Rules of Engagement

(or, about the space)

I'll be honest: I have no idea how the hell to start this blog. I'm not a fan of trigger warnings. I've always felt the meaning and method of art is to affront — that the creation of true art is antithetical to comfort.

True art consciously carves out a space — within physical space, but also within the soul and psyche that serves as a pattern disruptor, antagonistic to previous ways of thinking, being, or living.

But to do that, I realized — as someone obsessed with systemization and lists, perceived limits and structure — I must first create a space for the sacred. A place for transfiguration and transmutation — for solidity and silence, challenge and change — to allow art to manifest. Put another way, I need to delineate the rule set for our time together. What I’m making space for, and what you can come to expect from me –– as your simultaneous co-creator and guide.

That’s what I’m attempting to do, insofar as I can divine what this space may become. I want whoever is present here to understand the rationale behind the creation of this space — what it is in service to, and what it will not stand for. Beyond that, I’ll allow an intelligent population to make its own judgments.

What I should tell you now is that if you're looking for debaucherous tales of death and desire, prepare to be disappointed. You've come to the wrong place. I've never been one to say that sex cannot be sacred — exactly the opposite.

There are myriad places online where you can find that sort of thing — and many do. But that’s not what this place is for: self-aggrandizing, salacious, or sensationalized stories.

This space — one I’ve spent years creating, curating, and cultivating, quietly and determinedly — is a space for pieces of exuberant expression. Not to say it’s going to be pious, but it is, in fact, going to be pure.

What do I mean by pure? I mean unreservedly myself. I mean parts of me that matter to me — and I hope, matter to you. I mean parts of soul in service to myself — and other people.

I sincerely believe our awakening, our anti-fragility, is based on a kind of determined directionality –– a conscious confrontation with our ever evolving soul matter. An innate drive in us –– a force of furious focus –– manifest in the form of voracious curiosity, an unyielding, unending, irrefutable and inalienable relationship with our own will — that connects us on this plane. A striving that –– at its best –– makes those of us possessed by this spirit of passion all the more loving, all the more compassionate, and all the more willing to take up arms in the pursuit of valiant defense of one another.

I hope this space is as enlightened as it is irreverent.

At this juncture, I’m no longer wishing to please anyone. No longer afraid of what anyone will say or do in response to what I share. Frankly and respectfully reader or listener — not even you.

The truth is, I’ve found this human incarnation equal parts incandescent and excruciating. The cost of my attunement was a deep desire to honor the concerns and considerations of the people around me — to the detriment of my own voice.

That ends now.

This blog will serve as a patch of lightness. A place of joy and humor, of balance and breath — as I take on heavier work and a number of other projects behind the scenes. I hope this space: of creation, of femininity, of play — brings you, in small part, something your soul calls for, and calls forth — something of healing. Something you need.

Let's get to the rules — and remember, you’ve been warned. If you're going to be here, you've got to play nicely.

Rule 1: This is a place for telling thE truth

Of course, I understand that on some level, any sort of “fundamental” definition attempting to delineate the nature of truth can be debated, objected to, and successfully argued in directions ad infinitum. I feel truth is subjective, at least to a degree — the idea of an agreeable, universal, “objective” truth is just a comforting lie we tell ourselves.

While I can wax poetic on the nature of reality –– and its inherent flexibility and changeability as a perspective-based parallax –– what matters in the context of our relationship is that I need you to know, in no uncertain terms, that what you will be receiving will be mine.

My soul, my spirit — unadulterated. Unaffected by the pursuit of perfection. Sharing as a sacred act.

Sacred, of course, does not mean untouchable. These most precious perennial questions — of sex, death, rebirth, religion, psychedelics, suffering, the nature of love and its myriad manifestations — are up for debate and discussion. There are few things that bring me to life like the art of intelligent, curious conversation. Detente only made possible through the delicate work of empathetically directed discourse. But that, specifically, is to be explored via other arenas and avenues of my work.

This space is where I begin to birth my truth. If you'd like to dialogue, discuss, or debate, I'd welcome an interview request or direct message from you. But this space, the one I’m formally inviting you into, is my home. Behave accordingly.

I have no attachment to any agreement from you, or shared sense of belief. I’m not here to convert you to my ways of thinking, being, living, or loving. I don’t believe I have that power. Even if I did, it’s not the way I intend to wield my spirit. My truest hope is that my work stewards your own individual awakening. Your own unique manifestation of insight.

