Speaker 1: Apoge Production.
Speaker 2: I'm Mickey Fisher, and welcome to the Village Crazy Lady.
Speaker 2: People are talking to me and they are not physically
Speaker 2: in this room, so just strap in for that. Can't
Speaker 2: call me crazy, so I said it first. Whoever's trying
Speaker 2: to come through, whatever messages need to come through, like,
Speaker 2: just bring it on.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Crazy Crazy Crazy, The Village Crazy Lady Podcast. Hello, gorgeous legends,
Speaker 2: and welcome to another episode of the Village Crazy Lady
Speaker 2: this week. I don't know if i'd call Hooter a
Speaker 2: Village Crazy Lady. I just feel like she's I would
Speaker 2: just say who to refers to herself as who to
Speaker 2: the Goddess, and I just think that there's no better
Speaker 2: way to describe Hooter. I met her at a march
Speaker 2: that I helped organize and EMC and someone sent me
Speaker 2: a video that she'd done online of her slam poetry
Speaker 2: and it was about domestic violence, and it just had
Speaker 2: me in a puddle of tears, and I just went,
Speaker 2: we need we need her, we need to get her.
Speaker 2: I want to meet her. And so ever since then,
Speaker 2: and I watched Hohoda perform at the march, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure she literally said before she got up like
Speaker 2: that she was just it was improvised, like it was
Speaker 2: just literally words from her soul. And then I watched
Speaker 2: her march in the street just literally just words coming
Speaker 2: out of her that just will like mad Well that
Speaker 2: it's poetry. It was magic. And ever since then I said,
Speaker 2: who do I need to get you on and I
Speaker 2: need to hear your story and like just learn about
Speaker 2: this trust that you have within yourself, in this connection
Speaker 2: that you have to language and anyway, so hoodah, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Having it's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to just even hear your story. Like
Speaker 2: I don't think I've really met that many people who
Speaker 2: are slam poets. And you're like you're a phenomenal in
Speaker 2: your field, You've won awards, you you know, are the
Speaker 2: Australian Slam champion, so you obviously have been doing this
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, yeah, I think I'm actually about to hit
Speaker 1: my ten yure mork in poetry.
Speaker 2: Wow, So I want to hear your story, Like how
Speaker 2: did you get into it? Have you always just been
Speaker 2: really connected to words and their magic? Like what is
Speaker 2: it for you?
Speaker 1: There is there is like the long story, and then
Speaker 1: there's like the short, Like when I was like twenty
Speaker 1: one and the first time I touched the mic and
Speaker 1: I was a poet. But like I think for me,
Speaker 1: my fascination with language started off as a child that
Speaker 1: also had no formal training, like no formal education, so
Speaker 1: like being like in Cairo, never going to school, I
Speaker 1: was like, the only thing I could really master was
Speaker 1: like my verbal communication with people, right, So I became
Speaker 1: fascinated with body language, with people's tone, and how do
Speaker 1: I get myself to be so very clearly understood, Like
Speaker 1: my fascination with art and poetry started as I really
Speaker 1: don't like the outcomes of being misunderstood. Wow, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to master communication because I lived in a very
Speaker 1: very chaotic space in which feelings were always elevated due
Speaker 1: to the circumstances, which meant people were yelling out their
Speaker 1: reality and there was very little space for comprehension, right,
Speaker 1: because everybody just wanted to be heard and wanted to
Speaker 1: be to have their humanity validated. Right, So it started
Speaker 1: this fascination of like how can I improve my communication
Speaker 1: with my mother? How can I improve my communication with
Speaker 1: the people around me, and how do I get that?
Speaker 1: Knowing that I can't read or write right so, and
Speaker 1: then coming into a school system a like ten eleven
Speaker 1: where I don't have like for example, at twenty nine
Speaker 1: right now, I still can't spell. I have no conception
Speaker 1: of like the English language, like in terms of like
Speaker 1: writing and reading. I'm very verbally articulate. My vocab is high,
Speaker 1: but like writing was always very difficult for me because
Speaker 1: I was illiterate for a long period of my life.
Speaker 1: So language for me was about pew to peer communication
Speaker 1: and then connection and then community collectivism. And I knew
Speaker 1: that like at some point, like my grandmother when I
Speaker 1: was very little, had faith that I was going to
Speaker 1: be somebody really special and always valued education, and she
Speaker 1: was like her voice should not be silenced. She let
Speaker 1: me be as loud as I wanted to be and
Speaker 1: to take up as much room as I wanted to be,
Speaker 1: so losing her, I felt like I had to re
Speaker 1: remind myself of why she had provided that much space
Speaker 1: for me to be that loud, right, Because contrary to believe,
Speaker 1: women are not supposed to be loud and audacious and spoken.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of it that was like
Speaker 1: breaking the status quo and norm because I just didn't
Speaker 1: know what other way to connect with people. It was
Speaker 1: like I don't go to school, so I can't make
Speaker 1: friends that way, right, Like I'm a foreigner, different country
Speaker 1: that's not my own, so I can't connect with people
Speaker 1: that way. So I had to come up with a
Speaker 1: way to connect. So it was humor a good communication
Speaker 1: and eloquence was my skill set. That's what I could
Speaker 1: do very very well. So there's that route of like
Speaker 1: you know, growing and a people. It's a patriarchal family
Speaker 1: where my grandmother was the leader of the household and
Speaker 1: coming into a patriarchal system where people just wouldn't let
Speaker 1: me talk or kind of almost made it a joke
Speaker 1: out of it, like oh, you're so loud, And I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, my mom is loud, my auntie's loud,
Speaker 1: my mother loud. What your point? You're just stating observations?
