Fire and the Moon
When Kaya approached me to shoot this look book for her jewelry brand Fire and the Moon she had one phrase stuck in her head (which to me is a sign that it should not be ignored), “feral mountain puss.” A crass and visceral connection to the earth and the most impactful friendships in her life. The thing is, I knew exactly what she meant when she said it. The feeling of completely embracing your self and rejecting expectations, the feeling of digging deep into the earth and knowing you belong there but feeling so alien to the expectations of society.
“Our little feet squishing through the mud, hands grasping at cat tails and cola caballo for stability.”
It made me think about being seven-years-old sitting in the purple pansy filled back yard at my great grandmothers home. My younger sister and I would collect dandelion buds, shake ants out of the pink peonies and grind them together with dirt and water. These potions sustained our imaginations and filled our mud-caked hands. This thing, this connection to the wild self was there. It was there too, when we would walk the irrigation ditches along the edge of our grandfathers farm. Our little feet squishing through the mud, hands grasping at cat tails and cola caballo for stability.
“In the Oxford English Dictionary the word FERAL derives from Latin FER…meaning “wild beast.” In common usage, a feral creature is one who was once wild, then domestication, who had reverted back to a natural or untamed state once again.”
In her book “Women Who Run With the Wolves,” Clarissa Pinkola Estes postulates that the feral woman has lost her natural ability to avoid danger and can easily become prey. In other words, her intuition has been gaslit until she lost touch with this internal compass. She goes on to explain that these things can be relearned, but like with any healthy growth, there will be pains.
“A feral woman is not strong enough to carry a longed-for archetype for everyone else without breaking. A feral woman is supposed to be immersed in a healing process. We don’t ask a recovering person to carry the piano upstairs. A woman who is returning has to have time to strengthen.”
I often tell people I am in “a state of becoming.” This means connecting to that little girl playing witches and explorers with her sister. This collection of images for Fire and the Moon taps into that feeling. We asked the women in this photography to embrace their inner child in celebration of Kaya’s art. With the wide eyes of a child, we asked each other to play. We walked through a dry thorny field, into leech-infested waters and emerged more able to take care of not only each other but our child selves.
Kaya, Aubrey, Jess and Alex: thank you for trusting the process. Witnessing your feral selves emerge into wild womxn (and quite literally meeting the archetype of a WILD WOMAN in the form of Lavender Lori) was truly a gift I will never forget. Also, many many thanks to Lori for allowing us to play on her land.
You can find the gorgeous jewelry made by Kaya here: Fire and the Moon.
