#07 / new visions in conversation with Ayo Wallace
Ayo Wallace is an artist and activist based in London, UK. I saw her for the first time when she was speaking and performing at the University on Youth and Development organized by North-South Center of Council of Europe in Mollina in 2016. I was instantly entranced by the way she was using her art to talk about social justice, about our responsibilities towards each other, and our interconnectedness.
I feel honored to share with you our conversation, where among others we touch upon problems with power and sharing thereof in activism, how collective leadership is connected to collective responsibilities, why respect for history is so important if we are to heal from white supremacy, and what can be the role of creativity, playfulness, and youth in the change we yearn for.
AB: I still remember the first time I was listening to you and your story in Mollina in 2016. The way you were approaching all of us and the topic of social justice with such clarity, and gentleness. It was extremely inspiring for me. So I am very excited to ask you some questions about how you embrace your leadership and how you spread it. I will start with a very simple question: what comes to your mind when you hear the word leadership?
AW: Leadership... What comes to my mind is very loaded, especially in these times, because you can be leading on many different levels. I see a leader as someone who is stepping up to the challenge. And you can be challenged on a micro-level: in your family environment, you can be challenged socially, and then you can be challenged, even just within yourself. There's so much theory around the mastery of leadership, but the first thing that really comes to mind is a responsibility, stepping up to the plate, where others haven't. Whether the leadership is good, is the next thing. Or whether it suits the situation because the different types of leadership can work with different types of situations as well. But it is really stepping up to the plate. Consciously choosing to put yourself in a certain space. When you take on that responsibility, you understand that it comes with consequence, and it comes with challenge. And not every day is going to be a glory day, you know, there is power there. But really, for me, it's about enabling others to access their own power. For me, true leadership is not really about self victory, or self-mastery, but enabling self-mastery in others.
AB: I've had goosebumps listening to you and I love how you are focusing on connection. One of the aspects we explore deeper in our work is: what is collective leadership and how we can put it into practice. Because there is this idea of THE leader and there is all this individuality in that. And Western culture, that we are part of, just put so much of that into us. I'm wondering how you approach the aspect of collectivity and connection in leadership?
AW: Brilliant question. I grew up in an environment where leadership was most definitely collective, and responsibility was most definitely collective. In terms of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, which is the pan African family celebration that happens around Christmas, one of the principles is Ujamaa which is cooperative economics and one is Ujima which is a collective work and responsibility. That is a concept coming from an environment where we're socially and economically disadvantaged, so we have no choice but to work together and to work collectively to remove ourselves out of that situation and out of that burden. And so the premise of leadership is always that it's spread across, because Pan Africanism is very much about nation-building. And the concept of nation-building is as the ubuntu concept “I am, therefore you are'', that we are eating together, we are sleeping together, we are working together, and we're building together. And so, for example, in Nigerian culture, in Yoruba culture, when a child is born, we have a ceremony called IKOMOJADE (naming ceremony), that happens on the seventh or eighth day of the child, and it means 'outdooring'. And it's the time when the child is presented to all of the village, all of the community. There's a part of the ceremony where everybody can give the child a name. That's why a lot of Nigerians, especially Yoruba people, like myself, have a lot of names, I have thirteen. A lot of people have even longer names than me. And that's because everybody in their community has given them a name. Because the idea is that that child is not just belonging to the parents, that child is a part of the community. So it doesn't just mean ownership: that child is ours, it is about: “we have a responsibility to that child”, and that is the essence for me of that collective responsibility.
Collective leadership is how we connect to one another, how we engage in each other's lives and beyond, and in a very personal way. Beyond work, beyond kind of the social responsibility that's kind of outward-facing.
When I was growing up, my parents were not the only ones to discipline me. If I went to anybody in the community, not by blood, but I consider them all my aunties and uncles, they would discipline me, they would educate me, they would treat me, they would take me on a holiday. Yeah, because I'm not just my mom's job, my dad's job, I am everybody's job. (laughs) And then when I've grown up now and taken on the baton when I see other children in the community, I don't just think, “oh, that's not my business”, because they're not my child. I think: “that's our community, therefore, they're our children”. And so I have a responsibility now to educate them, to encourage them, to empower them. Half of the stuff I'm doing in my life would not be possible without that input of collective leadership across the board, from all the aunties and uncles that I had that got me into activism, that got me into community development, that got me into philanthropy. So, you know, it really resonates quite, quite strongly for me.