Speaker 1: Why does that sound like the butt of the I
Speaker 1: don't get it, you know what I mean? So so
Speaker 1: there's there's there's that like element of culture and like
Speaker 1: like you know, my grandm would be like an elder,
Speaker 1: and then having people in my family that are like
Speaker 1: eldest that whole linguistics in like lineage, and then my
Speaker 1: grandmother who was basically like the town nurse. So my
Speaker 1: lineage comes from like audacious, out like outrageous women who
Speaker 1: just do whatever the hell they want to do. So like,
Speaker 1: and then I come into a world which like that's
Speaker 1: not the prox that's not the rule. So poetry allowed
Speaker 1: me to exist in the reality that I know is
Speaker 1: common to me, which is like existing within my power
Speaker 1: and being as loud as I want to be. And
Speaker 1: then it was then it was a provided audience. And
Speaker 1: then there's like the other answer is like I was
Speaker 1: a master of ceremony at college and like I was
Speaker 1: always very well spoken, and then I met Anissa n Dala,
Speaker 1: who's an incredible comedian now also poet. Yeah, and she
Speaker 1: just like she was the first person to label what
Speaker 1: I did poetry. She was like, oh, you're a poet,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know about that. I
Speaker 1: think I'm well spoken, but I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: And she was my first she was the first person
Speaker 1: to give it a name. Wow. And then that started
Speaker 1: like an era of like three years of like freestyle
Speaker 1: improvised open minds that then turned into paid gigs and
Speaker 1: then it was like it was an interesting journey and
Speaker 1: I could ramble on forever. But like, I then had
Speaker 1: a show I think at BMAC, which is so funny
Speaker 1: that I'm having this podcast interview with you today because
Speaker 1: I'm going back to be back for a show today.
Speaker 1: And at that same place I met probably was one
Speaker 1: of the most leading public speakers like and she is
Speaker 1: an African woman. And after I got off stage from performing,
Speaker 1: she asked me a question. She goes, you do this
Speaker 1: beautiful thing and you call it poetry, but like, why
Speaker 1: is it that you speak? Why do you feel the
Speaker 1: need to do this right? And she's like, I think
Speaker 1: that's an important question while you hold this much power
Speaker 1: for you answer. And I don't think she knows how
Speaker 1: monumental that question was for me, because it changed the
Speaker 1: whole leaf of my career of like, I love this thing.
Speaker 1: I love being able to connect and tell stories and
Speaker 1: like them language to accommodate for whatever I wanted it
Speaker 1: to be. And then there's this powerful elder who is
Speaker 1: like dressing African attire, who was a great public speaker
Speaker 1: and a great Worthmit that kind of took me back
Speaker 1: to my root, and she almost like put the word
Speaker 1: poet to the side and then was like, let's actually
Speaker 1: look at it outside of the framing that the world
Speaker 1: needs it to have for it to be comprehendible. What
Speaker 1: is it that you're doing. So there are a multitude
Speaker 1: of reasons. There's a multitude of origin stories and the
Speaker 1: evolution of my poetry. So yeah, there's so many stories
Speaker 1: I can tell into how I fell into where I
Speaker 1: fell because I used to say I'm the accidental poet.
Speaker 1: There was no like I have a vision board that
Speaker 1: like you know eleven, I used to love reading books
Speaker 1: and like and then I kind of became a poet
Speaker 1: because I love like some famous author, Like none of
Speaker 1: those things are my story. I hate reading books. I
Speaker 1: have ADHD. It takes a lot for me to like
Speaker 1: a book, like a lot, because I can't focus for
Speaker 1: that long. Yeah, I can't spell, like, none of those
Speaker 1: things of my reality. I'm not a literature head that
Speaker 1: can quote like a list of poets. This is my
Speaker 1: poetry is a conversation with my soul that I turned
Speaker 1: strangers into an audience for.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't want to talk, to be honest, I'm
Speaker 2: not even be kindding, I have cried your camera's not on,
Speaker 2: but I've cried like three times already. I'm not a crier.
Speaker 2: When you mentioned your grandma tears, when you mentioned that
Speaker 2: beautiful woman who like asked you why you're speaking tears
Speaker 2: because that's like and the fact that you can't, like
Speaker 2: you struggle to spell tears because it really and and
Speaker 2: it makes so much sense to me why I've and
Speaker 2: like why so many people are so drawn to you,
Speaker 2: but especially I guess as someone who I like to
Speaker 2: think of, I've always sort of myself as a communicator
Speaker 2: as well. You know, I think everyone has their different
Speaker 2: gifts and their different abilities and like to like to me,
Speaker 2: I look at you, and you're a communicator, you know
Speaker 2: how to sort of like what you were saying about,
Speaker 2: how you connect with how you can take what's in
Speaker 2: your soul and sort of channel that into evoking something
Speaker 2: from within the strangers in the room, Like it's such
Speaker 2: it's like working on an energetic plane. Is that what
Speaker 2: it feels like? Do you feel like it's almost like
Speaker 2: because I mean I asked you even before we jumped on,
Speaker 2: I said, you know, would you say that you're a
Speaker 2: spiritual person and you and you said that you you
Speaker 2: do think like you do feel like a spiritual person.
Speaker 1: Like, what does that?
Speaker 2: What does it feel like?
