Issara Simone Edwards's Blog, page 2
April 27, 2023
Goddess: Part One – Lilith.
[It’s the end of an era and the start of something new. I’ve been primarily working with goddess archetypes as part of my practice since I was fourteen. Now it seems its time for me to move on. But, in honour of the feminine archetypes that have guided me thus far, this is the goddess series.]
The room is dark, empty, just you, a walnut coffee table and two grey armchairs. There are eight candles on the table, three black, three red, two white, they are the only source of light. They’re placed on the table around a small silver disk, on which there is a small lump of smouldering charcoal. In your hand is a large piece of resin, you place it on the charcoal and take a seat. You begin to see something, something you can’t explain, a small tear in the fabric of reality perhaps. Something begins to break through, a crack of light in the dark, the soft smell of the resin burns and dissolves filling the room. You close your eyes, almost involuntary. They flutter shut like the closing of a Venus flytrap, holding something precious within them, you begin to drift…
I’m seven years old and I’m staying with my grandparents for the second time in my life. By this point I’d already learned to be quiet, to only speak when spoken to, to not ask questions, to do as I’m told. This lesson was instilled in me the first time I stayed with them.
I was five or six, it’s difficult to know exactly, remembering such things has never been of any real importance. Events matter. Events change you. Age? Well, what’s the point of it really? It counts you, that’s it. It was a difficult adjustment to make, this learnt silence, and it’s one I’ve unsuccessfully tried to unlearn since. You see, in my house, so long as I didn’t interrupt the adults, use bad language, or insult someone with no reason, (you had to have a reason) I could say what I wanted and ask anything. My favourite question was “why?”, it still is.
I learned the hard way that my grandfather was very different. There was no such thing as curiosity, if I said something, it had a consequence. If I asked a question he didn’t like, I would be berated, then he would turn on my mother for raising such a terrible child. This was just how things went. She’d accept whatever criticism he gave her, be humbled by it, she’d say she’d do better. She’d take me aside, quietly, and explain to me that I shouldn’t really speak unless spoken to, there are certain freedoms he has that I don’t. I’d be sent to my room, the one that used to be my auntie’s, and I’d hear him, screaming about me. I’d hear my mother apologising for me, my grandmother agreeing with everything he says. I’d fall asleep to it, promising to hold my tongue from that moment on. I’d fail at this several times in my life, but on those nights, I’d mean it. I wondered then, like I do now, if what I had asked was so bad:
“Grandad, why are you always shouting?”
That however, was then, this is now, now, I’m seven, and my mother’s in hospital. My grandparents haven’t spoken to my mother in almost a year. She got back together with my father, and apparently that was something she shouldn’t have done. I have a vague memory of being told we weren’t welcome in their home anymore and my mother, crying by the fridge, whilst I held onto her skirt. But, my mother’s in hospital and this changes things, not the speaking to her part, they’re still not doing that, but my father has disappeared again, and I have nowhere else to go.
At first, I’m sent to stay one street over at my mother’s friend’s house. I’m there two days. Night one was spent with her son in his bed, he’s a month younger than me and he’s sometime-ish with his friendship, he prefers boys. The second night they put me on the sofa in the living room. The third day I’m taken to my grandparent’s house, I assume I did something wrong and they didn’t want me there anymore.
When I get to my grandparents’ house, they argue about who’s going to take me to school the next day. I lie to make things easier for them. I tell them the summer holidays have started, it’s not a big lie, it was only a few days away.
For the rest of my time there I keep my mouth shut and my head down. I write, I draw, I dig holes in the garden pretending I’m an archaeologist. I do as I’m told, I eat strawberries and peas fresh from the garden.
When it gets dark I’m told to “have a wash and get ready for bed”, and to make sure I wear socks. After a week I’m told to “sort myself out, and get ready for bed”, grandad says “have a wash” makes it sound like I’m a farm animal. Grandma agrees and stops using this term. To me, “sort yourself out” sounds strange, but it isn’t my place to say anything, I keep my head down, I do as I’m told… within reason. You see, the very idea of wearing socks to bed is so ridiculous, that if only I was allowed to speak and explain this, they soon would have understood. My argument would have been so convincing, they would’ve had to tell their friends, who would tell their friends, until the whole world understood the elegance of my wisdom: Socks are for outside, when it’s cold. That’s it!
