting to be a man, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that for me. Yeah. So when I started to learn about all the different gender identities, being trans didn't feel like it fit either. And I was like, okay, well, I'm somewhere in between, I'm both, I'm neither, I'm I'm here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and people have said, Well, how do you know? I said, Okay, well, you know, talking to you, your pronouns are she, her, correct?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if I call you a man, that doesn't feel correct to you. You're like, no, I'm not a man. Maybe you were even dressed up as a man and somebody thought you were a man, and you're like, actually, I'm a woman, right? Because you know who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so by that same light, somebody calling me a woman feels incorrect, as does calling me a man. And that's really all there is to it for me. I'm more tied to living an honest life than whatever labels people put on top of that. Yeah. So, you know, the gender fluid, as I said, feels the most accurate in English. But how that ties into the exhibition, the photo shoot, was actually at a point of discovering that was after I had shaved my head for the first time, which was a big, big thing for me. And in those photos, my hair had started growing back a little bit during the pandemic. Getting to a barber was very difficult. Yes. They were closed for several months, and some of the stores were low on stock on things because it's an island and things weren't being shipped, and so anything that wasn't manufactured on island when they sold out, they sold out. I had a friend who had been helping me cut my hair, but that was on and off whenever we were able to do it. So my hair was maybe a couple inches long now. I was adjusting to looking at myself in the mirror, to feeling what that felt like being in this version of my body. And I had put on some weight during the pandemic, and I was just having a day. Like it was having a day where I just felt horrible. I felt like I looked horrible. I think I was going through a breakup. There was all kinds of stuff happening, and I was like, yo, we need a good cry. A good proper cry. Let's just get this out. And photography had become therapy for me from high school. But this was the first time I did nude photography as therapy.
Speaker 1:So on this particularly heinous day, you decided to do a nude photo shoot.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That is bold. I may try this actually.
Speaker 2:No, honestly, it has been the most transformative thing from high school. Anytime I felt insecure in my body, like going back to not doing the girl thing right, I was too hairy for people. And I am part Indian, I'm part several things, and we have body hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember wondering why my body growing as it was was seen as so problematic for people that they didn't want to be seen in public with me without my arms waxed.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Or without my stomach waxed. And I was like, this can be how we're supposed to be living. At 16, 17, you're pressuring me to just like, I want to think about other things besides my arm hair. Yeah. Can I think about my music? Can I think about, you know, I don't want to be thinking about my arm hair. And you're making me think about my arm hair. So I would take pictures until I liked the photos because liking what I saw showed me that, okay, like how I feel on the inside can be matched by what I see on the outside. And despite whatever other people's opinions are of me, I like this photo. I like how I look in this photo, and I now have some peace between me and my body. So fast forwarding now to my adult years during the pandemic, I had been separated by my children because of the lockdowns. So I was in the house by myself, depressed. Like it was not a good combination. And I said, okay, we can either sit down and let this grief swallow us, or me and my body can do something that's gonna feel good. So I put on my tripod and I put a video on and I just moved, like I just allowed myself to dance. And again, I didn't know what somatic therapy was, but I suppose it was a bit of somatic therapy in that moment, you know, just simple things like holding myself or whatever, and just moving however I felt moved. And I danced until I cried, I bawled, like you'll see some of the photos where I'm like gripping my face. But then by the end of it, there was this release, and I felt so much joy, and I was in my body rather than being in my mind overthinking about all the things that were wrong with my body and enjoyed my flexibility, enjoyed the way my body moves, enjoyed how it felt to move. And it's like, okay, so you gained a few extra pounds, but you're not dead, you're not immobile, you're not paralyzed. Your body can still do things. Give thanks that your body can still do things. The weight can be lost if it's really that important to you. But your body is healthy, yeah. You know, okay, your hair looks different. Let's figure out what to do with your face now. Like you're seeing your whole face, you can't hide behind your hair anymore, all these different things, and just falling in love with my body again in that way. And so when I looked at the photos, I was so shaken. I will actually never forget that feeling. I got goosebumps, I was both afraid and intrigued because I had never seen myself look like this before. I used to have long, long hair down to my bottom, and then I had locks for years, and then now I was bald and unrecognizable to myself and to many people who knew me. But then I fell in love with the photos, and I think that was the first time I saw my masculinity in my body in a particular way, because I wasn't trying to be feminine, like my family was okay with me being a tomboy as long as I dressed femme. Okay, so I had never allowed myself to present masculine, and it was interesting that just by shifting into a particular pose, even without clothes on, I could exude masculine energy and that I could be feminine as well. And I saw both of those things in that shoot, and I said, Okay, I don't know what yet, but I have to do something with these photos. And so I sat down and I some of them are just screenshots from the video moments where I was like, that is it. And then I edited it, and so like even the quality of the photos, this was just taken on my cell phone from years ago. Wow, they're I may have turned up the resolution, but they're not done on any fancy camera. It's really just the energy of them that makes them what they are, and then I wrote the poetry to the photos. And I mean, do you want I can read some of them? Yeah, some of them love it if you could read some of them. Do discuss the ideas of gender and all of them. So the shoot I called it Humxxn Body Prayers: Breaking the Binary Within human spelt with two X's as a tribute to the the double X chromosomes that people have often used to define and limit anybody in a female body, you know, and how we can embrace that and also not be