Broken and battered

Posted on Instagram on November 12, 2018

Life feels like wading through dense, milky waters.
It feels like being pulled down, and then it feels like reaching the surface again for a gasp - a taste of oxygen.
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I am so tired.
So tired in so many ways, that even being present, being online, talking, functioning feels like a massive task.
I work slower than usual.
The list of messages awaiting grows.
I have moments when I tell my bf to not talk with me, to just let me sit here and spin wool, because I have nothing to give, mentally or emotionally.
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Guilt tries to grasp me with its cold fingers.
But I am doing the work.
The work of healing.
The work of facing pain and traumas that I bottled up for twenty years and more.
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I am trying to be brave - and it hurts - and it's exhausting.
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This ring has been in the works for more than a week. A proof of my being very slow.
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This ring is how I feel.
It is now finished and photographed, and as I write this my throat hurts for how loud I wailed this morning while I tried to set the stone.
The ugly cry of the seven year old me.
Her pain and loss and anger and loneliness.
And my tears and rage with hers, for what they did to her, for how it shaped the landscape of my life.
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This ring is how I feel.
Battered and broken and patched up in all the places.
Broken open.
With a teary gem in the middle - aquamarine, because, once again, water, water. Water that is working its healing on me with its presence in tears and rain and feelings of going under.
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Broken and battered and so fucking imperfect and hopefully still with beauty - because I have to believe there is beauty in this process, in between the folds of anger and pain. I have to search for that beauty and sing it. .
Sterling silver and aquamarine, a slightly abundant size 8.5 US, and I wish to send it to someone who needs its odd, empathetic comfort.

SAFE

Posted on Instagram on November 3, 2018

I woke up at the crack of dawn, strangled by heavy anxiety.
It's been a while.
It scared me.
It made me want to make it go away.
It sent my mind in a spiral of doom.
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I went to work. Finding shelter and relief between metal and stones.
I had no clue about what to create, I just knew I needed to evoke the feeling of safety I so needed.
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I let it all go, because it was the only way. I didn't plan. I melted and hammered pieces of silver, I fused them together, surrendering. Trusting.
As the anxiety slowly melted away a little, the piece started to take shape.
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It's a bit of a nest - a bit of a cave - a bit of a safe embrace. A place to sink into, curl up and feel a spark of comfort in the midst of discomfort.
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I had fabricated that little sleeping lady more than a month ago, and she has lived on my bench since then. She now has a place.
A soft spot with darkness and light, feather and leaves, the watery presence of Aquamarine and the pink love of Tourmaline - courage, dear heart!
The back is a glory of melted surface, textured by chaos, on which I carved symbolized tiny stars - almost invisible, if you don't pay attention - to remind that I am made of stardust.
I belong.
I am part of it all.
I am safe.
I can give myself comfort in the middle of pain.
Softness.

RISE

Posted on Instagram on October 25, 2018

The truth is, I have been deep in self sabotaging.
It started with issues with my relatives, that acted as triggers for a lot of mechanisms I carry since childhood.
They clashed with the new way I am learning to live and behave.
It went on with the psychosomatic party, pain discomfort and all shades in between.
When it ended, when I could have been ready to get back to work - my refuge, my joy - I felt so tired. I told myself it was normal. I waited.
Two weeks later I have done nothing but being silent online, knitting and destroying what I knit (never good enough) and basically running around in circles feeling helpless and quite confused.
It feels very awkward and uncomfortable for me when I can't reach my creative vein in a way or another.
Today after my therapy session my eyes were painfully open. It helped me to realise what I have been doing. I created depression.
See, one of the patterns I had programmed in me is that if you are weak - sick - you get attention. Or you use it to make others feel guilty. When the issue with the relatives happened, a part of me was like "ok know what? I'm gonna have a breakdown so that you'll see how you hurt me!!!". And my sane part said nope buddy, that's only gonna hurt yourself.
But what happened without my awareness is that I put that pattern to work in a subtle way. I closed off creativity, my main source of joy and meaning and self esteem...bringing myself to a place of being shut at home, away from the online community, alone, weak, confused.
So today I forced myself. Literally forced. To go to work. Something ugly may have come out. Fine.
After a first moment of wtf this sucks, I saw it.
I had vision in my mind again!
And I saw this ring.
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This ring is a promise.
I promise to not forget that I can rise. And rise again.
I promise not to forget that I can soar high.
I promise to keep showing up.
I may fall and fail but I promise not to forget. Not anymore.

A Place for Tears

Posted on Instagram on October 7, 2018

"It's no coincidence that our tears are made of salt water and salt water heals wounds. So cry until your eyes burn; your soul knows how to heal itself."
(Amelia Jane)
💙
I am being brutally tested.
Stumbling and pushing against shame, humiliation, lack of love.
Asking for what I need and deserve.
Doors slammed in my face.
Refusing to bow my head again. As I used to. As I was taught to.
Undeserving unworthy "too much" little Alice.
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And all the feels.
Fluctuating and sinking between sadness and anger and hurt and rage.
What I learned is that I must embrace these emotions. If I refuse to feel them, because they are unpleasant, they will pile up inside of me and become worse.
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So this is a place for tears.
Born with the Dark Moon already pulling at my hair.
Born in sorrow and rage.
Lovingly crafted in tears. Almost broken once in rage and frustration.
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On one side, the Moon. Wild and powerful, Queen.
On the other side a hollow space with a Seeing Heart, filled with salt water and crystals.
Pink tourmaline. May your heart be safe.
Blue Apatite. May your throat be open to let your wails out.
Garnet. May your blood run strong through you.
Herkimer diamond quartz. May your vision be cleaned by your tears.
A pinch of dirt. From where we come. The home to our bodies.

Regina Earrings

Posted on Instagram on October 8, 2018

What power do I have?
How can I overcome years of my head being pushed down, forced to bow and shut up?
How can I change the patterns of my mind, so that I stop walking down the old paths that say I deserve it?
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This morning the answer for me was to make earrings that made me feel a Queen (Regina, in Italian).
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Loops with dangles that would dance and remind myself to hold my head high.
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Battered textured primal hoops with snakes wrapped around them.
With a wing - rise, rise, rise!
With a Fox fang - to call the cunning, the walking between the worlds, the power of the beautiful animal that so many don't welcome and hunt down. Still She lives. Wild.
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And I wear them and I remember my newborn backbone.
I tell myself I don't have to become, I am already enough. I am good. I am marvelous.
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It doesn't matter if I don't believe it every minute. I'm going to fake it until I get it. .