Unfortunately, lacking the ability to speak other than to say: “yes, no, thank you, goodnight.” I had to learn a new talent, being sneaky. It was an ingenious plan; Steven Hawking would have been proud. I’d wear the socks to bed, then wriggle them off once I was tucked in, and just say they came off when I was sleeping. Alternatively, if I woke up a little earlier then them, I’d put the socks back on and pretend they were on the whole time. Nobel Prize winning genius. This plan worked wonders, until one morning I woke up and couldn’t find the socks. I searched that bed inside and out, I searched under the bed, I still have no idea what happened to those socks. The only plausible explanation is that I was abducted by aliens in the middle of the night, the socks got beamed up with me and got stuck in their beaming pipe thing… I don’t know how aliens work.
Morning: after ‘sorting myself out’ and getting dressed, I’d go downstairs and sit on the floor in front of my grandma, so she could comb and plait my hair. This was always an intense experience, grandmothers are vicious creatures by nature, if you didn’t already know. They’re like nuns, it’s as though they’re punishing you for something, but they won’t ever tell you what. The slightest whimper as hair catches in the comb, a whispered “ouch” when my hair is pulled too tight will be met with the sentence: “You have to suffer for your beauty.” Fair enough, okay, makes sense, to a certain degree. Even at seven I overheard enough conversations about cosmetic surgeries, tragic hair bleaching, perm burns, extensions, hot comb panic attacks and breast implants, to get a good enough sense of what it all meant. You have to suffer to be beautiful, women must be beautiful, women have to suffer. Of course, I didn’t think of this then, back then all I had was a vague idea. Women had plastic surgery to look nicer, other women hated that. Plastic surgery looked painful, the ‘other women’ seemed to find that comforting.
So, by the time I was a teenager, and passing out once a month from excruciating period pains, I finally, fully understood the lesson one woman was imparting to another. Your life is going to be one of quiet suffering, because you, young lady, were born wrong. If you wanted to be something, if you wanted to matter, if you wanted to be heard, you should have been born male. Think of all the freedom you could have had if you were a boy, think of all the friends, everyone would want to know you, you would even be allowed to speak.
Lilith: That got kind of deep and personal, I’m not sure what the point was to any of it, could you explain? (She licks her lips and sits down in the chair opposite me. Her red dress matches her pout and hitches up around her thighs as she crosses her legs.)
Me: Umm, I guess I’ll try. Umm… well, maybe I brought this up because I feel stuck most of the time. I’m stuck in my body and the limitations that come with it. Even this is a limitation, speaking to you and not to someone solid and real. Being female is a limitation for me, beauty is a limitation and I’ve grown up in a society where females should be beautiful.
In university I wrote my dissertation on beauty and why women must suffer for it, and because of it. I was reading Seven Days in the Art World (2008) by Sarah Thornton at the time, don’t know why that’s relevant, but it’s something I remember, and my favourite question kept circling around the inside of my head, WHY? Maybe it was because I was supposed to be ‘beautiful’, I’m female and that’s the most endearing quality you can have if you’re female, but I had never felt ‘beautiful’. My skin was the wrong colour, I was too short and awkward, and my hair didn’t look like the black women I saw on TV.
Lilith: The black women on TV all had weaves.
Me: A fact I know now but didn’t at the time. I just thought they all had nice hair and I didn’t, and there was no one on TV that I could identify with, except Lisa Bonnet. I’m still a little annoyed that Jason Momoa married her, cool should not marry cool, it’s not fair on the universe. But still, I was nothing like Lisa Bonnet either, I was still too short, and my hair was still nothing like hers. I still hate my hair by the way, I just hate it. The only times I’ve been truly comfortable with my hair is when I was a teenager and had extensions and a few years back when I shaved my head.
Lilith: Why don’t you shave your head again? Simple.