AB: Thinking about how different social movements operated and how they operate right now, where people don't know each other, and connect virtually I have a feeling that they are losing this power of intimacy that I believe is necessary to create actual, proper, powerful social movements. And now this intimacy and power connected with that intimacy are missing.
AW: And a lot of that is about bureaucracy, right? Because a lot of it is really caught up in the details. In terms of access to power in Europe, or in the Western world, we think in terms of institutions, and in these institutions or these places where we want to make a change, that are writing policies, governing how society operates - it's a lot of bureaucracy and a lot less of the personal and the informal. So those connections are almost impossible to make. It becomes really stale and harsh. And so if these are the people making decisions on how we're going to live our lives as a society, and they have no empathy in the space that they work in, there's no personal connection there, there are no deeper levels of understanding being generated or being promoted across that space, then how much can we expect for that space to kind of manifest something better for us.
AB: I'm thinking about how we can translate it into organizational structures and thinking about how we can collectivise leading. How do you collectivise your leadership in your practice as an organizer as an activist? What are your practices?
AW: I have gone inwards for the last couple of years because I've been burnt so bad by the front line. And in several ways, through observing both effective and ineffective leadership, I realized that for me, there's an issue with access to skills when it comes to movements and movement building. And it's something that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Growing up and participating in several organizations, I see, for example, only one person knows how to write a project, only one person knows how to even register organizations, as any type of entity. Only one person knows how to do a certain set of things. And skills also can translate as power, which effectively translates as a form of leadership. I was uncomfortable with that, because I really believe in this premise of collective leadership, and us all bringing our skills and our knowledge to the table and sharing them with each other. Because that's how we enable and empower each other, right? You know how to write a project, you know how to galvanize a group of hundred people, you know how to get the media, press attention... So teach that person how to do what you know how to do! There is this resistance in a lot of spaces where people are not willing to share. And then my question is: is that true leadership? So right now, how I'm practicing that is by building up the skills that I haven't had access to and sharing the skills that I do have. So I'm building up my skills by demanding it in my place of employment right now, in doing the nine to five thing because I've been in activism for 15 years, I found no equity, I found a lot of betrayal, unfortunately, and just a lot of difficult and uncomfortable things. That meant, I've gotten to the age of 30 and I still am struggling to survive. So now I've gone into a place of employment, I'm able to have a wage, which is great, I'm also able to demand certain things like access to skills, which is really crucial and important, not even just in terms of the skills themselves, but the confidence it gives you. People perceive me as a really confident person, but because I haven't had that university degree, because I haven't had that access to certain skills, it has really affected my confidence and being able to do certain things. And it's also really easy to resolve: it is a course, it's a couple of weeks. It's just about investment. And then the other thing and this is really about my responsibility, is that whilst I'm there complaining about all the hardships I've gone through, what am I doing to support the younger ones that are coming up? So I have really tried to share as many opportunities as possible. I'm really up for connecting people to each other. Especially when I see young people wherever they are, that are trying to either set up an organization or a social enterprise, I offer mentorship, informal mentorship, where they can call me at any time, where I'm happy to talk through their ideas. And help them to get things to the next level. Because what's also really important is how we now pass the baton forward.
AB: You already shared your story, where you are and where you come from and how certain values and approaches are very present on your path. What would you define as the core of your work, as the central values? What lies at the center of your practice that is aimed towards broader transformation?
AW: It's probably justice, liberation, and the opportunity for innovation, to create something new. I feel like no nation in the history of Earth has got it a hundred percent right. Everybody has their history, everybody has their craft. I am by nature, anti-capitalist, but I can't necessarily be pro anything else, because I haven't seen it work in effect. I like a lot of the ideology of certain systems or political systems, but they haven't worked great in practice.
And I feel like, what I want to do, or what I'm striving for, is to create space, where minds can create something new. We put creativity at the very bottom of everything in society when for me, it is absolutely the foundation and is this essential soil for everything that grows in society. And we have dismissed culture as play and recreation and entertainment. And that, to me, is the biggest disrespect.