limited by it. So the first piece is called Salt. When you cannot reach the sea, cry prayers over your flesh and remember the ocean is within. Let her waves carry you forward, don't look back. And if you know the story of Lot, that one is definitely a biblical reference. Shapeless and Formless. You have value beyond their inability to define you. Your beauty was not designed to be trapped in boxes. Cartography. Hold yourself the ways others have been incapable. Tight enough so you can feel something, then let it go. Release the tension, fall in love again with your ambiguity. Let them puzzle over the anagram of your features while you marvel at the maps left only for you. Star Child, this is your way home. There's one called Freedom. My body is my own. It is warrior and mother, protector and medicine man, sacred vessel. May we remember all the parts that were scorned are the homes for our greatest strengths, the blessings of the ancestors, spiritual flags to call us home. Your kin can't find you if you're always hiding. And that's the one of the pictures I was talking about where it's like very much a combination. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibit at the Night of Art in the Falls this year. And I thought the photos were stunning. And I didn't get to read all the poems, but did you want to read another one? Was there one more? I didn't want to give them all away because I want people to seek this exhibition.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not I'm not putting it up anymore. I did it twice. The next one, next time it's gonna be up, is in Jamaica because that is where the photos were taken. Okay, that's fair. It was up at In the Soil last year, and then this year I put it back up because I added part two. So this photo shoot was taken on the Libra new moon. Um in 2022, 2021 or 22. And then the following year, I ended up taking another shoot on the same new moon. And I was in a much healthier place at that time, and so part two had no relevance without the context of part one, which is why part one was put up again. Sure. But yeah, I don't really intend to display it again until I go back home.
Speaker 1:I mean, I fully can appreciate why that is, but I also think that you're sharing something so specific and so deeply personal to you, but there's so much universality in some of the things that you're talking about, just in terms of like acceptance of being in the body that one is given and identity, and it's relatable across several planes, which I think is really interesting. And I think that's what happens when we live so deeply in our truth, and we're brave enough to share it that other people can recognize themselves even if there's so much disparity between our lived experiences.
Speaker 2:That has been one of the most beautiful things for me with sharing my book and my work here, because I did experience racism as a child here, and I grew up in Burlington, and Burlington was not as diverse a space as it is now. Yeah. And so it was interesting being away for so long. Like I'd come back and visit, but I hadn't really been here living properly for 13 years, and so coming back and then being in a brand new city, because I didn't know St. Catharines at all, and getting immediately involved in the art scene and getting my book published. The book came out last year, June, so 2024, June, and having most of the people purchasing or interacting with it be outside of my culture and hearing the ways that they connect to it and the ways that it touched and reached them, even despite some of the language differences or the cultural references, has been so beautiful to me. Good. Because while I wrote it primarily as an upliftment for the Jamaican and Caribbean queer community, I also wrote it with the premise that we have far more in common than we will ever have to divide us. And wanting people to find unity, because the only way we heal through all the isms, all the sexism, the racism, the everything, classism, is by recognizing our similarities, by coming back to the fact that we are human first. Yeah, that all the other labels come secondary, and labels can be something as simple as being a mother, an aunt, a friend, or whatever, but we have to be human beings first. Um and even in here I talk about you know who we are being, being more important than what we are doing. People often try to define you by your job or whatever, but that don't really matter to me. At this point, your bills are paid, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 1:Who are you as a person? Yeah, well, I think it's a great question to ask who we are when all the labels are stripped away. Yeah. So you have a book out in the world, at least, if people want to lose themselves in your words. How do we find your work?
Speaker 2:It's on my website. Everything is on my website. The website does need some updating, but all the links are there. Um, the book is called Breaking the Binary. So the website is earthandmoon.net, but it is also available on Amazon. I've noticed that because I had to mark it as having explicit content, it's weird to search it and I find this blocks it. I might also have an explicit book on Amazon, so hey, I know I know this struggle, but um it's definitely there. If you want a signed copy, get it from me. Or if you do buy it off of Amazon and if you already have one off of Amazon and you want it signed, I'm in St. Catharines. So you know I will pop up here and there. I'm at the farmers market most Saturdays. Great. Um, and then I do various events around different cities. I'm gonna be in Guelph on Wednesday.
Speaker 1:I was in Toronto last week, so do you post your events on your website as well if people I post them on Instagram. Instagram. And what's your handle on Instagram?
Speaker 2:The business one is Earth and Moon. Okay. Yeah. But Moon the Artist is my main page.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you'd like to share with us before we say goodbye?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna share this last one because it does tie into what several things that you said also.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to read your poem, and uh before we say goodbye, I wanna thank you from the very bottom of my heart for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you for inviting me. I give thanks for this space, give thanks for what you've created here and a space to share and talk about these things. It's important work. This piece is called Mother Tongue. Your body knows only the languages you've taught it. Let all words of shame be removed from our vocabulary, let each arm hair unplucked be a prayer for our sovereignty, songs from ancestral tongues, land back, holy reclamation, resetting of the altar. Let us be.
Speaker 1:Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund. Our podcast is produced by Peter Haverkamp.
Speaker 2:Want to be loved even if we don't say tell me what do you know of love I want to know amidst these lies, amidst these lies, amidst these lies we all want to be loved we all want to be loved we all want to be loved .