Me: The obvious reason. Maintenance, I’m lazy.
So, to be beautiful, to be like Lisa Bonnet, I would have to suffer for it, and my question was: WHY? Was there some cultural reason, historical, religious or just a fact of the universe? My question led to my dissertation question: ‘Have concepts of beauty led to the demonization and punishment of women?” I spent the next year fascinated by the idea of beauty. I wanted to know if there was room for perfection in beauty? Or if the body had to be imperfect to be beautiful? If so what did that say about the modern standards of beauty? I learned that beauty was a dirty word because it’s subjective, its fluid, it’s too open to interpretation from too many angles. I learned that beauty is like art, entirely selfish. But I’m skipping ahead.
During my research I came across Connie Imboden, whose photographs of the human form reminded me of these mini sculptures I was making at the time called ‘See Me, Feel Me’. Her work led, in a roundabout way to Marc Quinn, or a return to Marc Quinn would be more accurate.
The first time I came across Marc Quinn was such a long time ago I can’t even remember the date. It was when ‘Self’ was being exhibited in the Saatchi Gallery, so, that long ago. I remember it reminding me of the statues of ancient Greek gods and goddesses, sort of solid and permanent but then saying that, also highly dependent on its refrigeration equipment like a life support machine. I later saw his 2001 marble sculpture ‘Kiss’ at the Bristol Museum, and I’ve seen pictures of his others. The sculptures are made from Macedonian marble, this white soft stone which is said to provide a sense of perfection. The fact that he uses white marble for his sculptures also reminds me of this idea of the neutral body, that these sculptures can be anyone. It reminded me of the feminist writer D. Haraway who said: “The ‘neutral’ body was always unmarked, white and masculine.” I thought Quinn had taken the idea of the neutral body and bastardised it by making it female, or disabled or whatever else he felt like doing. He was questioning what made something beautiful, and he was right to do so, we needed it, I needed it.
I found the idea of the neutral body enticing. It’s designed to be anyone, but the beauty of the neutral body seems more alienating than classical, it feels more like a statement than something that has ‘neutral’ in its name. The neutral body has always felt more like an ideal, white and masculine, iconic and perfect.
Lilith: Do you think this means that to write something or even create something that would be considered ‘neutral’, beautiful and accessible to all, your characters should be white and male. To make this more accessible, for example, I should be white and male? (Her eyes tease me; her lips fall into a half smirk.)
Me: I know that these things depend on what audience you’re writing for, but yes. Though I’m getting off point again.
In the Waterstone’s in Bristol, there is a little section, consisting of two short stacks called ‘Black Writer’s’. I don’t want anything I write to ever be in that section, I don’t want my writing to be segregated, to be deemed as some great feat. It seems to me, that what is meant to be a celebration of black writers can also be a limitation for us. If black writers were truly equal, they wouldn’t be celebrated. It’s like ‘Look at them, they’ve overcome their blackness and strung intelligible sentences together.’
Chick-lit as well, that’s an offensive term. I don’t want anything I write to be labelled chick-lit. ‘Look, women can write, but only for other women.’
So, my point, cultural, historical, religious? I wanted to know why I’d been taught to hate myself. Why had I watched women teach their daughters to hate themselves? And why am I still watching new mums teach their daughters to hate themselves? Why?
Lilith: I’m curious myself. (Is that anger I see, a flurry of fury raging behind those deep chocolate eyes?)
March 12, 2023
All Possibilities Exist.
Saturday 17th of October 2020
Part of me has no idea where I’m going, where I’m heading, and how I’m getting there. This part of me is almost paralysed with fear of failure, loneliness and is disillusioned by the thought that this is my life and may always be.
Another part of me is enthralled by the simple act of taking each stepping stone as it appears, enjoying the mystery and exploration, and wanting so much to trust it’s going to lead somewhere glorious.
There have been numerous times when I feel like I’m about to cry, then it just clamps up, shuts down. Whatever part of me is doing that knows that crying is not going to accomplish anything, it’s not going to change anything. There’s the possibility that nothing is, all possibilities exist after all. Even writing has begun to feel… fruitless.