It's even probably why I stopped performing to a certain extent, because, you know, it's not just about entertaining. Entertainment is fine, it's beautiful. We love to be entertained, there is nothing wrong with entertainment. But I thought, the world right now is really in need of reclaiming creativity, for its power and purpose in society, which is through creativity, we're able to create new things that we haven't seen before. And right now, we are regurgitating a lot of the mistakes of our past. And if there was enough space to pour into, especially the younger generation, that they could show us and teach us some things that will just be really beautiful, really exceptional. Anyone who works in space for young people knows that young people are incredible. They have so many ideas, some of them naive, some of them, absolutely phenomenal and brilliant, and some of them not very far fetched at all, that could really work in practice. But we know our institutions don't give young people this space, respect or equity to contribute to society. And I think that when we make that change, so much more will open up. Like now we see Finland has the youngest Prime Minister in place. That's so brilliant to see the empathetic leaders like Jacinda Arden in New Zealand. It's really encouraging to see these young females taking up political space, and doing it on their own terms. We need to see more images like that. But if we have no room for creativity, no room to think outside of the box, then it's less likely that we're going to be able to create more leaders to come up after them. You are going to dare to do something different to stand outside the box and to do it in a compassionate and empathetic way as well.
AB: Totally, and to dare to do that! And I think that this is part of the crisis of imagination, that makes us even scared of that. So that there is a fear of actually being creative. I'm wondering how also there is this aspect of daring to be creative.
AW: Yeah, of just letting go! Because we have such a defined concept of what society is. Even just in drama class at school. It was brilliant. Drama in school is awesome, because it made everyone act like a fool. It forced everyone, the most kind of rigid person to go “blaaabla blaa” for five minutes. Whether you like drama, you don't like drama, we don't care. Everyone right now act a fool, we're gonna be a chicken, we did a duck, we're gonna do whatever. And everybody's in a completely different space, and now they're more willing to engage with each other on a nonsense level. Because it levels the playing field, right? You know, everybody might have been scared, you know," oh I don't want to act foolish", “that person is acting foolish”, “that one sees me acting foolish”... And after that, it's like seeing everybody naked. We're just all naked. And we need those things that kind of that bring us into this kind of collective, that helps us to see each other on the same ground. I'm a human being and you are a human being. We are both flawed and both exceptional, we both at the mercy of the elements, and we also both have the ability to manifest from the elements as well. So, once we can level that, and understand that and recognize that, then we can do more together.
Ayo at Kometa Festival (Riga, 2017)
AB: When we talk about this, and this question comes from observing growing polarization between different communities, I often times also see our work as building bridges in a certain way. What are the bridges that you see necessary for us to have currently? What are the ones that you would want to contribute to?
AW: I know, immediately, as you said that, the first thing that I know wholeheartedly that I'd want to contribute to, and I also think is very necessary, is respect for history. History is so profound, but it's already happened, and oftentimes we learn about it through very few lenses. I read this article the other day in The Guardian, by Benjamin Zephaniah, the British poet, and he said something so exceptional, which is that Black History Month was not about saying: “hey, recognize we were slaves”, it was about saying “outside of slavery we also have all this other history that you guys have no interest in, you don't care about”. It's not just about saying: “Oh, no, we were hard done by, so you must think about how hard done by we were by this month”. It was about “Okay guys, but we're also human beings, we've also contributed to science, we've also contributed to astronomy and astrology, and physics and everything. Language literature, we've also traded with you guys. We've also built amazing architecture. And we've had phenomenal battles, we've defeated armies, we have also engineered things and achieved things, and we want to celebrate and promote that as well”.
And I think across the board in the world, as we become more globalized, more connected than ever, with more ability to travel than ever, with more mixed societies and access to education, information than ever, as we continue to move and interact with each other, how is that interaction going to be positive if we don't have respect for each other's history?! Like, if I now decide to go to China, without having any knowledge of their history or their culture what am I going to be able to contribute to the Chinese? And then also, if I go to China and they have no knowledge of my history, or they have knowledge, which only paints me in a depraved uncivilized manner, how are they going to respect me or know what value I can bring to them?
So I feel that we must redress the balance of history. we must encourage our young people to recontextualize what we've already learned, especially in Europe. There's this overwhelming cognitive dissonance around history.
It was so beautiful in Latvia, when we had that session at Kometa Festival. When I was on my way, I read the history and realized, wow, these people were enslaved at the same time that Africans were being enslaved. So we actually share 800 years of occupation. Yeah, we both know how that feels. But there's this perception that because you're white you haven't been enslaved, you haven't been in the same position as me to know what that is. But you don't even have the knowledge of your own history.