Speaker 1: Like? This is I think an interesting concept as you
Speaker 1: evolve in a a in a career path that was
Speaker 1: intrinsically about self knowledge. Yeah, is that you have to
Speaker 1: go back to basis. So when people ask where the
Speaker 1: poem comes from, it comes from like an in deep,
Speaker 1: deep intrinsic place of like, I have to be within
Speaker 1: my own body to such a profound level to give
Speaker 1: you what I'm giving you, right, I have to be
Speaker 1: aligned with myself and in the room. So when I
Speaker 1: when I walk into a room with like three hundred
Speaker 1: people to do an improvised poem, I have to meditate
Speaker 1: in that room in my own way that's not obvious
Speaker 1: and not jarring to also the people because at the
Speaker 1: moment it's obvious, people then change how they move around
Speaker 1: the room, so I can't get a sense of what's
Speaker 1: actually happening, right, Like, so I have to be in
Speaker 1: that space meditate. First of we'll pay my acknowledgment to
Speaker 1: the ancestral and the thousands of years that are already here.
Speaker 1: So there's already souls and spirits and stories and moments
Speaker 1: that have happened here that will continue to happen with
Speaker 1: or without me. So I have to acknowledge those people,
Speaker 1: and then I have to then go into my own
Speaker 1: self and be like, what at this point will fulfill
Speaker 1: me and enable me to connect with a stranger at
Speaker 1: the same time. Wow, And that's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: I think I'm spiritual in the sentence of I have
Speaker 1: to believe in a higher power to be able to
Speaker 1: deliver something of such high frequency. Yeah, And I don't
Speaker 1: say that as ego, like I don't think I'm that special,
Speaker 1: but I do think I have something, yeah, that can
Speaker 1: resonate with people beyond my own comprehension sometimes because sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't know where the poem comes from.
Speaker 2: That was my next question, because that's so interesting to me.
Speaker 2: Is this difference between like when you like, I'm even
Speaker 2: trying to think the words.
Speaker 3: So obviously I'm not a poet. The words are flowing
Speaker 3: from my core, but like I can imagine that there
Speaker 3: would be there would be words that come out from
Speaker 3: like stories or like do you ever feel like sometimes
Speaker 3: the poems are like.
Speaker 2: Healing for you versus like times where it's like I
Speaker 2: actually have no idea where this is coming from.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, So often like there there are streams of
Speaker 1: poems that come from my own thoughts, like when people
Speaker 1: ask me, like, oh, how do you want to write
Speaker 1: a poem? I want to write a poem when there's
Speaker 1: an urgency to it, when there's a thought that becomes
Speaker 1: a hyper fixation. Yeah, right, Like in the ten years
Speaker 1: of me doing powetry, I've never felt compelled to write
Speaker 1: I hate them. I think they're annoying. I don't want
Speaker 1: to write them, and I never knew where it was
Speaker 1: until this year. I had to reevaluate my relationship with
Speaker 1: intimacy and love as I am now getting older and
Speaker 1: restructuring my relationship with my mother, right, because she's my
Speaker 1: first introduction to love, right, not romantic, but as almost
Speaker 1: like a dedication and a sense of loyalty to loving
Speaker 1: her and her loving me back and not being the
Speaker 1: center of my epi world. Right. So it's like my
Speaker 1: poems sometimes start for my own age, like I have
Speaker 1: something to say and I need to unpack this in
Speaker 1: a way that makes sense to me, So poetry makes
Speaker 1: sense to me, and like and then other times I'll
Speaker 1: meet people and it will like. For example, I think
Speaker 1: one of my favorite moments on stage, I have a
Speaker 1: collection of them, was I went to Byron Byron Writer's Festival,
Speaker 1: and I had just come off like being on regional
Speaker 1: tour on this bus, and I was supposed to, like
Speaker 1: I got in changed and I was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in front of like a couple hundred high school students
Speaker 1: in this festival. I'm not ready. I'm never like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the word ready means in poetry. So like,
Speaker 1: let's put that to the side, because I have no
Speaker 1: relationship with the wed Ring, right, I'm just I'm on
Speaker 1: go or I'm not on go. It's one of the two, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And maybe that's ready in its own way. But I
Speaker 1: got on stage and that day I had been like
Speaker 1: my grandmothers a reoccurring theme. So she's definitely a familiar
Speaker 1: story to tell. I don't ever tell the same story
Speaker 1: about her, who I don't tell the story the same
Speaker 1: way about her twice? Right, there are different things that
Speaker 1: from my relationship with her, and I was I remember
Speaker 1: like being on stage and speaking, and it's very rare
Speaker 1: for me to cry on stage. It is like, very
Speaker 1: very rare, Like I can be lost within my own body,
Speaker 1: but crying tends to come after, like when I'm reflecting
Speaker 1: on the poem on my own. So I'm on stage
Speaker 1: and I'm speaking about my grandmother and I just like
Speaker 1: I feel myself because like getting lost in the poem,
Speaker 1: and I look up and I know I want to cry.
Speaker 1: And I look up and there's this like beautiful black
Speaker 1: girl in front audience and she's bawling like tears that
Speaker 1: she is balling her and I'm just like, at this moment,
Speaker 1: everybody in that space stopped existing and I felt like
Speaker 1: me and her were having a conversation, right, And I
Speaker 1: got up and I got off stage, and I was
Speaker 1: I had to do an interview, so I was like
Speaker 1: ducking out. So I was like, hey, thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much. I'm hugging people, like all these kids, and
Speaker 1: I stop, and she's crying and she's literally like holds
Speaker 1: my hand and she's she's still balling, and I'm just
Speaker 1: like she's like, I really want to be a poet,
Speaker 1: like I really want to write. And I was like,
Speaker 1: just decide, make a decision that this is who you
Speaker 1: are and this is your reality. Just make that decision.
Speaker 1: And the next time, I want to see you. I
Speaker 1: want you to have decided. Don't know her name. We
Speaker 1: spoke for like a few seconds that I had left.
