Hello everyone,
Here goes my first try.
Firstly I would like to thank you for joining me in this journey we call life, deep appreciation to all.
Not sure how long these letters will last, we will see :))
The topics I will share with you today are:
- Why I decided to start a newsletter
- What is happening in my life and art
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- 11/03
- A conversation about GoD, with Malou
- Teachings from picking from a medlar tree/ nespereira
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Why I decided to start a newsletter
A few weeks ago I met Jacob. A young artist filled with life and love for his practice. In our first interaction, I asked what his art was about, and his answer was simple yet well-encompassing. He said ‘My art is about appreciating and celebrating life!’. In the time I’ve gotten to know him, he shared about his newsletters, at first I didn’t think much of it, but when I took my time to read this letter I understood the value of this practice. To take the time to sit down and reflect on what is currently happening in life and put it down in words is quite special. And to share it with people who care even more.
So my intention is to do this for me and for you, to share what life brings to me and my reflections and questions about it. I have never been good at keeping in contact with friends and family so hopefully, these letters will help that and possibly open new conversations. As I know myself, these letters will also act as a diary, I will share as much about my interests, curiosities, and art, as I share about my personal life. My art tends to be very intimate and vulnerable, and so will these letters.
This is my first attempt, and I'm sure from now on these letters will shape and reshape themselves, from playfulness to seriousness.
Disclaimer - I am a bit dyslexic so wtv spelling mistakes or weird phrases you find just go with them, I'm sure the meaning will translate ;)
Feel free to write me, or this newfound community, back, share what you want, it will be received with the proper attention and care you are giving me.
What is happening in my life and art
Currently, I’m still living in Rotterdam, in my last year of university. Graduation term just started and I’m having to plan out how my final work -Pietà of Sorrow - will be shown.
I have been feeling very blessed lately. My first few years here weren’t the easiest, but since January things changed completely. On the plane coming back from Lisbon, I decided to fall back in love with Rotterdam and I’m happy to say I have succeeded in this.
Have been dealing with procrastination because of being overwhelmed with everything I want to do.. but step by step, day by day, things are materializing themselves. I thought I wasn’t doing enough, but while writing you this letter I took some time to see what naturally happened that has influenced my art practice. Conversations, thoughts, gatherings and making. All these happened naturally, no planning ahead what they would bring me, but simply allowing life to unfold and learn from it.
One thing I have learned by working on the same project - Pietà of Sorrow - for 3 years now is that time has its own agenda, no matter how much I tried to do or push, I was going against the current. Sometimes we need to allow time to work its magic, it’s like a collaboration. Nowadays I speak out loud what I want, my objectives and intentions in my work, and take responsibility for some of it, while allowing time to take care of the rest.
It’s been going great, things don't always go as planned, but our world imprinted on us such a fast-paced and crazy rhythm of work, that in my view, is against our nature. So I decided to go with nature and see what happens.
:)
Rewriting the 9th of March
11/03
Today is my birthday. The 11th day of March, a day when winter simmers away and signs of spring come along - at least here in the Netherlands. Right now I'm having my first moment alone, feeling like I want to spend time with all these thoughts I'm having about life, love and friendship, but too little time to do so. So I witness them, I listen and I observe.
I am so very happy.
Yesterday night I invited my community of chosen family over. I spent 4 days creating a temple in my attic. I covered the roof with fabrics, brought pillows, and small tables, and built an altar. It is what I feel like my heart looks like inside, cosy, warm with food and family all around. We sat together, heard George's stories, ate Tonny’s experimental melanzana, talked about our travels and shared about prayer.
I had many moments of the night sitting in the circle where I just took a step back, looked around and felt in awe of what my life has become. The people in it, the spaces we create for each other, the care we have with each other. And I'm part of this. These are my people. I am in love with my present moment and all that it has.
I can only be grateful, enjoy this full heart and be in love <3 <3 <3
my birthday gathering <33333
A conversation about GoD, with Malou
The other day I sat with Malou for a meal and conversation. She is researching people's relationship with god. We talked for 1h22min and here are some notes I took with me.
Pietà of Sorrow - where I met my relationship with god. I see god as the essence/the core we all share, that manifests itself in different ways forms and shapes.
Creative relationship with god - creativity lives in an ethereal plane and when you are creative you are sensitive to it. This sensibility comes with a sense of responsibility to materialize and express these ideas, they come from god/source/universe. This idea - Pietà of Sorrow - lives outside of me, it is something beyond me and I’m simply a vessel for it to come into life. It is Life or God wanting to manifest itself and it gives you this responsibility because it knows you are the vessel that can bring it to fruition/ make it happen.
