Of menstruating Moon

     As to conclude March, celebrating Women's month, I want to write about 2 of my strongest Artworks so far, in my humble opinion. They are big Charcoal drawings I call ''Meditations.'' The first is called Mediation V ''Ephemeral Self'', done in the year 2005, my last year at MICA College in Baltimore, and the second is called Meditation XI ''Fenced Flight'', made in 2011 in Spain.
 
     ''Ephemeral Self'' was made during one of my most intence year of my life. It was my last senior year in college, it is a dirrect metaphor to all that I was living that year. This charcoal drawing is organized into 4 large pannels, and in each one of them is drawn a woman, a total 4 Women: 3 being of the Touareg tribe of Saharian region of West Africa, and the last being a portrait of myself. Each one is silently veiled, 2 with a blurry complexion of wonder and questions, and the other 2 with their head bowing to the ground with acceptance. My portrait is dirrectly gazing at the viewer. Within the veils, darkness domains, while the outside atmosphere around these 4 women is embalmed with the light of the different phases of the Moon.
    In this 4 to 5 meters drawing, occupying a whole wall, I wanted to bring the metaphors and unity that we all women worldwide share and hold for ourselves and within ourselves. There is an invisible unity that ties us all Women, and whichever it is, through suffering and darkness, our energy consume and releise burning love and  beautiful joy. I essentially wanted to say that we women are all part of each other. A reminder that we are not alone, that we are all parallel to each other. This drawing was yet the opposite to all that I had been living at that time, and yet it was a confort to all my trauma. The drawing reminded me that I was not alone, and yet at that time, I felt the loneliest ever.
    That year, I had essentially discovered that we women could be screw eachother: that a person containing the same feminine essence as me could use it against herself, and in a terrible chain, therefore hurt me. My last year, I broke down in tears, I hated the world, I no longer knew who I was. I made 'Ephemeral Self' asking the viewer: ''What are we women?'' ''Why are we capable to hurt each other that much?''  Who is allowed to screw? The difference between being the screwer and being the screwed? What does unite us as women? The phases of the moon? It is our menstruation? Is it our pacaty to give so much love to both men and women? Is it our veils? It is our hypocrezy? Is it our competition for survival? Our fucking solidarity? Our feminism per say? What is feminism?... etc and etc.
     That year, I stoped eating... I was by myself. I tried to take care of myself as best as I could. It was my Graduation year: my parents found me weak, confused. I was broken into peices. The concept of being a woman was shaken to me, and from then one, I have never been able to be as before. So many beautiful things of me desappeard that year. I was a total disaster, a terrible mess. My energy and goals have never been the same again. Since then, when  mentruation time comes, instead of being a celebration of being a woman, to feel this women solidarity such as the phases of the moon conveying our feminine unity, I often find myself irritated with and by myself, and by others, and I feel vulnerable and sensible to the tiniest smallest vibe. It has been a challenge for me to be syncronized to the phases of the moon, just like in my drawing.
    I understood since from then on, the difference between men and women. We women feel from the deepest of our guts, from the rawness, from our deepest running blood. And we suffer because of that. Nothing is taken lightly. Nothing from the surface. All fom our blood. Day by day. Night by night. I called the drawing ''Ephemeral Self'' because I felt like I was disappearing... that my little me, and little girl and the joy inside that little girl had been killed... I was disappearing, like any other women in the World. Like any desert nomad woman.... like these regugees passing te desert for the only goal of a better life, the right to... life... like any veil forcing silence. Disappearing like dust.
    
     Six years later, I created my eleventh Charcoal Meditation: ''Fenced Flight.'' ''Fenced Flight'' is different from ''Ephemeral Self.'' The same messages of what we are Women are still carried. The main difference, between the two Artpieces, is that this drawing was approached with less pain, less weighting baggage, with passed years in between. The gaze of the Ethiopian desert woman is still raising questions to the viewer. Questioning is infinate. Her skin is like arrid dunes of sand. Beauty in all my charcoal drawing women is unquestionable, but in Fenced Flight, this woman is giving with open heart her soft beauty, tender love, the beauty only an ancient soul can embalm you with comfort and well-being. Yes, she has an anciant soul: she has lived all the lives of every single woman on Earth.  She is alone. And yet, she is all of us. She is menstuating when I am menstruating and a billion other women on Earth are mentruating too, all the same time. She is making love and giving love when we are all making love and giving love. She is all the pain and hatred I felt that year of 2005. But she is not disappearing like ''Ephemeral Self,'' because she exists and lives in each one of us woman, even when we forget her. One woman is capable of holding the World. This is our power, our water, I believe.
    In 'Fenced Flight,' women are no longer bowing their head to the ground, with shame and obedience... fenced. They are looking, defying at the World, head up and free... flight.

    My Art has been the vehicule for my soul since I was five years old. I feel grateful, and I will never stop drawing and create, create from my gusts, my feelings, transfer my living into the paper. I aldo deeply feel grateful for the Aikido Art that I have been practicing since I came to Spain. Essentially, I met Javier with Aikido and I came to Spain for Javier and Aikido. My boyfriend and Aikido have been inseparable for me. I have been practicing for 5 years, and only now can I feel a bit more free. It has been a long process, but it has been crucial to my existence here, to my sanity. I can say that my body has changed, my feminine body and self. I am also very lucky to still be able to practice Iaido, and finally, I feel like I get a grip of these martial Arts. I feel a wholeness at times during my classes that is undescriptive... I believe that every women should daily practice a physical sport or Art, something that makes our body feel exquisite other than making love. It is so important, so crucial. One day, I will dedicate a post to these noble Arts, my views and experiences. I am attaching here, along the pictures of the Charcoal Meditations, with a picture of my Iaito.