Lunar Wildling

Thank You ✨

Dearest patrons,

thank you so much for your continued support.

Truly, from the bottom of my heart::

it means so much to me.

That you are here, and supporting me.

That you value my message + my art.

I think about it all the time, and send lil energetic love notes nearly daily to all of you who show up here. 

I will be sending out hand-written letters today to my loves who have signed up at the Tidepool tier, and letters + Polaroids to the Shallow Waters and Swim Deep with Me tiers, so be on the lookout!

This month, your support allowed me to develop 5 ROLLS of film that I shot. I will absolutely be sharing here once they are processed.

Big big thanks + love to you all.

🌙Luna

Allowing

Lately, I have been doing a lot of work around the concept of Allowing.

We are a culture that is heavily imbued with values that float on the undercurrent of control. We try to control outcome at every turn, and leave very little room for the sacred unfolding that happens when we simply allow space for growth and development, as they naturally progress. We become so fearful that the rose bud will not blossom that we peel back the unready petals, and often end up destroying the delicate beauty—or at best, we miss the absolute magic that happens when we simply allow the rose to dance open in its own timing.

I notice it in myself all the time. I fall in love with the potential of relationships, of my career, and find myself tempted to grasp and cling to that future vision, becoming rigid and anxious. And lately, as those feelings arise, I have been actively letting them go, and surrendering with a soft and open heart to the knowing that everything unfurls as it is meant to. I will not allow old fear-full programming to drive me to isolate, numb, or give up in the face of this truth, but to break me open into deep trust. The deepest trust I have ever cultivated.

I will keep showing up with a full, open heart, in exquisite presence. I will keep putting sincere effort and care into the people and pursuits that are important to me... and I will also allow them to ebb, flow, breathe, expand, contract, be in sacred flux. ✨

Real time witnessing the absolute magic and freedom and lightness of being that happens when I practice this.

Rebelling

I am rebelling against the idea that, in order to be supported and valued, I must be constantly producing.

I have gone quiet on here for the last week or so, and I thank those of you who chose to keep supporting me. Who chose to show up, understanding that we all need to take breaks from “hustling”.

For a while, I was producing so much content. And it was exciting, life-giving, nourishing. For a while. Then, I started to feel an aching hollowness when I would begin a photo shoot. I found myself feeling uninspired and disillusioned. I think I knew it then, too, but I didn't want to believe it—I was burnt out, and disconnected from my soul purpose. I wasn't taking time to be in solitude and quietude. The unique messages that I was meant to be sharing with the world were piling up like a Download Queue, without a clear server to usher them through. And I felt it, saw it reflected in the images I was creating. There was a dullness and dimness clouding my eyes.

I can promise you one thing: I am here to share my authentic self with you. This will inevitably include important periods of rest and time away. In the last week, I have reconnected so deeply to myself. Cleared the overwhelming static, noise, and distraction of social media usage and become open + receptive to the messages that are uniquely for me. (And for others tuned in to the same frequencies - but that’s a post for another time). And I am excited to share them with you. 

I am not here to churn out content ceaselessly, or solely showcase erotic content. Those things are but toys in a kiddie pool, and I am here to swim deep with you.

A Reminder

I found this excerpt from a piece I had written several years ago, and it was such a good reminder for me... perhaps it will resonate with you, too.

In my reflection, I realized that I’ve learned to be obsessed with productivity. All of these are considered positive attributes in our society: productive, hard-working, motivated, determined, goal-oriented. I’m not going to deny that these can be amazing characteristics, especially if they are being used to catalyze something that is really important to you. But what about: inquisitive, present, curious, open, spontaneous, alive, inspired? We all have our to-do lists, but where are all of the to-explore, to-create, to-enjoy lists? We are so focused on “doing” that sometimes I fear we lose sight of the process of what we are doing; that potentially important, insightful, interesting, inspiring experiences are becoming items on a list that feel good to cross off—or, are altogether rejected before they happen because they are not perceived as productive. 

Some of the best, most joyous moments of my life have been spontaneous ones — an eight-hour conversation into the morning hours on a school night, an unexpected trip to swim in the moonlight, a wild run through the streets in the pouring rain and lightning storms, perusing books for hours in the library with a friend. These are the moments that feel the most precious to my human existence—the ones of full presence and aliveness.

