If I somehow forget who I am in some sort of tragic remembering accident, sit me outside on a cool October morning to remember me back. Let the wet of the browned and yellowed leaves fall at my feet and re-mother me into time once more. Place offerings of honey water and heart-shaped wild potato…
Becoming Space
I am creating more space for myself to just be, I shared with her when asked my intention for this moment, this season ahead.I want to soften into more space, become space. I repeated the words on the screen in my mind as I hit send, half checking-in to ensure this was in fact something…
Our Careful Tending: A project for Art in the Heart funded by the City of Asheville
I am incredibly honored to have been selected as one of 11 artists to bring creative healing work to the former Vance Monument area in downtown Asheville. The goal of this work being created for ‘Art in the Heart’ is to “unite, heal, and strengthen the community” to usher in a new era beyond the…
Forgive Me
Forgive me. I once struggled to understand. What happens to a body When it’s no longer in the form I’ve been taught to know and tend a body. Forgive me. I’ve since learned That it can live in the wilted bed of morning glories. It can shape-shift from seed to womb to light. It will…
If The River Don’t Rise
If the river don’t rise I’ll come on down the mountain. Show up with all the grit born into my bones From a life of bologna sandwiches angry men and the kindness of neighbors. I know how to show up. I tried my hand at Granny’s potato salad for you. If only you could see…
Allowing the Way
Remember early summer afternoonsGathering honey branches?Carry them forwardin the folds of your light body.A feathered lanternAllowing its wayInto this unknown.Carry themAs they warm the wayOthers have walkedOthers have carried their heavy selvesInto the dark wombTo lie down and listen.
What if the Future is Soft?
Remember that summer that came in so hot.We stripped down and ran to the river every day.We gave up on workin to bathe one another’s tired bodiesBaptize ourselves in the Holy River that runs wide through our mountain valley home.Remember how we gave up on owning our plot to sew our post-pandemic seeds together?20 seconds…
Into an Unknown Sun
Do we not sow our seeds into once fallow soil with hope for what could be born?Anxious with the knowing of what has come before, with its wet roots outstretched.With its tender off-shoots of joy and sorrow.Sending themselves upwards and outwards.Against all odds into an unknown sun.And we return to nourish the composted darkness with…
Stretching Your Celestial Body
Do you sometimes rise at 3 a.m. with us and wonder– where to stretch the tips of your celestial body when it has outgrown its shell? Do you look around and find the slips and circles of us glittering and glowing in our amorphous forms? Perhaps catching the thick of one piece in motion the…
Eighth Generation Ballad Singer Donna Ray Norton Shares Life Growing Up Singing in Sodom
When young Byard Ray was all of seven years old growing up in the remote Madison County town of Revere, it’s said that he would sneak his mother’s fiddle away to learn how to “tease out a tune” while no one was looking. It should not have been a surprise when his mother and father…
Tiffany Narron 