portal to emergence

remembering a place's past can be a window to the possibilities of its future

Willow Gatewood is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and writer from the East Coast of the US. Their work weaves themes of ecology, gender, and social issues with an autobiographical exploration of nature. Willow is currently working towards a degree in Environment and Sustainability, and recent projects include the biosonification of plants and fungi.

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“Dissonance is produced by any landscape that enchants in the present but has been a site of  violence in the past. But to read such a place only for its dark histories is to disallow its  possibilities for future life, to deny reparation or hope — and this is another kind of oppression.” 

~ Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey 

I. How to feel the past  
how can one comprehend  
what is older than existence  

is existence memory? / memory  
absent, can something exist?  

the universe remembers itself  
like earth holds 
time as a photobook 

lay in damp grass. watch the dizzy sky, star-spun,  
remember  
moving magma,  
under 
your skin, hold the sweet bitter of lemon peel on your tongue,  
pry your lips open mouth,  
release the magma into a gentle wind.  

the history of your body is written in 
geology remembering.  

II. How to remember the future  
slow to the speed of  
breathing ice,  

we watch a restless Earth 
alive with the tides of rock.  

portal to emergence  
— wet our lips on the cup 
and drink possibilities  

of worlds to come.

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