Rule 2: This is a place of challenge

Unlike the vast majority of the internet, keen to sell you on a polished, predetermined image of perceived success, I am not here on the premise of that false promise.

My own awakening — to myself, to the world, to my spirit — was spontaneous. Though the ground from which it emerged was cultivated and cherished for many years, it is not something that can be given — though it can be shared.

Though you can explore the warm, beating chambers of my heart through my words, through my work, through the sensitivity and spirit of language — there’s nothing I can sell you to make it better. This is the one thing the vast majority of those who inhabit and traverse spiritual spaces won’t tell you.

What many will never say, will never admit, is that there is not one way out.

There are thousands of doorways to waking up — to our enoughness, to our completeness, to our wholeness. Which is drastically different than pursuing a constructed, constant idealization of contentment. None of those doorways, by the way, opened as a result of things I’d purchased. Parts of self emerged via practices I’d learned — both spiritual and somatic. From the wisdom and wonder of books –– and I’ll be happy to direct you to those. From elegant entanglements with the ecstatic.

The truth is — all I can do is tell you my own story. Perhaps creating a container, a spaciousness of soul, a place of peace and presence –– allowing some semblance of clarity to emerge. Because your way is never going to look like mine.

The human spirit is too varied, too rich –– for that.

The things that woke me up, challenged me, brought me peace, may be completely different than the things that do the same for you. That is why the path is untraceable, individuated, ever-vanishing. That’s why I’m never going to sell you — sell us. There is nothing to sell you, teach you. And sure — I might write books. You can pick those up if you’d like. But you should know — I didn’t write them so you would buy them.

I wrote them because they were inside of me — and they needed to be written.

As an artist, I’m often tortured by the work I haven’t yet made.

It’s constantly calling out to be made manifest, and all I’m trying to do is keep up — to live out the desired incarnation of my spirit in the moment.

Even if that means preconceived plans, notions, and structures regularly go to hell. Even if that means I’m glued to a screen, my mind merciless, until I birth what I am meant to birth –– what the moment demands of me.

If you feel called to be here, be here.

Rule 3: I cannot save you

My path is mine, as your path is yours. I've studied religion, psychology, sex and gender, classical literature, the art of the Pre-Raphaelites. Anything. Everything. It never ends.

For as long as I can remember, I've been hungry to know –– to understand –– and as much as this diverse framework has held and supported me in the context of my conquest for consummation –– understanding is utterly different than consumption. In this generation, information, knowledge, and wisdom are often equated. But information is simply data, divest of meaning. Knowledge is an understanding of the connections between diverse, divergent spaces. And wisdom –– the most prized of the three –– often goes unnoticed, perhaps because of its perceived lack of modern utility.

But wisdom is where I live.

That unspeakable beauty is what drives me –– is what keeps my breath full and my smile wide.

That wisdom, that direct and continual dialogue with the divine, lights me inside. But it came at great personal cost. And if you, like me, have suffered profoundly –– as much as chosen systems and structures have supported you: those of functional knowledge, of beauty, of art, of communication, of human nature –– there comes a point where we can only consume so much, and are moved to act. This is where things get messy, but this is also where the best art is made.

Art is made in activity –– in living, vulnerably, bravely. In my case, with a blunt tongue and a clenched jaw –– with a forever tight fist and bloody teeth. At least, up until very recently.

Art is made in humanity.

I cannot save you from this pain –– this pain I don't wish to deny you –– because in doing so, I’d be denying you your human excitements, your human experience.

My hope is, in the face of that exquisite, insufferable pain, you move to a place where you can also find the teachings in joy –– a practice that is, arguably, more difficult to master. Where you can find value in all the variations and shades of your human shadow. That is what I wish for you.

Rule 4: I have no interest in performing

The icons that I most admire — Adyashanti, David Bowie, James Baldwin — have no interest in being anyone other than exactly who they are.

No more, no less.

Implicit in the idea of performing is the creation of a veneer other than self — a created space of separation, of safety, between self and other. A stopgap of inauthenticity that can be felt, can be tasted — like pressure in the air.

I have never been, and will never be, interested in living my life that way. There may be a thousand preconceived notions of me — more. Though, I don't really even deign to think about them. I don't consider it my concern — what other people think of me.

