Rabindranath Tagore

I usually don't post things that are THIS personal.  But, it's not my job to censor myself. It's my job to liberate others through liberating myself. It's my job to allow others to begin healing by allowing myself to begin healing. Some things are more than metaphors, snaps and similes.. 

Photography/ Jocelen Janon. (This is mad personal, and was only originally meant for my friend Duckwrth to hear. But its important to connect.  Recorded version of this blog + poem is here: https://soundcloud.com/jahrager/forgivemeviti-vou ) _______________ FOR/GIVE/ME/VITI Forgive me, Viti. My father is a foreign country Forgive me, Viti. I am no country I see no landmarks I am only a mongrel-map imagined Forgive me, Viti. I cannot write in a language my father never spoke in front of me Forgive me, Viti. He never forgave me for something I am yet to commit Forgive me, Viti. I have dreams of losing my jaw Only to wake to realise it has already left me Forgive me, Viti. I’ve had my hands down my throat, looking for you for twenty-two years Forgive me Viti, Timothy wrote Timoci did not Forgive me, Viti I keep all my baby teeth and wield them as pen Carving all my names into the page of his back to remind him that I still visit Forgive me, Viti He has been consuming himself for twenty-two years and calls it tradition I am bored with crucifixion Forgive me, Viti The tongue was cut out of its mouth at birth The mother was given salt, instead of water Forgive me, Viti. I heard you call for me, but then I chose to change my name Forgive me, Viti. I will not apologise for the sun knowing my skin so well I will not apologise for what I secretly praise Forgive me, Viti. I know resembled you, once But I have not been allowed to see myself since Forgive me, Viti I am a only a womanly colour An unholy body of work But Viti, I heard you singing for me I heard you singing for me! I heard you sing for me And for the first time, it did not sound like him Viti, You, are woman I, am forgiven _________ VOU/the experience with the museum/ was that singing. Without realising, I had been waiting for the week I spent with VOU and those facilitators, my whole life. When I was a baby, before my father was estranged, I was taken to Fiji to meet my Fijian family. I saw their faces, I heard the language, I felt the typhoon that took after when we arrived. Shortly after, my father never came back. For the majority of my life, I was ashamed of so much of myself, because I was barred entry to it. I redesigned my identity. I found, through creativity, who I am meant to become. But still a part of me was so, so hungry. I spent a lot of my childhood, assuming I was an accident. That there was no reason I was the way I was. But experiencing what I did with VOU, affirmed that everything that I am, is no mistake. When VOU sang a farewell song for me on the last night of my exchange with them, I become completely overwhelmed. Not completely out of sadness because I was saying goodbye, but also because something in me recognised what they were singing. I had heard these voices and experienced this moment before. In that moment, I realised my first and only visit to Fiji as a baby had affected me in more ways than I had acknowledged, and had planted something in me that was answering back. This has also led me to begin to understand the weight connected my own true healing, and how it is connected to the healing of my father. This understanding, is monumental for me. Especially for the past versions of myself. As a performer, I have always been able to tap into ‘other’.  Because of the way I was raised, my experiences, and who I am as a person, I have always been able to access a part of myself and of my history that is so much greater than I am. An ancient ache. It has given me my dark edge, my deep aggression, my heavy undertone, my insatiable hunger. I have been able to begin to channel this, but I haven’t always understood where it came from.. I have also always felt a strong male presence connected to me. It has shifted in age, but has always been at my shoulder. Quiet, but deep. When I was performing with the men in VOU, and when I heard the music and the male chanting, I felt this presence start to ‘wake up’, and it vibrated throughout every cell.. It was absolutely indescribable, and surreal. My sense of knowing just increased and elevated, and I felt so connected to that ancient ache in a way that I had never been before. Dancing with the men of VOU also gave me another intense realisation – my usual overwhelming dark performance edge was met by theirs. I was balanced. I wasn’t afraid of that part myself anymore. It’s difficult to describe.. I know my ancestors have been waiting for me for a long time, for me to connect back with them. I have been slowly following their call, blindly, and letting it guide me to places I never thought I would need to be. I know they have been waiting until I was ready. I know they have been waiting to start this conversation with me. But my week with VOU and the people who facilitated it has taught me my first word. And I am ready to call back to them. Gratitude. Thank you VOU, Sachiko, Eddie, Leni, Bethany, and all those involved in that week. You guys have given me more than you realise. Gratitude to my mama, for giving me everything I didn't have in my begninning. And gratitude, even to my father. 

Photography/ Ole Maiava

"What do you love about being a woman?" divinity. absolute.

the female form is the occult/is the witchcraft/is the heresy/is the altar.

"Girls, only sightly older than I was, the children of holy parents, underwent, before my eyes, their incredible metamorphosis, of which the most bewildering aspect was not their budding breasts or their rounding behinds but something deeper and more subtle, in their eyes, their heat, their odour, and the inflection of their voices. Like strangers on the avenue, they became, in the twinkling of an eye, unutterably different and fantastically present..

Yet there was something deeper than these changes, and less definable, that frightened me. It was real in both the boys and the girls, but it was, somehow, more vivid in the boys. In the case of the girls, one watched them turning into matrons before they had become women. They began to manifest a curious and rather terrifying single-mindedness. It is hard to say how this was conveyed: something implacable in the set of the lips, something farseeing (seeing what?) in the eyes, some new and crushing determination in the walk, something peremptory in the voice.. For the girls who saw the evidence  on the Avenue, knew what the price would be for them, of one mis-step. knew that they had to be protected and that we were the only protection there was.. For this, was the beginning of our burning time.."  - James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time)  "I hold my own breast." - Grace Taylor

young womanhood is an act of listening, is a learnt/fully realised ritual: tmblr.co/ZDNELy1KOgRZo  "All the women in me are tired." - Nayyirah Waheed

there are holy birds the birds do not sing for women like me there is no porcelain creator under my skin no mother under my lower lip there is no eve in the knots of my hair there is a dark cloth there is a jarring birth sometimes, your tongue is cut out of your mouth at birth sometimes, your mother gives you salt instead of water sometimes, you dye your clothes with someone else's clay sometimes,  i mistake being a woman with being everyone else, at once i am a womanly colour an unholy body of work. "We are allowed to be human, in a way that men aren't/Chaos is so feminine." -  https://vimeo.com/97348455 

this, is messy this, has always been messy i have always been a bubbling child bubbling/blistering skin righteous, in growth leaking in growth - a historic kind of lung dance - now, a historic woman whose sacred cracks under monumental men whose brothers turn into gods before they are her brothers they are a bubbling boy, in a leaking body but i am endless and i am not whispering - JARRING/ https://vimeo.com/98637153

WOMEN/always de-constructed/ORCHIDS. sepals/ petals. lip or labellum/  column/