Speaker 1: Right the next day, I'm still in Byron, I'm eating sushi.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to go on stage in like an hour,
Speaker 1: and all I see is this like figure of her
Speaker 1: walking up to me. And she's walking up just holding
Speaker 1: a trophy. And mind you, I don't I wear glasses,
Speaker 1: so I can't see her well. So she walks up
Speaker 1: to me and she's like, oh my god, I won
Speaker 1: this big the you And she's like I just competed
Speaker 1: my first slam and I.
Speaker 2: Want, Oh your kidding?
Speaker 1: And she she's like, I decided and that was it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And her mom was like she thought. She was like
Speaker 1: to me, this is the You're the first black woman
Speaker 1: I've ever seen on stage be this vulnerable, and it
Speaker 1: made me feel like I could do that too. That
Speaker 1: single handedly one of my favorite moments. That pivotally changed
Speaker 1: why I do what I do to that death because
Speaker 1: I don't know where that and I don't know like
Speaker 1: maybe that poem was said like that before. Because I disconnect,
Speaker 1: I'm in my own body that the words aren't really
Speaker 1: like so precise, and they're not all my poems are perfect.
Speaker 1: They're clumsy, and I don't always use the right word.
Speaker 1: But I'm in my body so much that I feel
Speaker 1: like that girl changed my life in that moment and
Speaker 1: reminded me of why being within my own poem is
Speaker 1: so crucial for me, you know. So it's like when
Speaker 1: people ask where it comes from, sometimes it is a
Speaker 1: stranger in the audience who just needed me to say
Speaker 1: what I needed to say, and at that moment, I
Speaker 1: felt them in a way that I have no words for,
Speaker 1: Like I have no Like I've told stories of people
Speaker 1: that passed away and somebody was like, yo, I just
Speaker 1: came from a funeral, and you just shook my world.
Speaker 1: Like so there's no like I want to give you
Speaker 1: a linear answer of like this is where it comes.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes it's people, sometimes it's me, other
Speaker 1: times it's nowhere. And sometimes the poems make no sense,
Speaker 1: and then I try the same subject again and it
Speaker 1: makes all the sense in.
Speaker 2: The Worldea, you've made me cry, like another one hundred times.
Speaker 2: I I sorry, do not apologize that story. I again,
Speaker 2: you can't see my I don't know if you can
Speaker 2: see my video, but I had like down my face.
Speaker 2: I had to pull my fucking self together because that
Speaker 2: like the thing that is just so beautiful and the
Speaker 2: thing that I've I mean, so many things. One I
Speaker 2: really want to talk about the you being in your body.
Speaker 2: How you keep talking about how like this this connection
Speaker 2: to yourself and your body is so important, because I
Speaker 2: feel that that is something that a lot of people
Speaker 2: are really missing within ourselves. Is this kind of like
Speaker 2: we're so disconnected from ourselves, so disconnected from our body.
Speaker 2: We have such a distrust in our body and in ourself,
Speaker 2: and like you just talking about that so much is
Speaker 2: just such a just really reiterates that. The other thing
Speaker 2: that I find so beautiful is I often say to
Speaker 2: people a healer isn't just someone who you know does
Speaker 2: reiki or as a doctor, is chipractor or whatever, because
Speaker 2: like we are all healers, and we all have this
Speaker 2: ability to connect and to channel and to understand our
Speaker 2: own energy and the energy of others and how that
Speaker 2: sort of and how we kind of connect through that
Speaker 2: and kind of understand the ripple effect of each connection
Speaker 2: that we have. And for some of us we can
Speaker 2: kind of understand it a little bit more like we're
Speaker 2: a bit more connected to what it all means, and like,
Speaker 2: as you say, like within those moments where you can
Speaker 2: like really just feel that sort of that connection within
Speaker 2: yourself and then the connection of people that are in
Speaker 2: the room, and then you know, like and you're like
Speaker 2: with what you're doing, Like you're getting up on stage
Speaker 2: and these words are just flowing out of you and
Speaker 2: you're just like what someone like me would call that's
Speaker 2: what I call channeling when I do it, when I
Speaker 2: feel like I'm the channeling you know, from a higher
Speaker 2: version of myself for like well really myself or you know,
Speaker 2: different beings or whoever. It is where you really have
Speaker 2: to just trust yourself and trust like what's coming out
Speaker 2: of you. And it's just I think like for people
Speaker 2: who are listening, because often people go, yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: not for me, I can't do it. I love like
Speaker 2: the idea of you know, being that connected and being
Speaker 2: able to do this and being able to do that.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm a graphic designer or I do this,
Speaker 2: or but I think like at our core we can
Speaker 2: all do this and this whole like what you're doing
Speaker 2: where you're able to just like really anchor into yourself
Speaker 2: and then understand what the world is needing from you
Speaker 2: and what you were needing from you in those moments,
Speaker 2: I think is so powerful, and that concept I think
Speaker 2: can be can be taken and used by everyone in
Speaker 2: whatever it is that they're doing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think the trivializing of your yearney does not
Speaker 1: serve anybody. The minimization of your impact does not serve anybody.
Speaker 1: So this idea of downsizing your existence and then spotlighting
Speaker 1: people like you and I does nothing for the world.
Speaker 1: I don't desire to be spotlight I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I have none of this.
Speaker 1: None of what I do is about likability. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be likable. That's not the objective here, right,
Speaker 1: So there is no performance that comes with this. There's
Speaker 1: no pre plan on how I'm going to show up
Speaker 1: because then that And I'm not saying that people don't
Speaker 1: need to do that, because I think basking is a
Speaker 1: form of self protection and preservation is important and you
Speaker 1: should care and maintain pain and refine so that you
Speaker 1: are safe. And I hate you, I get that, but
Speaker 1: as somebody who people are like, I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: your work. I'm like, plee, do not dehumanize me by
Speaker 1: putting me on a paddle store and not design you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I fucking woman.