And then, in other ways, the beauty in our connections is things like I mean, Yoruba, in Nigeria, that's a specific tribe, for a specific country, in a specific community, where there are over 200 tribes and languages and all the rest of it, but I can still see the similarity in my ancient culture, to Dutch ancient culture, I can see similarities in our language, to Japanese language, crazy, right? But you start to see all these connections. You just see that we're just one human race, with different complections, living in different climates, doing the same thing, bleeding the same blood, trying to do the same stuff and that is really the essence of it. We're all on the same level. We're all recognizing and respecting the humaneness in each other, which we have still not mastered yet. We stumbled across the tribe now that has been untouched, it's like the deception is going to be: they are really primitive because they have not participated in industrialization. We just got to recognize wherever we're coming from, whether we've had the education or not, whether we believe in the same kind of social structures or not, or the same gods or not doesn't matter because we still are on the same level.
AB: Totally. I remember how I deeply appreciated it when you came to Latvia with all the sensitivity towards the context and environment. It was just so beautiful and so cool, this openness to listen while knowing that you're invited as a guest that it's going to be listened to.
AW: It really blew my mind as well! I was so grateful to have that experience because it awakened so much more in me. And it helped me to elevate myself from the place which was really very much rooted in blackness, which is really politics. It's not for me an all-encompassing identity, it's really only on a political level. Because I am somebody apart from the color of my skin. And it helped me to be more curious about other histories, European histories, in particular. And also this sense of European identity as well. Even though the UK has left the EU, we can't leave Europe (Laughs).
AB: On my journey, I'm currently searching for ways how to bridge the political and the spiritual, and listening to your right now I am thinking about these political identities and the ways our identities are being politicized. What about aspects of our spiritual being? I'm wondering, what's the role of spirituality in your practice and in your work?
AW: That is a very deep question. Spirituality is my foundation, without it I am nothing. And it goes beyond the tangible. I've been lucky because I grew up in an environment where I was exposed to many religions. What connected all of them was spirituality, which is something just inside yourself, and it's your own relationship with yourself, with the universe, with God, or whoever you believe in. I think spirituality has helped me to take life with a pinch of salt, and not to be too attached to the ideas, and to the ego, and to the person. I've told people recently that right now I'm unbecoming. I'm unbecoming the person. And actually, I love attachment! My friend from an ashram in Portugal is always coaching me on unbecoming, removing personhood and I go: “but I love attachment”! I want, I seek out attachment, you know, so this unbecoming it's not easy, but life was forcing me to shed it anyway. (laughs) So spirituality is essential because it helps to move me on. And we can get so caught up thinking "I am this person. This is the world I live in. It's full of evil and horrible things. I want to do everything that I can do to make all those horrible things go away, or not contribute to those horrible things". But it's just a story as well. And we are also taking a step back.
There are different levels at which things happen on the physical, the mental, the spiritual. And whilst life is playing out, the environment is in such a dire position, politics is crazy, but then when we tune into our spirituality, we can see that, okay, humanity is not powerful enough to destroy the world. The world will regenerate itself. So let's humble ourselves. We're doing it for ourselves, our own life. It's not great. That's our choice. But if we all cease to exist now, it's okay. Arachnids will evolve and perhaps, be a more dominant species. You know, there are so many other life forms, and other things going on here in this universe that are not worried about what we're doing as human beings. We have to remember that. And also when we look into astrology, and into the universe, and we see all these planets shifting, we see these patterns, which so many people dismiss, but we have been studying now for thousands and thousands of years... I mean, it just takes you into another space where you can gain perspective, and perspective is everything. So for me, yes, spirituality plays many, many, many roles in humbling me, in helping me to gain perspective, and not feel too overwhelmed by the task of leadership. To just be mindful. And also to see the magic. It's beautiful to see serendipity, to see just things happening. And the relationship between not just human beings, but just between things. Just seeing signs where other people don't see that. For example, my brother runs a bookstore selling black literature. The day he first thought he wasn't sure whether this was something that he should do, he saw a bird fly down and land on his stall. And he told me “I knew that this was a sign that this is something that I am meant to do”. Okay, who knows if it was a sign, but he's been doing that now for 15 years, and he is really well respected in the community. He's educated so many people just based off these books, and he's able to provide for his family and be independent because of that. So there's so much that came out. But he allowed that magic in a little bit, to see that sign that that helped him on his journey. So when we can see those things, it makes our life a little bit brighter. It makes the journey a little less arduous, a little less heavy on our soul, in our spirit, and we can always renew again.