I dream about forests, green spaces, trees, undergrowth, mountains and hill, beaches, oceans, actual wildlife. I dream about stepping out of my house and actually feeling connected to something, not just concrete and brick.
It feels like living life is something I have to earn. Is that how my grandparents felt? They moved here for a better life, financial stability, wealth. They worked hard to earn it, then retired back to Dominica, to a paradise outside their front door. Then what? They lost everything in a hurricane, spent every penny they had to rebuild their home, only to die a few years later in a nursing home, far from their family because they chose to retire to Dominica. Is it worth it? Work your whole life, suffer your whole life, for what reward at the end?
I don’t feel like I’m earning my paradise, I feel like I’m magically waiting for it to appear, but that’s a whole different… Why do we have to earn or wait for the life we want? That’s my point.
March 11, 2023
Love Like Winter
Wednesday 30th of September 2020
I’ve been feeling winter creeping up behind me. Cold fingers, braced to touch, holding steady at the back of my neck. I’ve been feeling very little else. I can’t quite place exactly what it is, something’s wrong, something’s missing, a part of me is missing… maybe.
Something’s wrong, I can feel it in my body, something removed or misplaced, left behind.
I feel far away, some part of me switched off, out of tune. I can’t explain it, I don’t even know what it is. Maybe I’m missing human connection, maybe I’m missing earthly connection, my bare feet on the earth. Maybe I’m dehydrated. Maybe I’m tired…
~
I just got the call. My grandmother died, about half hour, forty minutes ago. Everyone has had a different reaction, I have yet to have one at all. Typical me. Let’s be honest, I don’t care about feeling anything ‘appropriate’, and that’s not me saying I don’t care, just that I don’t care to feel what I’m supposed to feel.
My reaction to death never changes. It’s just someone moving from one room to another. I’m in this room, they’re in that room. That’s that.
My mother said something very fascinating, she said, ‘She’s not alone anymore.’ Meaning, she’s with her husband now. It fascinated me because I’d heard it before in a completely different context. My university tutor Debbie announcing her pregnancy to the class by saying, ‘As you can see, I’m not alone anymore.’ That sentence has haunted me ever since I heard it, for so many reasons. It’s a lot to unpack. But the same phrase being used for both birth and death, there’s a lot to unpack there too.
I was thinking about Death yesterday, I suppose I know why now. I wasn’t thinking about dying or anything like that, I was thinking about Death, about what it is, whether on not we can truly understand it from this side of it.
I wanted to do something nice for my grandmother, plant something, a tree maybe. I have a few seeds but nothing I have seems appropriate. So, I burned a black feather to say goodbye and scattered the ashes to the wind. I can look into planting something for her later.
With lockdown and everything there’s no way I can get to Dominica for the funeral, I’m obligated to mourn at a distance, which honestly, suits me, too much drama with that family, they can keep it. And as for, ‘She’s not alone anymore.’ I don’t think she ever was. Death doesn’t mean someone leaves you, they just move… slightly out of reach. That’s how I’ve always felt anyway.
February 25, 2023
Astrology?
Thursday 17th of September 2020
I’ve never really put much stock into astrology. The idea that everything you are is based on when you were born, or that all Leo’s are the same, or you can predict your future based on the position of the planets, it’s far-fetched, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found the concept of star signs fascinating and learned a lot about it all because I can get a little bit obsesses about things, but, there was never a belief that it was real.
But now I’ve seen the light. Nah, joking. I’ve seen something though.
I signed up to this bi-weekly, witchy newsletter. It turned out to be mostly astrology stuff, the moon is in this position, the planets are here, this is how the position of this and that is effecting you. It would have just been a fascinating read, if it was completely dead on.
Coincidence, right? Let’s not jump to any conclusions.
Then I got the next newsletter, dead on again. But, two points make a line not a pattern. But… it got me thinking. If our moods, our energies, can be effected by any number of external influences, who says the position of the planets isn’t one of those factors? If the moon effects tides and so on, and we’re mostly water, why not us? Who says that when you work on becoming more in tune with yourself and the world around you, that you don’t sync up with the planets too? Maybe it just becomes another thing to learn to work with. Maybe.