Speaker 1: I don't need that. That's not what fills my cup
Speaker 1: at all, Like you turning me into somebody to admire
Speaker 1: in a way that actually makes you. If you admiring
Speaker 1: me makes you minimize yourself, stop it. Don't admire me.
Speaker 1: But if admiring me makes you want to peep out
Speaker 1: of your own shell and reach your own self, then beautiful,
Speaker 1: let's be an admiration of each other. Right, Let's let's
Speaker 1: create a synergy in which my conversation with your soul
Speaker 1: right allows us to peak and evolve beyond that. Right.
Speaker 1: So when I say being within my body, I am
Speaker 1: unnecessarily deep conversations with my friends on a daily basis
Speaker 1: that are evaluated, And it's not about critiquing myself. Like
Speaker 1: I believe, perfection is an illusion. It's an a skewed
Speaker 1: way to look at life that really only gets people
Speaker 1: to self loath, right, it only makes people dislike themselves.
Speaker 1: The obsession with the mirror makes you want to cut
Speaker 1: out portions of yourself to look smaller in front of
Speaker 1: a mirror that was not designed for a small soul.
Speaker 1: It's a disservice that does nothing fool you, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So when I say being within my body,
Speaker 1: it means I have a relationship with self that far
Speaker 1: out extends any relationship I have with anybody else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is no relationship outside of me that is greater.
Speaker 1: I love so many people intensely and deeply, but I know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the profound feeling I
Speaker 1: have for myself has to exceed. I have to know
Speaker 1: the sound of my own voice amongst the crowd. I
Speaker 1: have to know that because if I have a show
Speaker 1: and no one claps, like, poetry still means exactly the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, it still has the exact volume and impact, right,
Speaker 1: because the impact the goal was not you ever, And
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to say that as an artist. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: obligation is to myself first, and then whatever comes as
Speaker 1: a residue of that. I am grateful that we are
Speaker 1: able to bask in whatever residue we have created together.
Speaker 1: But that only happens with you giving yourself permission to
Speaker 1: be within this process too. So if I go to
Speaker 1: a show and I give you one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: percent of me, and you show up with so many
Speaker 1: rules that you can't even climb them. Who am I
Speaker 1: to be upset on myself for your choices? Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was no space for us to have a bond. There
Speaker 1: was no synergy between us, right like, there's no there
Speaker 1: was no contine for this room to elevate, for to escalate,
Speaker 1: for it to be greater vibration, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: My obligation is to my true self and its authenticity
Speaker 1: comes from accepting that it's never going to be linear,
Speaker 1: that it's not about perfection. The one of my favorite
Speaker 1: quotes coming up when I was young was a great
Speaker 1: our deepacy is now that we are an adequate to
Speaker 1: Our deepest fear is that we are powerful, beyond measured.
Speaker 1: It is not our light. It is our light, not
Speaker 1: our dark that most frightens us. You playing small does
Speaker 1: not serve the world. I don't need that from you.
Speaker 1: I'm Sometimes the fear is not that I'm not capable.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the fear is what if everything that I find
Speaker 1: out this SARMs everything that I know as a reality now,
Speaker 1: And that is a scary reality. So for people to
Speaker 1: channel you must have a relationship with yourself that our
Speaker 1: exceeds all the obsessions you have with the relationship with others.
Speaker 1: You have to be less obsessed with validation from other
Speaker 1: people when you know people are not consistent enough. And
Speaker 1: that's not a dis to humans, that is an acknowledgment
Speaker 1: of reality. No matter how much you love me, you
Speaker 1: cannot show up for me every day in every given moment.
Speaker 1: I can't even guarantee you that I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: at every moment when I need you to show up
Speaker 1: for me. So we just create an unrealistic relationship with
Speaker 1: things that will bound to disappoint down to be fragile,
Speaker 1: because that's the beauty in them, right, is the capacity
Speaker 1: to be raised and rebuilt and remolded. So when people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you know yourself, I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time evaluating me, and I also
Speaker 1: have acknowledge. I have no desire to be liked by strangers.
Speaker 1: I have a desire for our humanity to have volition.
Speaker 1: I care about you as a human on a baseline.
Speaker 1: I don't need to know your name, or see you
Speaker 1: or hug you, or how do you like me? In response?
Speaker 1: I care about your humanity and your soul's work. I
Speaker 1: want evolution and evolvement. I want peace, I want serenity,
Speaker 1: I want peace of mind. I pray for you without
Speaker 1: even knowing you. Yeah, but that does not mean I
Speaker 1: need you to like me. None of those are synonymous.
Speaker 1: None of those things carry that but volume for me.
Speaker 1: So it's like I'm at peace with the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm insignificant but also so significant in my own world
Speaker 1: that I matter.
Speaker 2: I could listen to you all day, like I'm like,
Speaker 2: keep going. I'm like, this is actually your podcast now.
Speaker 2: This is even being the easiest podcast I've ever done,
Speaker 2: because I've just sat here crying and listening and just
Speaker 2: going yes amen, like I'm not a sermon.
Speaker 1: Listen. It's always an honor to be able to be
Speaker 1: in a space where I can I can pour into
Speaker 1: it without feeling like I'm flooding, because I think that's
Speaker 1: also the responsibility and the self consciousness that comes with
Speaker 1: this is like, man, I got so many things I
Speaker 1: think that are urgent to stay, and I'm like, sometimes
Speaker 1: I had to pick and chew when I pull out,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I'm pouring drowns out a room that does
Speaker 1: not know how to swim.
