(inside there is a death forest)

this video is a welcoming of the coming of winter. a ritual offering to Morana, the slavic goddess of death and rebirth, of winter, and of dreams. a heartfelt calling to the Beloved who dwells within. winter always reminds me of my aloneness. the sacred temple of my own heart. how when i am looking to be saved, there is no one really to save me but my own self. this video is a celebration of an inward turn towards self, finding friendship there. an exploration of how my gender is ecologically defined and seasonal. this is a non-binary body project. the small beginnings of what it means to find safety in myself and metabolize shame. this body, who has been a home of sexual violation. this body, who has received without wanting to, this body, who has been tricked into giving, this body, who has survived and carried breath across generations. this body, who knows pain, and this body, who is also beginning again to re-know pleasure. this short film is a compilation of images collected in relationship with occupied arapahoe, ute, and cheyenne territories. it was filmed mostly in the snows of last year. the lyrics to the song (sung by me in the winter womb of my own bathtub) are as follows: be my steady flame touch my body, heal the shame be my steady flame touch my body, heal the shame send it out on a winter wind and hope that someday it will return within send it out on a winter wind and pray that one day it will bloom within and so be it. ___________________________________________________________________________ “we are witnessing the sacred demise of an entire mythology that has positioned our bodies in particular ways that is no longer sacred. and so we are coming to a sacred intimacy with the world that is calling us to a larger sense of homeliness and being at home with ourselves” - Bayo Akomolafe ___________________________________________________________________________