Life in itself is creation.
“Something cannot be made if it isn’t for god” - Malou
Storytelling is a universal way to make god understandable. I created the story of the pietà so it can be told, and its message will be passed on - speculative storytelling
The Pietà has her own needs, wants and boundaries and so do I. This became clear through prayer. I am collaborating with her. I got to know her and god personally, through experimentation, embodiment and listening to inner ways of knowing.
From very personal to collaborative work - Not only working with people but introducing them to her, opening space for them to relate to her. They are individually collaborating with her, allowing her to work with and through them.
She is my more personal experience of god.
The importance of living embodied - we were/are souls. All and nothing at the same time, love-hate, happiness-sorrow, above-below. This human experience brings us a sudden multitude of limitations. We have a body with needs, with boundaries, we have an ego, with needs, with boundaries, we have a heart, with needs, with boundaries. This experience allows us to feel, in the body, mind and heart, to feel love, to feel gratitude, to feel pain, to FEEL. To find the human experience in the body. That's why I value performance work because it becomes the ecstasy of human existence.
How can you sit in a circle of loving friends and not feel GoD?
How can you dance, barefoot on the ground, and not feel GoD?
How can you sit with the ocean and not feel GoD?
Why do we name it, GoD? Because when you name something you acknowledge it, and it is real, undeniable. You name it because you care and want to care for it. By naming it you open and allow yourself to create or explore another realm of language, connections and expression. We name something in order for it to be present in our conversations.
“If something should be acknowledged it is god” - Malou
My relationship with nature is my main connection to God. Acknowledge the sovereignty of nature. Ocean as medicine.
The want - the want to have a relationship with god/nature/ each other that reflects love and gratitude. I’m currently sitting with this want, trying to observe and comprehend it.
Pietà of Sorrow fully embodied
Teachings from picking from a medlar tree/ nespereira
Every year, around April and May, is medlar season. Trees all over my town get bright orange little fruits that taste of the beginning of summer. So every year, my dad, me and my brothers would take a plastic bag and drive around spotting the richest trees. We have never bought this fruit at the supermarket, we always picked them from the trees. The first time I bought one was in Rotterdam, and the flavour was not the same.
At this point, we already know where all the medlar trees are around us. We have a mind map of where and when to go.
Some were in private properties, others in abandoned houses and others in public spaces. Honestly, the private properties were never something that stopped us from picking them.
My dad would push us up the tree and guide us from the ground. My brother was always the best at picking from the highest thinnest branches, the ones that get more sun.
We would never pick all of them, cause we wanted to leave some for the next person and we knew if we did the trees would give us less fruit the next year.
We also always chose the ones that looked a bit rough, if a bird or bug had eaten from them that was a sign they were the tastiest. Don't be fooled by what the supermarkets tell you fruit should look like, in nature, they are supposed to have remnants of life. A dent, a bite, a wrinkle.
This makes me think of a book I’m reading and have read multiple times called Brading Sweetgrass, where the writer talks about indigenous wisdom, one of the teachings is to see life and our relationship to it as a gift exchange. In nature all transactions are gifts exchange, “A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free” “It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in the realm of humility and mystery”. In a gift exchange there is appreciation and gratefulness present. Even if unconscious, in our exchange with the medlar trees there was always appreciation, we knew that these little orange gifts were bound to this specific time and place. So we enjoyed them, we would share them with each other and every bite was savoured with hums of joy, happy faces, and a shared feeling of saudade. “Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation to give, receive and to reciprocate”
Someday I will plant my own medlar tree in gratitude, to reciprocate all this wisdom, I will leave it there for my grandchildren to enjoy, care for and learn from.
A nespereira da Ana Catarina Alberto - found in 'A Nespereira-Eriobotrya Japónica, Manganótio' blogpost in 'A minha pequena horta' blog - https://smallgardenn.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-nespereira-eriobotrya-japonica.html
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And for now, I think this is all I have to share. It's been a great few weeks of curating and caring for this letter, I'm finding it quite hard to send it out to the world.
Thank you for reaching out and joining me, thank you for caring about what I have to say.
Thank you for the time you took to get to know what's on my mind.
Curious to see the next ones.
Reach out whenever in whichever way you want :)) for those who don't have my number here it is +351916001122, if u write I'm more likely to answer emails than texts. my phone isn't working properly as usual...
Sending you much love ur way
beijinhos x
Vera da Costa / Vera of the Coast
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