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, so I had you know, yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, we're all wearing floaties, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're good like you. I literally was just thinking. I
Speaker 2: was like, I was going to say to you, if
Speaker 2: you want to just go like you whatever you feel
Speaker 2: like you want to say, or is in your heart
Speaker 2: or is in your body, or you feel like people
Speaker 2: need to hear, like again, we've got our floatings on,
Speaker 2: like we are good. The floor is yours.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate the invite and the safety of
Speaker 1: that space because I think it's important. And I also like,
Speaker 1: as an artist, I tell people I can't write work
Speaker 1: about bodies I don't know. I can't write about stuff
Speaker 1: that I don't know within my own self. I also
Speaker 1: had a rule for a long time where I don't
Speaker 1: write poems about things that have not healed from or
Speaker 1: I'm not in the process of healing from. I don't
Speaker 1: open wounds on stage because I know how intense I am.
Speaker 1: And if I read my if I opened my chest
Speaker 1: and have and let everything that is in there that
Speaker 1: has been resting until I get to it completely out
Speaker 1: and then place in the hands that are not ready
Speaker 1: to hold that, and like I don't trumba bond with
Speaker 1: my audience. This is not about us sharing and how
Speaker 1: deep and is rule the world is right, there's a
Speaker 1: difference between exhibition in reality in the form of poetry, right,
Speaker 1: and there is a difference, and that there's a whole
Speaker 1: other thing where like we're only bonded and you only
Speaker 1: like my work because it validates your pain. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to do that when not trauma bonding. I'm
Speaker 1: not trauma bonding with an audience. I'm not coming there
Speaker 1: for you to cry and go home and completely be
Speaker 1: in deep sorrow about your life. That's not what I'm
Speaker 1: about to do. That's not the goal and the objective
Speaker 1: of what I'm doing. So, because I care about the
Speaker 1: people that have opened their ease and the soul to me,
Speaker 1: I have to make sure that when I'm delivering, I
Speaker 1: can tell a story with all of its layers properly.
Speaker 1: So for a long time I couldn't speak about my
Speaker 1: mother's DV because it wasn't a story I was ready
Speaker 1: to tell. Yes, and I didn't want a bunch of
Speaker 1: beautiful women who watched me on stage to connect with sorrow.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to see the revolution that was in
Speaker 1: my mom as she came out of that, I wanted
Speaker 1: to honor her in a way that completely articulator stories.
Speaker 1: And even though there are many stories I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: about that that all my own experience as an audience
Speaker 1: member in that reality, but I wanted to I wanted
Speaker 1: to stop the story by honoring it from from beginning
Speaker 1: to end as a summary, so then I can then
Speaker 1: honor every part without it looking like with trauma bonding,
Speaker 1: because I don't want that at all. So I often
Speaker 1: just go to the ocean. I tell my friend this
Speaker 1: all the time. My favorite moment is when I stand
Speaker 1: right at the ocean and I remember just how small
Speaker 1: I am. I it is the most being able to
Speaker 1: bash in the sun, have it used its glow as
Speaker 1: like use your skin as a stage to dance on,
Speaker 1: being be able to kissy by the wind, and remembering
Speaker 1: that this ocean that provides you, this water that gives
Speaker 1: you life and reminds you of the fact that you
Speaker 1: are alive, it's gonna be. It can be the one
Speaker 1: thing that also completely closes your chapter. There is something
Speaker 1: so profound standing that humanizing yourself is equally as important
Speaker 1: as amplifying yourself. Yes, Oh, people need to do that
Speaker 1: more like you want to be great, love that be great,
Speaker 1: You are great, you deserve that, but humanize it.
Speaker 2: I feel like we have such a fear of honesty
Speaker 2: as well, Like we play it's like we teeter around
Speaker 2: and we sort of play around around the honesty. And
Speaker 2: that's within ourself, that's within how we feel about others,
Speaker 2: that's how we want to converse with others and the
Speaker 2: things that we want to say. And I often find this,
Speaker 2: especially as I'm like because I do a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, healing work with clients and and and it's
Speaker 2: almost just like people are okay with about ten percent
Speaker 2: of themselves. Ooh, come on, And it's so and as
Speaker 2: I'm sort of working with that energy, and it almost
Speaker 2: it makes me sad. And I mean I've been and
Speaker 2: not to throw any sort of shame or anything on that,
Speaker 2: because it's all of us, you know, Like I've experienced
Speaker 2: that too, you know, where we were so afraid to
Speaker 2: sort of like really sit in the complete honesty of
Speaker 2: who we are, because so much of who we are
Speaker 2: is actually just a reflection of everyone else around us
Speaker 2: and the world around us, and the world that we've
Speaker 2: been placed in. And it's more we've been created out
Speaker 2: of safety as opposed to being created out of who
Speaker 2: we actually are and the energy that we've come in with.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's it's a very it's a very sad reality
Speaker 1: that we all have have experienced, and it's full. And
Speaker 1: when I say, like, poetry has given me the greatest
Speaker 1: tool of self reflection consistently, because I believe your poem
Speaker 1: does not start until you start telling the truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, and that truth and be funny, that truth can
Speaker 1: be lighthearted, that truth can be trivial. Really, it could
Speaker 1: be whatever you want. But is it real? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: again I don't say that to like, you know, there
Speaker 1: are people who write and make up stories. I love
Speaker 1: that for you. I love the creativity and the venture
Speaker 1: that comes with that. But I say this to say, like,
Speaker 1: I have to be honest when I pick up a pen.
Speaker 1: I have to be honest when I get on stage
Speaker 1: because I owe it to myself. I really don't care
Speaker 1: too much if you believe it or not, to be
Speaker 1: quite frank with you, and that's been the power in this.
