things unearthed

imperfection, grief, dreaming amid a world on fire

TLDR: Austin books are open, I have a cool part time job as a woodworker/welder, December guest spot in Oakland, I will be offering discounts on flash for the rest of the year (scroll to the bottom to submit a form).

It has been over a year since I sent out a newsletter. Many many drafts have been started, but this is the first one that ever made it out to publish. I don’t think I am a natural writer..it is a tiring, consuming and frustrating endeavor. Nearly everything I write feels contrived and silly when I read it back later.

It does not help that this platform is where I feel the most responsibility to myself and to those who read this to be vulnerable and real. But I believe (and forget, and then remember again while in a knock-down drag-out with myself) that the point is not the product, it is what I uncover about myself in the writing.

I was sharing about this struggle with a dear friend a few days ago and they reminded me that even if something doesn’t feel true or right to me in a week or two, it really hit when I wrote it. And that is enough. You do not need to be a good writer to write. Writing is a practice in letting myself be unfinished, imperfect, & misunderstood.

Feeling misunderstood has been a major theme for me this past year in my relationships. For a while, I isolated myself as a defense mechanism, avoiding things that might invite scrutiny from myself or others (such as here). It has challenged my sense of self and has demanded that I become okay with someone else’s experience of me not matching my understanding of myself.

I have been finding comfort in this quote from the description for the “Star” tarot card in the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck.

“..You may still believe you can control how other perceive [you]. You are only responsible for being your whole self. Shining honestly. Trust that you will be misunderstood. And trust even the power of perception to shape the reality of those who witness you.”

I have learned to not take it so personally. As much as I might try or want to, I cannot manage what I bring up in other people, and I cannot fix the wounds my presence might illuminate.

I have found deep healing in navigating this journey alongside my dear friend. It has been hard! Some of our deepest shadows have been revealed. And we are being accountable to them, and holding them with love. It is such a gift of trust.

dreaming amid a world on fire

My studio mates, Alfren and AnaLuz, have gotten into journaling in a really big way these last view months. I recently introduced them to passion planning, a practice that helped me to gain the momentum to begin tattooing over 6 years ago. The basic idea is that you have a journal or planner that acts as a guide to help you uncover and keep track of your goals (big and small). You can buy the official planner if you want, but you don’t really need it unless lots of formatted structure is your thing.

After several months of steady dedication on their part, Alfren and Ana named that they didn’t see me doing the curriculum with them. Alfren said something along the lines of “El, are you avoiding your dreams? Are you avoiding the future?”

I was. I was avoiding it because I felt ashamed to dream amidst the scale of such global suffering. What about all of the dreams of the people in Gaza or Sudan, alive and martyred? The people kidnapped by ICE, taken from their families and disappeared? Who is granted the luxury of dreaming, and who is just trying to survive? All of this is on purpose. While the rich get richer, the world makers want us eating the scraps, stumbling about our lives glued to our phones and numb, dreaming up our individualistic disconnected futures, and buying new shiny things until the war machine is eventually turned back on all of us. I am so angry.

But underneath the anger, I am afraid. If I really put all of my energy into imagining and building a future I wanted to inhabit, only for it to get destroyed again and again, would be too devastating. My brain decided that if I don’t dream, I can’t be disappointed.

I am fortunate to have friends that call attention to my patterns. No amount of avoidance will protect me from loss. There is a grief we will always carry from knowing everything we love we will lose.

Yesterday I went on a hike with some of my family. Me and my nephew (7) were lagging behind, stopping to look at and smell all the plants along the trail. I don’t hold back my excitement about plants when we’re together, and it seems that he has caught the bug. I watched, laughing, as he stuffed his pockets with seeds, and then tossed them out as he walked to, “help the flowers make new flowers!”

We do not need to try to carry the work of becoming the people we want to be, or imagining a different future alone. I am in a vast constellation of stars, young and old. A infinite mycelial network, ever-learning, ever-growing, dying and emerging anew. There will always be young people, imagining, hoping, dreaming - ready to carry the torch forward. So might as well do my part - healing my wounds, trying new ways of being, preparing the soil.

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” - Rabindranath Tagore

second job

I started a second job last fall! I figured it was about time I talked about it. I have been doing woodworking and welding for some local fabricators in town.

I am excited to be embarking in these trades because a) tattooing is financially precarious right now & I have needed another source of income and b) I am gaining hard skills that can be of service to my friends, family, neighbors in the future :-)

I am at a very humbling place in my journey. I am making a lot of mistakes and realizing just how little I know. It has been hot and exhausting, I have had less energy to put towards tattooing, and I don’t think I have consumed this many electrolyte drinks since middle school soccer. But I am lucky to be learning from really patient and skilled coworkers and am so grateful to have had an overall generous welcoming into this trade. I hope I can eventually do my part in passing down the knowledge. Planting the metaphorical tree if you will.

Without further ado, here are some announcements…

new flash :-)

Here is all my most recent flash. Booking is open for the rest of the year! You can submit a request by clicking the button below. 20% off all flash for the rest of the year as a little present to you. <3

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bay area guest spot!

I will be tattooing in Oakland at Thorns Tattoo December 23rd (& possibly the 26th). Tell your friends and submit a form below :-)

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passion planning workshop

We are hosting a free workshop at our tattoo studio, Nhà Mágica on December 12th. Follow our instagram to get updates on how to sign up :-)

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When I feel lost and confused, I try to look to the wisdom of plants. I am listening to the wisdom of the seasons, the mushrooms, the dark fecund soil of decomposition. Fungi are the caretakers, the guides between life and death. They are organisms that thrive not based on individuality or competition, but on interconnection and mutuality. They know the deep dark, and know it takes time in the depths to build rich fertile soil. Mushrooms are wise companions in grief.

Thank you for reading this far.

May the long nights be a fertile home for your grief to crack you open, and for your dreams to germinate in the darkness.

<3 El

What I’m reading:

• The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - measured and complex, set in a world where the gender binary doesn’t exist. Everything I read of Le Guin leaves me something to chew on.

• Dungeon Crawler Carl - silly, timely, like a video game in book form. As heartbreaking as it is light. I am on the 6th book.

What I’m listening to:

• The Long Dark with Francis Weller - interview on grief, shame, and how descent into the dark can lead to transformation.

• don’t text me back - Rowena Fysk (album)

• Vendrán Suaves Lluvias - Silvana Estrada (album)

• Thoughts of You - Salvator Dragatto (album)