Iconoclasts

I just watched the Iconoclasts episode from Season 1 with Maya Angelou and Dave Chappelle (link to full episode below). It was powerful, pure, honest, and so universally human. Their conversation was like streams of water. Their perspectives both living, breathing and beating in syc and yet headed off in two distinct landscapes. His understanding of decency, respect, and ownership of self are such a gift to witness. Her wisdom, compassion, and strength are something I only hope to embody as I progress through time...yet I know the reason they are so inspiring is because these qualities in their purest form are present within all of us - and to see her understanding of THAT across behind her eyes and embodied in her very essence is magnificent to behold.

These kinds of conversations between artists who are human first...this is what I am insatiable for; what I drink in like honey; what I breathe into my cells like air, like love and light, like all the yummy stuff! I just can't get enough of it. Like bread and honey.

What comes to mind now is talking with M. and Alex about art and life and love and pain. The fear of becoming what you feel and know you are capable of being. The self-imposed struggle with boxing in your creativity when the reason you are suppressing it is the very same reason that it has to come out. Something bigger than you is engaged and where the fuck do you put that energy? M. and Alex have not met yet, but they will. I don't see how they could not...there is something too kismet about the way the three of us individually engage with creating. Something profoundly grounded in the mutual strength we find within the feminine. We are tapped into something similar or the same - that is clear. And it is lovely to have companions to witness this wild and crazy journey!

I saw a quote the other day on Rhizomatic Arts' website that said "Work independently, but not alone." This speaks to something grounded and sturdy within. A foundation of self-support within a collective companionship. I have been so afraid of community since leaving the dance studio and theater company I helped launch back in 2012. I left both in 2014 and it has been 2 years, almost to the month, that I announced my departure. The wound that time in my life left behind is ready to seal. I may always have the scar of the separation, but the healing has come to a place that is complete. With this, I feel there is a fresh breath of friendship and love that await. A breeze that has always been there but I have been waiting to ride. This is something special. This is something to be found within and without. This is what awaits.

Maya Angelou speaks to the definition of the word Iconoclast in this episode I watched tonight. She says, "I know the title, Iconoclasts, it really means to break up the icon. An icon is that figure held high by the majority. And that's from the Greek icon and clast(s) means breaking. The iconoclast is he or she who breaks up old ideas."

Just beautiful.
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