Let’s see what the next newsletter says.
February 19, 2023
The Myth of Boredom.
Sunday 13th of September 2020
I’ve been wondering why I question everything. I’m questioning why I question everything, I suppose it had to come around to that.
My point is, I’ve alienated people with my questions, lost people by questioning their choices, poking holes in things they don’t want to think about. I drive myself crazy with my questions. You would think that I would stop. I haven’t.
The people left in my life are few, but they know and accept that I’m going to rip their choices to shreds and make them see things from every angle, and they’re okay with that. But, I’m still stuck on, why haven’t I stopped?
It’s a valid question. All the loss and arguments, rejections and hurts, should have programmed me out of it, right? Has questioning everything been more fulfilling then having… I’m going to go with, weak people in my life? Let’s be honest, if you’re going to attack and then run away because you can’t answer a few questions, that’s pretty weak. What was I saying? Right, I must love questions. Or, I must love finding answers. Which brings us to last nights deep dive.
We’ll start with “Boredom is a sin” a quote from ‘Lost Souls’ by Poppy Z. Brite. Then we’ll move on to someone telling me that if you get bored easily, you must be a boring person. I know, that’s what we’ve come to, bored shaming.
I get bored all the time, and very easily. So, I fill my time with things. I’ve made the objective of my life to be occupied at all times, because boredom, after all, is a sin.
Last night, between activities, I sat down and said: ‘Why? What’s wrong with being bored?’
Okay, the word ‘bored’ in itself is sluggish, slow and negative, so we’ll remove that and ask: ‘Why do I have to be occupied at all times?’ Occupied, in the sense of taken over by something else, to be negated. ‘Why can’t I just be with myself, what’s so wrong with that?’
And there it is. I keep myself occupied at all times so I don’t have to be with myself. I fill my life with activities to distract myself from myself. It’s almost like I can’t stand myself.
Is that what boredom is, the root of it, I can’t stand being alone with myself, with my own thoughts? What would be wrong about sitting and doing nothing? I’m struggling with just thinking about it. Is it even possible? There would still be the sounds outside to listen to, the thoughts to wander away with. But, I guess that another thing, there’s no such thing as nothing, and being alone with my thoughts would be the point.
Maybe I’ll try it, but not right now. Right now there’s things to do. Let’s burn some problems away, do some fire element yoga, make lunch, keep myself distracted, fill my time with activities so no part of it is wasted. wasting time, that’s another issue isn’t it?
February 18, 2023
Sacred.
Saturday 12th of September 2020
I moved the wheelie chair from the desk to the window so I could watch the sunset through the trees, and all I felt was this overwhelming and familiar sadness. It was like a memory, but I couldn’t quite grab hold of it or chase it down, find its source so that I could address it. All I could do was sit in it and not know where it was coming from. I can still feel it, like an echo in my stomach, like… loneliness.
I’ve been in sacred space, in journey space, whatever you want to call it. I think there’s a reason why… why do I have to be so dismissive with myself all the time? I know that the revelations it brings, the clarity of thought and feeling, gets washed away when we leave that space, and return to the real world. We end up returning to who we were, how we were before we started. I think the trick is to carry that sacred space within us. Next up is figuring out how to do that, along with accepting that I’m not just one person.
You can call it soul fragmentation if you wish, but I swear there was this episode of Star Trek: Next Gen, where Picard had this sculpture of a head. When he lifted off the top, there were lots of other little head sculptures inside, representing how people aren’t just one person, one thing, but multiple selves, multiple aspects. I have not been able to find that episode though, maybe I dreamt it.
I was trying to make a point though.
People are Rubik’s cubes, things seem to click into place when we accept this, pun intended. I’m a Rubik’s cube trying to solve myself, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Each side, each square, is a different aspect of me, trying to figure itself out and learn how to co-exist with the other parts. And when one aspect of me is hard on another aspect of me, that’s okay too, their learning, so I can forgive them. Easy to say, harder to do though.
