The power of adornment

Day to day conversations in my closest relationships are peppered with the same themes: managing grief, burn out, overwhelm and anxiety; fighting to keep hope in a surrounding sense of hopelessness; reflecting on gratitude, summoning courage in spite of fear. Searching for magic, the reprieve of laughter, medicine of nature and goodness in humans. How to walk the line between continuing to show up, and taking the rest we need to continue.

Seeking balance, I return to the ritual of adornment and self-decoration. Over the last decade, cultivating my self-expression this way has been a form of liberating my life from the trauma of male perpetrated violence; restoring life - joy, colour, desire - to a lifeless state, so to speak. I’ve turned to adornment as a regular practice of embodying creativity. Lately, it’s also become a massive ‘fuck you’ to apathy and to severing myself from feeling. It’s my way of preserving a sense of wonder and finding the strength to be present, to feel the discomfort, to stay vulnerable and curious, and to keep showing up however I can for myself and others who depend on me. On this particular day of fatigue and anxiety, adornment was wearing a crown made of my hair, a duster coat of dreams, and walking lightly in a breeze on Gadigal land.

16 days into 2021, some notes to self scribbled at my desk:

You can feel heavy with ambiguous loss, and wear flowers in your hair.

You can be struggling with trauma and anxiety, and find joy in the art of self-decoration.

You can feel shut down, and simultaneously crave connection.

You can be unsure of every step, feel shaky and helpless, yet be sure-footed and feel infinitely possible.

Mess, and magic.

Grief, and joy.

Fear, and courage.

You can feel it all, all at once. This is the power in you.

Rest.

Rest.

Rest.

Don’t give up.

#PostcardsFromHolly #JoyIsAnActOfResistance #ThisCreativeLife