AB: And then it also requires this sensitivity and wisdom and trust, to read these messages and be like, I know, I just know what it means. And don't, don't ask me to prove what it means. Because I just know, and I feel it.
AW: Yes, spirituality is something that you can't always question, you can't always bring logic to it. You can't always bring rationale. It operates in a completely different set of rules. And a completely different understanding. When you're in a spiritual community you can see the beauty in that because the spiritual community is comprised of all the Abrahamic faiths, or the non Abrahamic faiths, or the Sanskrit this, everybody is all there with this knowing, with this trust, with this little bit of understanding, you know, with this little wink, this little note that knows that there's something beyond us higher than us, and it also connects us all.
AB: We were talking a lot about the history, about how we can contribute to the shift and transformation and there are different aspects and layers of that. I am curious to hear what concerns you the most currently, in the world that we live in?
AW: The liberation of African people. That's always been my number one concern. I feel some days I wake up, and I just feel so much pain, like ancestral pain, generations of pain. How could we be treated like this? Because it's not even the oppression, it is just the lack of recognition for our humanity, that I really struggle with. I really struggle with it, because we're so far behind so many communities. We don't have this respect for ourselves. We don't have this love or understanding or empathy for each other and it's because of our recent history. And we're so stuck. When I look at the problems on the African continent it's so overwhelming, and it's so entrenched. And we've never been free. We've never been liberated. You know, we've never been truly free. For example, we found out that we've been paying reparations to slave owners, for the abolition of slavery in the UK up until 2015! UK taxpayers money was going to families of former slave owners up until 2015. Because the abolition movement was a lie. Abolition was a few Europeans saying: “Let's end this now”. Some because they believed it's inhumane, a lot of them because of trading issues and financial gain and things. So the deal was, if they stopped slavery, they will be recompensed for their loss of work or their loss of trade. All these families that said “okay, we won't own slaves anymore”, it wasn't out of morality, because they were being paid back.
Haiti was the first country to gain its independence from slavery, and every former colony across the world have to thank them for winning their independence and the impact of it. The first thing the head of the army Toussaint Louverture did when they defeated the French, was to go to France to say, “Hey, I'm a black man, we've defeated you now, respect me on the international stage”. And they locked him up and murdered him. And since that day, Haiti has been paying debt to France. When the French made at least equivalent of like $2 billion dollars, from the sugar trade in Haiti, during chattel enslavement. So you've got to understand: it's not just that we were oppressed, stolen from our country, shipped across different parts of the world. We then fought throughout that entire period of time, which is not widely talked about or documented, we resisted at every stage along the way, we then won our own independence and freedom, only to be indebted. When in America slavery has ended slave owner said: “we're not going to give you any work. We're not going to allow you to eat or drink with us. We're not going to allow you to have access to any rights. Good luck to you”. And that's the position that we've been in the past like two, three hundred years. The pain is still there for me. I think it's because I'm living in Europe, around people that are not going to be empathetic to my history, and I have to go into life as this black woman every day. And I'm not just a black woman. I'm beyond Blackness actually, very, very far beyond it in my own personal human experience. I really don't want to have to pivot every day from this position of an identity that was forced on me. So that's my main concern.
My main concern: I care about humanity, I care about the world and the globe. I care about what's happening to all oppressed people everywhere, but for me, especially because of how pretty much most societies have treated people of African decent globally, I have to put them as my priority first, because I know as much as I care about those other communities, and as beautiful as it was to see, for example, the Palestinians protesting Black Lives Matter, and the people in South Korea protesting Black Lives Matter. That's really the first time I've ever seen that kind of solidarity, which is beautiful, but it still doesn't encompass the depths, because it was really a solidarity with black Americans. It wasn't a recognition of the fullness of that history, that even black Americans don't even recognize themselves.
I know that's a loaded answer, but for me, definitely liberation of African people is what I live and breathe for. And it's actually not what I want to do personally, in my life. It's not my dream, when I wake up I just want to work in the liberation of African people. No, there are so many other things that I care about and love. But I still feel an ancestral burden. And I feel my ancestors really strongly telling me that this is what I must do with my life in some way.