☙

"It is through the love for and the caring for our natural seasons that we protect our lives from being dragged into someone else's rhythm, someone else's dance, someone else's hunger. It is through validation of our distinct cycles for sex, creation, rest, play, and work that we relearn to define and discriminate between our wild senses and seasons." - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Film Work

There is very little that brings me such joyful presence as getting lost in the forest & by the sea with my camera. 

Film photography kindly, gently demands that I deliberately notice with my full attention the beauty that is always all around us, that we are often rushing by, or distracted from.

The landscapes that surround us are constantly in flux, dynamic and alive, and endlessly explorable. Let us seek out and be witness to these stunning expressions of Life.

If any of these prints call to you, let me know, and we can talk about getting you a print.  💕

🔥

he who uses women to warm his cold, lonely bones.

he who burns through every full-hearth of a woman,

suffocates the flames that dance to feed her soul as he tries to consume them for himself.

he curses the fire for burning him, and later the empty hearth for having no more to give.

and so he is left, with a wake of glowing embers behind him.

(for no matter how much smothering is endured, the fire of a woman is inextinguishable)

and as he always has, he stumbles onto the next,

whichever fire with an empty chair beside it, he makes himself welcome.

not seeing that his own hearth has long gone abandoned.

- it is exhausting to love someone who does not love themselves

Artwork

Here are some pieces that I drew a few years ago. 

Exploring other media helps me to stay inspired and avoid burnout  ✨

If anyone wants a print, please feel free to message me  💕

Don't Call Me Sweet

I fucking hate being described as 'sweet'.

The Wild Woman within screams out and reverberates through all of my cells when someone describes me so. 

Do you not see what I have gone through?

The effort and the energy and the hard fucking work it has taken, to come back, over & over, to kindness? 

Sweetness implies an innocence, a naiveté. Children are often 'sweet', before they learn the realities of the world. Before their hearts have been broken. Sweet doesn't take any effort, the way that kindness does.

My strength is in my kindness. I have a tattoo on my right arm—'only love'. It is my compass. It has led me through many stormy seas, blind fogs, and moonless nights. 

I have experienced the sorrow of betrayal. The disorientation and hopelessness of emotional abuse. The despair of heartbreak. And I have always made it a priority to return to love. To openness. To kindness.

So, don't call me sweet. 

Call me strong. Call me resilient. Call me determined.

Call me kind. 

December Round-Up

I have been questioning my creative process lately, and I have been having ongoing conversations with other creatives as well. 

Social media is a game-changer, and frankly, I think has been encouraging what could be considered a renaissance of artistic expression and creation—absolute abundance flows and pours out of platforms like Instagram and Facebook every single day. I have Instagram to thank for connecting me to the majority of artists I have worked with, many of whom I am now honored to call friends. It creates a ripe home for artists to receive + give support, create connection, and draw inspiration.

But can we really take in and appreciate the depth of what people are creating, if we are merely scrolling through? Is it possible to ingest the sheer quantity of images that are being produced without them seeping into our subconscious, and in turn, we simply echo what we have already seen? It sometimes feels like scrolling through Instagram is like walking down a hall of mirrors.  

So, how do we maintain meaning in our art? 

When I first began this journey, my images were ripe with meaning. Whether or not that was/is visible to the audience, the photographs I was creating were so powerful for me in my personal journey of liberation—from generational puritanical shame, from fear of the power of my full expression, from parental expectation of who I should be, from the pressure I felt to play small in order to make others comfortable. I was becoming a woman, a wild one at that. Connected to my own intuition, my own power. It felt vulnerable, brave, powerful; a catalyst that fueled my spiritual journey to continue shedding and unlearning the notions that were keeping me caged, on my way to embodying the woman I am today. 

My images no longer really function that way for me—I feel that my wildness has metabolized into my bloodstream. I don't need to verbalize it so much anymore; it is simply now a part of who I am. But this begs the question for me: what next? I want my art to always be an exploration, one that pushes me to dance at the edges of my being and find what waits for me there. 

I know that winter is calling me to rest. Rest is what allows for rebirth. Perhaps I do not need to know what the next step is in my creative journey, quite yet. Perhaps I simply need to allow myself to burn into ashes as the phoenix does, to be born again in the next year. 

I release myself from the pressure to be productive all year round, and instead honor the importance of the seasons, and trust that rest is necessary for evolution and growth.