Speaker 1: It's like, my obligation or my priority is not you
Speaker 1: loving it. My priority is you feeling it, and you
Speaker 1: can't deny the truth because you are feeling. You might
Speaker 1: not comprehend it. It might not even be your story,
Speaker 1: it might never be your story. But the fact that
Speaker 1: I can sit in it and be like, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is what it is. That's the truth of that's my reality.
Speaker 1: This is my truth. I say with conviction, I say
Speaker 1: with pride, and I say it for no adjustment for
Speaker 1: anyone's ears. He's what it is, and put whatetry allows
Speaker 1: me to channel part of myself that I think I
Speaker 1: would bury in a closet, you know, Like I think
Speaker 1: we all have to put on a certain costume to
Speaker 1: walk out into the world and not be so sensitive
Speaker 1: and be shatted. And I hear that, I understand that
Speaker 1: need for self preservation because outside is not built for
Speaker 1: your inside. Yeah, I hate you, I get it. I'm
Speaker 1: not even mad, But I'm like, when you start to
Speaker 1: put on that mask, even in your own.
Speaker 4: Time, Yeah, when you don't know when to take it off,
Speaker 4: when you lose trust in everybody in their capacity to
Speaker 4: take who you really are, When it hinders your progress,
Speaker 4: your your.
Speaker 1: Peace of mind, when it hinders your alone time, your intimacy,
Speaker 1: your capacity to grow power, comes from self knowledge first
Speaker 1: to capacity to execute without fear that it might not
Speaker 1: be perfect. And it is also the disconnect from time,
Speaker 1: Like there's no such thing as when it will you.
Speaker 1: It will happen when you decide to make it happen.
Speaker 1: It will be a reality once you jules for it
Speaker 1: to be. Now you're reality. And it sounds it sounds
Speaker 1: so like, oh, but we need something deeper. Well, sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to decide to do things scared. Oh, get
Speaker 1: back to me.
Speaker 2: When you do that a hundred percent, do the scary thing.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm like because that is honestly, like,
Speaker 2: that's like where you meet yourself. That's where you go,
Speaker 2: and that's where you meet your power, right because you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my, I can fucking take on, Like I'm so resilient,
Speaker 2: I'm so much more capable than I've than the stories
Speaker 2: that I've told myself, And like I can feel it
Speaker 2: in you, this like deepness within yourself where you just
Speaker 2: want to grab people and be like you can find
Speaker 2: like you are fucking I want you to be able
Speaker 2: to do this for you. I'm not doing shit for you.
Speaker 2: I want you to be able to do this for you,
Speaker 2: like I can see in you and in everyone, what
Speaker 2: I can see in myself and what I can oh
Speaker 2: just that like wanting it for I don't know just
Speaker 2: the empowerment of all I just find it. But I
Speaker 2: want beautiful.
Speaker 1: I want to fool you. I don't want to fool
Speaker 1: me so that it can be for you. Like I'm
Speaker 1: actually so far removed from this equation that you don't
Speaker 1: even understand, like people think it's like I worked so
Speaker 1: hard for things to not be ego form. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: cert to the world is my greater relationship with a
Speaker 1: higher power. I don't take anything tangible from this world
Speaker 1: with me when I'm dust. The only vibration I leave
Speaker 1: in this world is how I make people feel. And
Speaker 1: if I can pick up a nineteen year old girl
Speaker 1: who sings and never thought she could do this as
Speaker 1: a way and again sings the thing, we call it right.
Speaker 1: But it is the capacity to turn your reality into
Speaker 1: vibrations that strangers will want to dance to, not greater
Speaker 1: conversation here. So when I'm like I'm me, I'm able
Speaker 1: to be the mirror that you need at this very
Speaker 1: given point to give you a reminder that you are
Speaker 1: more capable than you think. Because I'm the exception. I
Speaker 1: was supposed to be somewhat buried in with no noise
Speaker 1: and no story, and I made myself the exception. You know,
Speaker 1: I need you to do that because there was somebody
Speaker 1: else watching you that wants to be the exception and
Speaker 1: they don't think that could happen. What if the rule
Speaker 1: became the exception, if people just chose that. Sometimes all
Speaker 1: you need to do is remind people that have the
Speaker 1: capacity to decide, And if you can't do it, I'll
Speaker 1: do it for you, and I will leave you in
Speaker 1: a room that reminds you how great you are, right
Speaker 1: because you need that. And I literally had an interview
Speaker 1: yesterday about my next festival, She Is, and I was
Speaker 1: telling the organization that I'm working with. One thing that's
Speaker 1: super important to me about this show as a collective
Speaker 1: is that I want people to realize the power these
Speaker 1: women have and to see me so much out of
Speaker 1: the story, like it's not about me at all. Right,
Speaker 1: I woult to be able to CoCreate, call me the
Speaker 1: architect in the space that right, let me archetize and
Speaker 1: then let people do what they do. And every show,
Speaker 1: our first show was beautiful when we debriefed. Our second
Speaker 1: show was like one hundred and sixty people sold out.
Speaker 1: Everybody was booming, and I said, listen to the audience.
Speaker 1: We get a paycheck, yes you Cloud Foster, and we
Speaker 1: love that. We will have photos to take home. But
Speaker 1: I would like for you to leave a note for
Speaker 1: the artist, because there's going to be a certain point
Speaker 1: in their career in which this doesn't look like it's
Speaker 1: something they should do anymore. Yeah, I want you to
Speaker 1: give them a reason for whenever time they doubt themselves.
Speaker 1: Whatever you felt in your heart, I want you to
Speaker 1: try to put us whatever words you can to it.
