Mirrors and Mothers was inspired by my first week of ayahuasca ceremonies in 2019, one that told me I have ability and possibility to be a mother, and another that left me glued to the floor for 12 hours where I was unable to get up. In that time i tried to heal the entire jewish lineage, whatever that means, until people began praying over me and begged me to put it down and call in the light for myself. I acted as a sacrifice i felt gutted like a fish before i began anew, again whatever that means. I was shown the afterlife a swirling computer of magnificence ships carrying souls, it felt very hindu and egyptian, the samsara maybe. I was told this is where you go when you take your life, it felt lonely. It may have been the Nakara realm, a temporary purgatory or hell-like realm where souls work off negative karma. It didn’t feel like love. i was shown the fabric of existence and that I reincarnated into this world, this world with this genocide (maybe there are different genocides in other worlds- as there are infinite worlds) and I couldn’t understand why I would agree to come to a place that has genocide. I was shown a “you are here” on the infinite map and then dropped back into the room and back into my reality, with the message being “you create your own reality.” I was only able to get up twice and both times it was to hug another woman. One of those times I got up to hug my islamic sister in ceremony and an infinite number of swastikas vibrated outwards and dissolved. It was the only time I reached for the bucket, uncertain I could comprehend the tragedy I was trying to heal in that moment.

I believe in love. The devastation of not believing in love and reaching for love is incomprehensible. Always push your capacity to love more

I wrote this poem a couple years before my sister become pregnant with her first child whose lineage is Jewish and Palestinian.

I learn to untangle snakes

species that build and tear

I still oscillate between

bless and curse

scream and rest

protect and ruin

I learn to untangle snakes.

I listen for a scream like I scream

the sound of uproot into a softening

I hold onto self sacrifice like a weapon against injustice

like it is my only weapon

like you do not walk this path alone sister.

and to be vulnerable my womb feels ripe

she speaks to me

she shares a love story of creation

I feel my ability to love and protect grow with these visions

I wish I knew who I was my whole life

If I knew who I was my whole life I would have treated myself differently

So instead I wish for this to be mirror.

My dad was raised by an immigrant father who survived the Holocaust and moved to the Catskills. My family in Poland and in New York were all butchers and milkmen. And in a way they were also comedians with impeccable timing, constantly telling jokes. Their approval of me meant everything and I learned how to make them laugh. I eventually became a comedian myself and toured in my early 20’s with a set about how I was raised by fuckboys, being my uncle was iconically also a stripper ahem, chippendales dancer in the 80s. And my dad was an account with a classic car with a license plate that reads “Be a man”.