I am stars wrapped in flesh. I am the sacred vessel that carries the trauma of my ancestors. I am Ala, carrying the souls of dead Spirits within my womb.
The night before my bleed, my body becomes a storm, wrecking everyone and everything in it’s path. I am the storm above the sea, raging from within, lashing out across the waves at all who come too close.
The salt of my tears erodes the softest parts of my flesh. My unheard screams echo through time and space as I direct my anger towards my mother. The white burn of rage gathers at the base of my throat and I have to claw my way out to survive.
The thickness of our ancestral trauma becomes more intense as we collectively realize our bloodline ends with me. With the passing of time, each bleed becomes more violent, as I shed the trauma of my mothers and mend the sins of my fathers.
The pain I feel in my womb is the burden of those who came before. Their ache to be reborn without this trauma that has plagued every baby and mama in my line becomes more urgent with each shed. Break the cycle, heal the trauma so that we can be returned to the Earth and Sky.
I am the end of this cycle; the burnt end of the cosmic cord being cut from The Mother’s womb. We must shed to heal. We are the head of the serpent. We must shed or die.
And when it is done there is a calm that washes over me. My womb is my own again for a short while. My eyes come into focus upon the face of my mother. I feel the palm of my grandmother upon my cheek and through them I hear the hum of the women that birthed us all. Behind them, the true Mother awaits, calling her daughters to harness this pain, to heal generations, to do the work that could not be done before. She cups my face in her hands and says “Together we will heal the world.”
I realize this rage, this fire in my throat, is my true form and unclaimed power. I am a star bursting into white flames, begging to be reborn. This body was not built to contain me, for I am a Star.
The back of my throat burns with blood and echoed silence as I realize my pain is in fact my power. I will myself to rise, a deep intensity in my eyes. I claim this power and once a month beneath the moon I harvest it and thrust it back unto the Earth from which it came.
For a moment, I am newly born. Warm from the flames that lick my flesh. I am the Daughter of Stars.
ABOUT ISHVA AUSET
Art allows me to simultaneously lose and find myself. I am a collector of words and images that hold memories of who I authentically am. The creative process has always been the way in which I express my truest energetic form.
In many ways, my art is actually the meditative process of creating and the finished product a vessel that houses my most sacred thoughts. I’ve always had a deep fascination with making something out of nothingness. Art provides the means for me to spin the thoughts that live inside my head into something tangible.
I enjoy exploring emotional experiences, the female body, and intimate relationships through both language and image. I immerse my body, mind, and soul into each piece through the duality of my own nature. I am both student and teacher, painter and subject, sculptor and clay, poet and reader, vessel and stars.