Speaker 1: I have a bag full of eighty to one hundred
Speaker 1: notes from strangers that are dedicated to each artist that
Speaker 1: are like, this is how you made me feel. Do
Speaker 1: not stop. Like it's if we can do that for people.
Speaker 1: When people come to my workship, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: your time to write a letter to yourself that whenever
Speaker 1: you lose connection with who you are, you pick up
Speaker 1: that letter that was written by a past self to
Speaker 1: remind you of way you've come. If you want to heal,
Speaker 1: understand that your past is the evolutionary clap that you
Speaker 1: have for now yesterday, was you clapping for you today? Yes,
Speaker 1: you need that clap. Keep that with you. If you can't,
Speaker 1: put it in a drug closet, seal it and put
Speaker 1: it in your bedroom and you close a room and
Speaker 1: let it out so that it bounces off every wall.
Speaker 1: You feel the greatness that your past self is allowing
Speaker 1: you to have because you have evolved.
Speaker 2: Oh, I feel that in my fucking soul and my boat.
Speaker 2: I was literally going to say, like, you know, like
Speaker 2: this is this chat has been so fucking incredible and
Speaker 2: we probably have to wrap it up soon. And I
Speaker 2: was going to say to you, like, if there's anything
Speaker 2: that you want to you know, feel like you want
Speaker 2: to share, and like encourage it, and I'm like that
Speaker 2: you just didn't. It's even like the past you clapping
Speaker 2: for you, The present you now is so.
Speaker 1: Potent, it's it's it's real. If you remember nothing from
Speaker 1: this conversation you've heard in this podcast, if my name
Speaker 1: bounces and it gets eliminated in air, just remember one
Speaker 1: thing that the version of you that showed up to
Speaker 1: listen to this conversation needed this message and needed to
Speaker 1: hear that your value is not determined by your capacity
Speaker 1: to always be perfect. It is how you show up
Speaker 1: for yourself consistently despite the imperfection. So if there is
Speaker 1: a way for you to set up fuel and protein
Speaker 1: for yourself to keep rising out of your own despair,
Speaker 1: do it. If you can pick up a pen right
Speaker 1: after listening to this podcast and write a love letter
Speaker 1: to yourself and keep it in your room. If there
Speaker 1: is a way for you to seal your laughter and
Speaker 1: put it in a jar so that when you are crying,
Speaker 1: you remind yourself that you have been happy before and
Speaker 1: you can go back to that. If there is a
Speaker 1: way for you to get a snapshot of every moment
Speaker 1: that reminds you of your humanity. If you can just
Speaker 1: walk into the street and remember, honestly, I believe the
Speaker 1: last innocent thing that we have constant is a child's smile.
Speaker 1: That's one of the last innocent things that continues to
Speaker 1: be pure. Please completely fill yourself with as much ammo
Speaker 1: to be the greatest version of yourself, because you deserve that.
Speaker 1: It is not how you show up for others. It
Speaker 1: is how you show up when the audience is gone,
Speaker 1: when there is nobody at the table, when there is
Speaker 1: no one beside you, when there is nobody holding you
Speaker 1: when your affirmation to yourself far exceeds the world. How
Speaker 1: valuable you are is not determined by this great level
Speaker 1: stance that you have to be in this high position
Speaker 1: at all times. We connect with realness. Your capacity to
Speaker 1: smile at a stranger, to show up, to allow your
Speaker 1: soul to cry and clean itself of everything that was
Speaker 1: yesterday for tomorrow is who you are. So forget who
Speaker 1: to the goddess, forget the poetry, remember that our intrinsic
Speaker 1: need is to be seen, is to be valued, It's
Speaker 1: to be honored as our whole reality. Your imperfection is
Speaker 1: exactly what is those world needs for its vibration to
Speaker 1: Can you continue to be perfect? So just do that, commit
Speaker 1: to that and choose that for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so unbelievably much, thank you. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I've like I have literally cried like fifteen times. Every
Speaker 2: single word felt like even like for me personally, felt
Speaker 2: like something I literally needed to hear. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: there are so many other people listening right now who've
Speaker 2: probably cried as many times as I have and have
Speaker 2: just needed to hear all of those words, and just
Speaker 2: like the absolute just that's like that's just channeling and
Speaker 2: it's just at its absolute call, Like that's we just
Speaker 2: watched it happen. We just watched you just like speak
Speaker 2: from your body, from your truth, from wherever it came from,
Speaker 2: and the trust that you had for it, and like
Speaker 2: it fucking pays off because when you're listening and you're like,
Speaker 2: those words felt like they were for me. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Tudor. You really are just such a blessing
Speaker 2: to this world and your words are just so fucking
Speaker 2: potent and powerful.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for being the architect in your
Speaker 1: own space and exhibiting and creating the space for people
Speaker 1: to also have their power that sometimes is not always
Speaker 1: celebrated be highlighted. I think there is such magic in
Speaker 1: this space and its own creation and also me feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can be my whole, full self and like not
Speaker 1: to say that I ever need permission, because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do what at the hell I want to do, but
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. It's been an
Speaker 1: absolute honor.
Speaker 2: Oh You're amazing. Thank you. How can people how can
Speaker 2: they find you? Like what shows are coming up? How
Speaker 2: can they see you? How can they stalk you in
Speaker 2: like a not a crazy way, but just like just
Speaker 2: an adorable way.
Speaker 1: Well who to the goddess everywhere? But Instagram is the
Speaker 1: easiest way to find where I am because also I
Speaker 1: have raging ADHD, so my ability to tell you ahead
Speaker 1: of time is not good.
Speaker 2: Not that fine, girl, We'll put that, We'll put it
Speaker 2: in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I hope, yeah, whoever I reach and maybe
Speaker 1: I'll see some people on the other side.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so so much.