AB: Can you tell me a little bit about your work with Black Cultural Archives? I'm listening to you, many parts of history I also didn't have access to. And I am thinking how we are brought up not to know, so to say that whiteness is lying to us and then we swallow this lies and believe in this as a truth. I would be curious to hear a bit about this aspect of decolonizing history.
AW: I have done work with them and I've been in some ways part of the journey. Len Garrison in the black community felt it was very necessary and important to be storing our history and collecting our history, especially from the Black British perspective. Because Americans don't really know anything about history in the UK, or even anywhere else in Europe. There was a movement in the 80s and 90s in the UK, which saw blackness not just referring to people of African descent, but Asian people too. This movement of solidarity. My mother was part of the first black women's movements that sprang up in the UK, and was heavily involved in those. So a lot of my mom's work was held at the Black Cultural Archive. And she knew a lot of the people that were organizing and documenting that history. For me, my passion around history has always just been there anyway. I was able to perform at the opening of the Black Cultural Archives. What I had wanted to do was to set up a series of creative types of installations that will get elders in the African Caribbean community to share their stories. Because they're notoriously difficult to get their stories from. It's really hard to catch them unaware and get a natural reaction if you try to film them. They're going to be really aware that the camera is there and not really, fully, giving you what you want. So how are we getting these elders to share all these stories because it's so tough. And then they'll share at a random time when you don't have a camera. We thought it would be cool to create installations that just provoked memory where we might have some recording device that will, we saw them interact with it, and then we went up to them and interviewed them afterward.
AB: This is something that I connect with your practice: multigenerational approach and sensitivity to how the history is floating between us.
AW: Yeah, it is definitely so much about the generations, because we have to learn. I grew up with a real sense that I'm here to do improvement on what my parents already did, and they have done an improvement on what their parents did, so the journey continues. My nephew, now he's doing a brilliant job, better than me and my brother did (laughs). So it's important for us to go back and learn always! And to create the environments that allow this learning to take place. I'm very passionate about heritage, but I think for me to take it to the next level, I would like to go and study. I always wanted to study social anthropology and history and combine that with my community development work. I am more on the side of community development right now. We had a convening of black activists and organizers at the Black Cultural Archives, I think last year or the year before, and we pulled together some funding to bring together all these activists, so we could build a network. Because in the UK, the problem we have is that things can become quite London centric. So we were able to actually bring people from different parts of the UK together for this, and that was really brilliant. And now, funny enough, we're in a situation where they haven't done any work for a few years, because they're trying to get funding, to now take it to the next level. We have all these ideas, but we don't have the funding or the resources or these community halls or spaces to take those things to the next level. So right now we're in a period of trying to build the infrastructure to make it happen.
AB: Yeah, there are many challenges and I also know that this work can be draining and exhausting and lonely. I would like to hear where do you find hope in your universe?
AW: Being grounded in the gratitude of the present is a way for me, as much as I love history. There's a principle in Ghanian culture, which is called Sankofa. One of the symbols is the bird flying forward with its head turned back. It means you have to reach back and get it, you have to know your past in order to move forward. So for me being in the present, I really recognize that this has happened, this is a possibility for change. And if I'm really conscious of that, I generate hope for myself. The other place that I really generate hope from is most certainly the younger generation. I really believe in young people, I really believe in that phase of life, and how much value it has for that entire human race. I really strongly believe that with those young ideas, young people daring to be different, daring to stand up, daring to speak their truth, we're gonna live in a different world. We might not see it in our lifetime, but it will happen. I really have faith in them, all of them, because across the world, young people are connecting, they're really not caring about the things that older generations cared about. They want to live in a different world. And that really gives me hope.
AB: The last question is: what's the grounding practice that helps you stay in balance? what do you do to stay grounded and balanced?
AW: I have a practice of lighting my candles and burning my incense. I have some healing crystals as well. And sometimes I'll have a full salt bath, and I'll put some lavender in there, some bubbles, maybe even some chamomile or rose petals. And I place my crystals around my bath, not too close, you don't want to get the selenite wet (laughs) And just cleansing. I think cleansing my energy is the most important thing in terms of helping me to ground myself. And walking in nature. It's been difficult in the lockdown, but yesterday I just walked for a couple of hours and I was hugging the trees and just seeing the parakeets flying and the dogs running all over the place. And it was just so beautiful.
This video was recorded by FTPOI team at the Festival Kometa (Riga, 2017).