THIS Is What Body Art Means To Me.

Earlier in the day, before I made this video, a friend told me that she had attempted suicide last night. My sister committed suicide in late June of 2015. I felt suicidal throughout much of 2014.

I know the stark depths of suffering by personal reference point of what I've had to endure. Pain. Isolation, loneliness, lack, helplessness. Trauma and deep vulnerability. Being a complete victim to circumstance. You cannot say it's not real, and you cannot shame others for their ignorance or suffering.

Compassion is the only thing that's real. That, and emptiness. The void; the zero point, and the seed from which all life and all creation sprouts. These poles cut through absolutely everything. They sustain everything. They are everything.

Compassion is part in parcel to my very breath; my livelihood. Everything that has ever sustained me; everything that has shown me any bit of who I am. Anything that's taken me closer to that- anything that's brought me home. That is made of compassion. WE are MADE of compassion.

So, please remember compassion. Remember your nature.

Give more of it.

Release trivial things. Forgive more quickly. Let the immediacy of your decision to choose love over all else be invoked by the notion that everything you know, and have, and are, and feel, and do, and have done, might die tomorrow. And what will be left once all of that is gone? Truly, what will be left?

Please choose something sustainable. Please choose compassion. Please choose to see the undying light that is very the pillar of both existence and non existence... somewhere in between these realms is an unshakable, unmoving, undying, empty, yet full... thing... that sustains absolutely everything.

It cuts through everything.

I don't know exactly what it is- I don't think it even has a name.

Some call it Love.

Compassion.

Regardless, please let these truths be pillars upon which you stand, and source your motivations every single day. Please let it be the source through which you operate on a daily basis. Without it, you are nothing. Without it, you are impossibly existing. But with it, you are everything. You have everything. In essence, please remember, you are compassion. You are Love.

Please give more compassion.

I chose to express these concepts both through and on my body. Movement is body art. Makeup is body art. Costume is body art. Engagement with the environment is body art.

Embodiment is a form of body art, as beliefs and impressions literally LIVE in our DNA; in the tissues of our cells, our fascia, our musculature... our entire physical body is wired and woven by incredibly intricate electrical and emotional circuitry.

If I can transmit a message that inspires compassion for all sentient beings, through touching the minds and hearts of my audience, I can simultaneously touch the BODIES of my audience.

Thoughts and external stimuli both generate visceral responses. Art gives it’s beholders the GIFT of felt experience. THIS, I believe, is the POWER that art holds. THIS is why I paint my face and dance and tell stories. THIS is why I write words and willingly bare my cracked-open heart to the world over and over again. THIS is why I express my heart through my body, and wear my heart on my face, express my heart through my feet, and share my heart through my creativity.

THIS is what body art means to me.