February 11, 2023
Red Riding Hood
Thursday 10th of September 2020
I have a habit of getting lost, of wandering off, straying from the path. Distraction and, I don’t know, doubt, maybe, seem to be my best friends.
There’s a lesson in there, somewhere, in the wandering off, a metaphor, a story that can’t be understood without repeatedly losing my way.
I don’t have a way, not technically, my way is the way of the lost, of the wanderer. The path I choose is simple the path I choose that day, there’s probably a lesson there to, in ultimate purpose and all.
For a moment, in the wilderness, I saw my journey from another angle. I wasn’t banished from my former life because I didn’t deserve love and acceptance, but so that I could wander off, get lost and learn new things that staying on the path, their path, would have limited.
But being banished implies being forced out, doesn’t it? That hasn’t always been the case. At any point I could have fought to keep people in my life, but I’ve always gone willingly. At the first sign of rejection, or even the potential for rejection, I’m gone. Then again, no one’s ever fought for me either, but let’s be honest, what constitutes as a fight?
January 22, 2023
Catch Me
Thursday 3rd of September 2020
Everything’s a wreak, and I feel like a wreck. This isn’t me complaining, this is me trying to stabalise my own… energy, and I’m reluctant to use that word, but I shouldn’t be. Embracing night, embracing, self, embracing who I am…
I should tidy. Put the hoover round. Have a bath. I’m avoiding that, I’m lazy, or tired, you can pick, and the bathroom smells like damp, which is something I should probably care about or something.
My head feels like its being compressed and my thoughts feel scattered, my body like fireworks popping off under my skin. How do I fix that, bring myself back to stasis, to ground? May I just answered my own question. Okay.
There’s so much, so many pieces of me everywhere, and time is too slippery to control, why do I even try?
Do you want a description of my desk?
Loose poetry, pages of notes, an open sketch book, art supplies, candle making tools, books, fabric to make a skirt, two open notebooks.
How about the floor?
More art supplies, half finished paintings, and empty plastic bag, books, a pencil case, scraps of paper, even more notes.
It’s chaos. It feels like chaos, and I’m stuck inside it. And I know, take one thing at a time, but which one thing? Will it make a difference? Well, I suppose hoping it will all fix itself isn’t working. Organise itself, come together itself. Something like that.
I’m not very good at the organising part of life, but I crave it, order, balance, equilibrium. I want to feel it, manifest it, live it, embody it. I’m tired of being scattered. It’s literally exhausting me.
January 15, 2023
The Hollow
Saturday 22nd of August 2020
I feel hurt. I feel raw. I feel wounded. I feel, retreat, retreat, to somewhere safe, anywhere safe, lick your wounds, stay hidden.
I feel like a sword was plunged through my open mouth, down my throat, chest and into my stomach. It’s still there, holding me open. But I don’t know what this means yet, this opening.
January 8, 2023
The Unseen Battle.
Monday 17th of August 2020
I tried to have an early night, I really did, to be rested for a full day of writing. Instead, I spent over an hour chasing a fly around my bedroom, or being chased, it depends on your perspective.
I tried chasing it out, but it had claimed its territory, and as far as it was concerned, I was the invader. It left me no choice but to resort to violence.
At around quarter past midnight, I hit it with a shirt. It landed on an art piece I had drying on the floor. I moved it around a little, it didn’t move. So, I picked up the painting to throw the fly out of the window, it was gone. Did I mention that this fly has teleportation powers, or access to wormhole technology, either one?
I spent the next half hour searching everywhere for this fly, it had vanished. So, I turned the light off and got into bed, but the damage was done, I was wide awake, sleep was long gone and never coming back.
I thought the fly had crawled away somewhere to die, I hoped, but I should have known better. As soon as the sun rose there it was again, buzzing around. It was simply biding its time, preparing for round two.
This time, I was ready for it, I successfully got it out the window. I say successfully… it flew out, by itself, of its own free will, like it had done what it had come to do, destroy my sleep.
Yeah.
