I have always been a seeker, eager to know and dissolve my inner walls. Eager as an immigrant to find bridges between my birth and adopted countries. Eager as an artist to build a community of kindred peers within our diverse New York City metropolis and beyond. As woman and guide and gatherer, I’ve thrived on connecting people to themselves and to each other.
I am because we are. —Zulu saying
Humanity is at a juncture between stories. We are right now in the tight squeeze that precedes the next great blooming. The question is: Will we resist or will we re-create? The tide is swelling (quite literally), there is no going back. With everything at stake, will we write the new story for humankind?
It begins with me as it begins with you. I can’t be and do for you what I have not first been and done for myself. Only when I have learned to give to myself can I give to you, learned to receive from myself can I receive from you. ME-ONE. And so it is for you and everyone else, and a circle grows.
I envisioned this website from left to right beginning with ME (the “I AM’ as Singer and Writer), and turning to YOU (as witness and as Guide), and moving together as US (in Gathering).
Evolution is an ever-expanding series of circles of me and you and we…turning and returning and returning. Shoulder to shoulder we walk and we gather each other up. Healing ourselves is essential to healing each other to healing our world to being healed by our world, by each other and by ourselves. Life is a continuum from the peaks of bliss to the valleys of suffering and back again. Everything is for our use and evolution.
In the same spirit, art is life and life is art. We are its master and it is our masterpiece. Saying YES to life is our essential means to both awaken and thrive. We recognize our guides for they are on the same path to where we’re feeling called next. We recognize the call to art firstly as a call to self, and from there as a call to serving others. We dig into our past, our core and our wounds to transmute them. We sift and sift through every gift of our rude awakenings. We are Rudewoke. Together we’re writing the new story of our delicate planet.
As our human family has developed the means to connect, geographically, culturally and technologically, the physical distances between us has shrunken. Curiosity has only grown and with it longing. The longing for true connection, eyeball to eyeball. The longing for deep listening and really being heard. Touching and being touched. That is living and there is an art to it which is grounded in this mantra: Everything is in service to life and to bringing us all to Life.