Life, I am ready to love you fiercely

Resurfacing & connecting with you as my true alien self

Dear friends,

My dear, dear community! I’ve missed you.

Since I spoke with you last, I feel like I have grown 100 years. As if in the snap of a finger, saplings have shot into the sky, and here we are, sitting on the forest floor, surrounded by thundering trees. 🌲 Through the leaves, we have found each other, and I am so very happy to be speaking with you again.

Like many of you, I have shed thousands of layers through tears, deep connection, and collective singing around the world’s mighty hearth. In one word: Palestine.

The Internet is a big quilt, and I am a needle traveling through it.

The online realm has been surprising me with its power to connect us. I have been forming friendships with healers and true givers of care, many of whom I once used to dream about connecting with! My Solidarity Meows care package (see below) travelled and resonated with thousands of people, including folks in Indonesia, a community I didn’t know I could reach.

And more recently, the comic I created of Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary mourning her martyred friend and journalist colleague Hamza Dahdouh on live television, reached Hind herself, all the way in Gaza. She left me a very meaningful ❤️ emoji on the post.

An artwork I created in an attempt to process grief not only touched the person who inspired me, but also hundreds and thousands of people who felt the same heartbreak.

This is why my expression of beauty through art will always go hand in hand with liberation. In fact, this is what I yearned for my entire life. This is what the Palestinian people have taught and reminded me.

As our representatives who have lost their way allow genocides around the world to continue, and as my voice and purpose have gotten stronger, I do not lose hope and I do not fear because I love and I know.

I will be creating art and offerings with this in mind.

Unfolding into 2024 with Map of Selves, a new work published in The Seventh Wave Anthology

I started the year with a soft celebration, with the publishing of a new narrative art piece in an anthology by The Seventh Wave, a BIPOC- and queer-led arts and literary nonprofit. This piece follows the parallel journeys of two queer people’s lives and reunites them by physically combining their stories into a double-sided accordion map.

I foraged this story from an experience I had years ago, when a seer revealed to me that in a past life, I was a paint mixer living peacefully with his husband until they were forced apart by the ocean. I chose to recount this tale as Heliodoro on one side of the book, and on the other, I tell my tale of healing my scars and learning to surrender to love in my present life.

You can probably tell, creating this work was very healing for me.

Palestine Resources

The wonderful folks at Just Seeds and Artists Against Apartheid have kindly hosted my “We Care for Each Other” poster on their sites and it is available for free download. Feel free to print it out for local actions and share it with your friends. It has been a beautiful experience to see the poster out on the streets and in libraries!

For my kidlit community, here are two letters that you can sign to voice your solidarity with Palestine and demand more from our representatives.

• Sign this KidLit4Ceasefire letter to be sent to President Biden on behalf of the kidlit publishing community.

• Sign this letter to Bologna Children’s Book Fair urging them to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

And for my fellow queer artist pals:

• Sign this Queer Artists for Palestine letter calling for a permanent ceasefire.

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Soul spark ✨

What’s been inspiring me lately

This week, I learned about singer Marian Anderson, who some called “the voice of the 20th century.” I fell in love with her voice in this song.

Here’s a little bit more about Marian:

“In 1935, after a successful performance in Vienna, Austria, Anderson was asked to perform a charity concert at the Salzburg Cathedral as part of the Salzburg Festival. This annual festival drew some of the most talented artists of the time. However, there was growing Nazi sentiment in Austria at this time and festival authorities banned Anderson’s performance.

But rather than letting this keep her away, Anderson worked with organizers to hold her very own concert in Salzburg, separate from the official festival. Held at the Mozarteum, her unofficial concert stunned the audience, which grew continuously larger as word of her performance spread through town. A few days later, Anderson performed once more in the Alps. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini told her she had “a voice one hears once in a hundred years.” (Source: GermanyinUSA)

Like Marian, let us express our selves in a way that is true to our spirit and can swing open the doors of many hearts! And if something gets in the way, do not be discouraged. If it is good for the world, there will be another way. I believe in you.

Hugs,

Haruka