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Heavy Water and Words

I remember seeing an image of Laird Hamilton surfing this wave named Teahupo off Tahiti. The cover of the magazine called the wave “Heavy Water”. This image and its heaviness captivated me. I was drawn to the energetic potential of this beautiful water. I wanted to feel the weight of this water. To feel weighty and solid but fluid like this water. To be impactful like this water. To be destructive like this water.

During these covid months I’ve gained weight while attempting to create meaning in myself and in this time. The comfort food has tasted good. It felt good like only carbs and sugar and cheese can. But I still didn’t feel substantive. Then I saw an image of heavy water. I watched a Netflix show on nuclear reactors. They showed a video, similar to this one. The image of the heavy water during a nuclear reactor launch captivated me. I literally leaned forward on the couch, eyes wide.

This water in the video moved strangely. It was lit perfectly. It felt deeply oceanic but industrial, effective. I wanted to dive in and breathe it like amniotic fluid. I craved instant immersion with and total connection to this utilitarian water. Back to a womb. Back to a new beginning where I was blasted apart by nuclear fusion and re-forged cellular, radioactive, supercharged. Empowered, lit up right at the start. Re-Born as a force to be reckoned with.

“In its pure form, heavy water has a density about 11% greater than water, but is otherwise physically and chemically similar.

That water makes me want the density of the wave, Teahupo. I want to be twice as heavy but otherwise the same. I don’t want heaviness to sink me. I want to be fully formed beyond my imagination. I want to be the immovable force that stops you in your assumption in its tracks. I want to be terra firma that rises up. I want to be the great, immutable wall. I want to challenge systemic oppressions and be a warrior for equality without fear.

I want my matter to matter.

I am fascinated by the Hindu goddess Kali. Her image is feral, wild, fierce, powerful. She is a symbol of Mother Nature herself – primordial, creative, nurturing and devouring in turn, but ultimately loving and benevolent the sheer force and power of the elements. Kali is unmanageable and uncomfortable. Much like people speaking out about racism, sexism, classism.

Her job is to remind you that you matter. And if you forget it, she will slay the demons that keep you separated from that reality. She doesn’t care if your ego feels trampled on during this process. She doesn’t care if bloodshed occurs in this process. “She exists, strong and unbound from any of culture’s constrictions.

You will notice that Kali has deep blue, almost black skin. Her skin…represents the womb of existence. This is the quantum world of unformed potentials and probabilities, from which all phenomena continually arise and into which they continually disappear.

She is heavy water. She is Teauhupo. As an artist, I want to tap into that unformed potential of Kali. I want to see what happens when when I unbind culture’s restricted definitions of what is and what can be. On a personal level, I want to un bind the limited definitions I have of myself.

Right now, there is no stage, no theatre, no audience for my show, Shield Maiden. As an activist/playwright, words are the tools we use in our art to challenge the status quo. The words in that play are good and funny and challenging. Words question what female rage is allowed to look like. Words state that women own their own sexuality. And words say there is room and the need for men in the fight for equality.

I am grateful for that show and the push it gave me to question my assumptions about myself. I found value in myself on a deeper level, past life’s traumatic experiences, past other’s expectations and limitations of me. I found that my footsteps sank a little deeper into the earth and connected me more firmly with something bigger than myself. My words and my art gave voice to my matter.

I am channeling my energy into a new creative endeavour that also challenges systemic oppressions. This time, I am curious about a global shift in the paradigm. This is a very big project. One way beyond anything I could have imagined before Shield Maiden. I don’t feel scared, but I am struggling to validate myself as a person who has a right to challenge, question, confront systemic oppression. I think that is the entire point of systemic oppression…to keep us small, insignificant, immaterial to process, insecure. We are supposed to stay in place and be quiet and not rock the boat.

Oppression does not want us to feel like we matter.

So, word by word, I will do my best to lend a little more weight to resistance. I will find a way to be part of the wave that fights for equality. I will be part of the global nuclear reaction to systemic oppression. The real work is to find words that are heavy enough to convince you that you matter too.