I am, however, very keenly focused on what I believe to be my responsibility: to see myself — and then to act in accordance with the desires of that spirit. To be myself — unreservedly, unabashedly — with joy, and pleasure, and play — in celebration, but also in grief.

That's who I'm determined to be while I'm here.

There’s a part of me that balks at this. At its simplicity. At its boldness.

This space is for the child no one would speak to. The one who was almost always alone. Who watched the world go by –– making herself a home within her own mind. The one with an eye always toward the future –– holding the sacred close. Knowing that someday she would tell these stories, if she lived.

Now, I open the door. I hug her. I let her sit in front of the sunshine-stained window. Let her finish the last piece of cake. Let her laugh as loudly as she wants — no longer afraid of who will come into her bedroom.

I don’t hide her tears, or the sharpness that kept her alive. Most of all, I let her live.

I let her write — here.

I'm not in the practice of promising false perfection. There's something perverse about it, isn’t there? Something sickly sour about what so many of us are selling each other now. An artificiality. A proxy of true beauty — with noses too straight, smiles too perfect –– so much so that they repel.

I don't find anything interesting in that — or challenging — in that. I don't find anything that intrigues me. And so, that is not what I'm going to offer you.

What you'll see, I hope, in my work, is a diversity in depth of human experience. Places I have fallen and been hurt. Ways in which I've moved through the world — sometimes, with grace. Other times, when I was consumed with wrath and vengeance and an acidic, corrosive kind of hatred — an inner cauterization of mouth, heart, and tongue.

I promise not to hide from you. I don't think that's brave. And, more importantly, I don't think it's instructive or useful. Because I am not performing, you may feel a sense of the uncanny — something disconcerting or not quite right. I ask you not to be afraid. To be open to receive this kind of vulnerability, as I am no longer afraid to give it.

Rule 5: I am subject to change

Fluidity of thought is something I've always valued. Blind loyalty –- to a perspective, to a person, to any former version of ourselves –- digging our heels in just for the sake of continuity –– is not consistency. It’s intractability. It’s idolatry.

I am someone who, naturally, is incredibly polarizing –- and who, for this reason, once lived a fundamentally bifurcated life. I now refuse the limitations of such a life –– of shallow, prescribed perspective. I embrace the grey I once eschewed. I reject the intellectual laziness of cynicism –– the contrived, temporary comfort found in black-and-white thinking. My views are quite strong –– informed by a youth cutting my teeth on the edges of my own humanity, seeking out extremes of experience in order to suss out the larger order of things: who I was, where I fit, what I stood for. My feeling was that I would only find my center by exploring the extremes. I've always been obsessed with the idea of limits. Why they exist, who made them, and how they can be elegantly broken. Not for the sake of breaking, but for the sake of something better. My soul is my own to steward, and though I am deeply driven and loyal, I am wedded to nothing –– least of all what is expected of me.

For these reasons, there is very little I am neutral about.

I find tradition, on the whole, tired –– and often lacking in structural value –- an invisible, omnipresent force that does nothing but enslave, repress, or inculcate. Though I hold exceptionally strong views on motherhood, monogamy, and matrimony, I leave myself open to the ability to change. To the possibility and presentation of evidence contrary to my own belief.

As a creative, I do not know what I will become –– though I know what my dreams are. I know I may explore myriad forms of media –– of creation. I'm invested more in the pursuit than the concretization of any singular “product” or outcome.

My body, my spirit, my words, my voice, my love –– these are my power. These are my legacy.

As such, who I create, what I create, and who I become are subject to change. Understand that you are engaging with a human being who is ever evolving –– who has made the process of evolution her mandate. If any of these iterations of being make you uncomfortable, or are not your cup of tea, you’re free to leave at any time. Take what serves you and leave the rest.

I’ve found that being a creative is like being a woman. Unlike many, I’m not so much a mystery to myself –– more an optical illusion. Like the one Alan Watts uses to illustrate the perspective of duality –– at once kissing lovers and a vase. In a blink, something utterly different. Warm, fragile. Background and foreground forever dancing. New images appearing all the time.

Understand that if you stay, you will be challenged. That this is a place of transfiguration –– my personal place of transfiguration. That what you once held within your heart as immovable –– death, desire, and destiny –– may be irrefutably shaken, irrevocably changed –– a part of you unable to unsee.

These are my terms of engagement. These are my requirements of presence. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. You choose.

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*Written work by Christina Mokwa – © Christina Mokwa/Mokwa LLC/Mokwa Creative Company