While scrolling through Instagram, I came across “Some Girls” documentary. I was excited to finally find a film that focused on depression in teen Latina-Americans, something I wished existed when I was in high school with depression. That day I texted Kelly Duarte, The Strange is Beautiful’s media and pop culture contributor, and we met up to watch it together for free on Kanopy, a video streaming service for public libraries. Though the documentary has a lot of great things about it, such as bringing awareness to this under represented and under researched issue, we were disappointed because it ignored many root reasons of why Latina-American teens are more likely to get depression, and disagreed with the creator’s choice to use DNA testing as a means of healing – especially because they claim it helped them, yet they never had depression.
Loneliness is something I’ve struggled with for…majority of my life. I think to an extent everyone feels lonely from time to time, but the intensity differs. Mine can get, uhh, bad. Since I was in third grade, my friends have either moved away, decided to not be my friend anymore, developed romantic feelings for me that they couldn’t separate from our friendship, stopped hanging out with me when I stopped playing shows (I used to organize music shows and play them too), didn’t want to deal with my mind obstacles anymore, or I had put too much on them to take care of me. A therapist at the
Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Audre Lorde Health Program
There are many different ways to meditate that have been proven to calm your anxiety, depression or other mind obstacles, and to ground you. Some people like guided ones, where a person is speaking for the entire time and tells them what to do or visualize. Others enjoy practicing in silence, and simply letting the mind journey and wander to wherever it needs to explore. “Processes: A Meditation,” a zine by Terra Olvr (she/they) that I bought at their San Francisco Zine Fest table in 2018, is an inbetween option. For each set of pages, there’s one philosophical sentence on the right-hand page that seems to both acknowledge daily mistakes and struggles, and to encourage taking healthier choices of self-love. And on the left-hand page, there’s a drawing representing what it would look like in a meditative physical form or “how the verses live in the body,” said Olvr.
Personally, I deeply resonated with a few of their verses, and often meditated on one of them for a whole week. Here are four of my favorites: 1. “Endless compassion that destroys my ability to protect myself.”
2. “Having everything we need despite appearances.”
3. “Staring at the sound of my own heartbeat.”
4. “Discernment between impulse and appropriate action.” While their verses allow space for the mind to roam, they’re also a starting point offering reassurance, and an intimate feeling that the author feels your feels – they get you, they’ve been there, you’re not alone in these dark times because you are with their healing spirit.
Terra Olvr is a writer, poet, and author (“And Still To Sleep,” “An Old Blue Light,” “Processes: A Meditation”), and the founding editor of Recenter Press. Throughout their life, Olvr has followed a spiritual path including studying in ashrams and monasteries, practicing nonviolent communication and Vipassana (a meditation technique emphasizing “to see things as they really are”), wandering naturally into new habitats in eco-communities, India, China, SF and now Philadelphia, and completing a pilgrimage. In their work they “explore unlearning toxic conditioning, mindfulness, working through experiences of trauma and exploitation, and collective liberation.” Below, Olvr talks about the deep meaning of their zine “Processes: A Meditation,” the impact their experience in China had in creating it, and how they hope it will support the healing of those who read it.
Mini Q&A with Terra Olvr
Tell us about your zine.
These illustrated verses are a witnessing of one’s self, in all that we have, in all that we’ve lost, in all that’s on its way to us. Processes: A Meditation unravels a small, unclouded window into a life in reflection of itself, as energy felt through the body, with the intent to bring the reader back to their awareness; their spiritual center.
Why did you make this zine?
I wrote Processes: A Meditation during an artist residency at The Schoolhouse of Mutianyu at the Great Wall of China in March of 2017. Each verse entered my awareness as I walked through Beijing, Mutianyu, and the Great Wall; they were some of the only pieces of clarity I could grasp onto while I was working through the overwhelming emotional and directional energy of a crisis. I think the verses of the book encapsulate some of the subtleties of my feelings, critically reflect on my decision-making process, and also serve as a motivator for the re-orientation of my life-path. The illustrations for the book were made nearly half a year later, after I moved to Philadelphia to rebuild my internal / external foundation, and are an attempt to show how the verses live in the body.
How do you hope your zine will help others?
In witnessing my own internal dialogue and emotional processing, and finding similarities or sameness in that, I hope that readers feel empowered to cultivate their own self-vigilance, to continue to untangle self-negation, and to develop deeper trust in themselves.
At the base of Mt. Fuji, there’s a well known Japanese forest known as Aokigahara or Jukai, which means “sea of trees.” The most popular name for it is the “suicide forest.” This is not a tourist destination, it is a mass grave. In what seems to be such a bleak place, there is a suicide patrol. One of the members is the focus of the documentary “Suicide Forest In Japan.”
Azusa Hayano is a geologist that studies Mt. Fuji and the surrounding area. This is how he began patrolling the forest in order to prevent suicides. At first glance, the forest looks beautiful and tranquil. No one would know that this is a popular place for suicide until they stepped into the forest. However, this soon becomes evident due to the many methods meant to deter people from ending their lives in Jukai. Signs are posted in front of the main trail, urging people that suicide is not the answer as well as listing the hotline number for Suicide Prevention. Long, trailing ropes are around many of the trees, so people can find their way back if they get lost. Finally, volunteers like Azusa Hayano comb the forest.
Communication is such a powerful tool, according to Hayano. As the crew wander the forest, Hayano describes a moment which he was able to calm a young man after he attempted suicide. Hayano and the man talked for more than an hour, until the man decided to go back home. Over the course of the documentary, you start to see how much compassion Hayano has. During their trek, the group stumbles across a man in a tent. Vice’s camera crew keeps their distance out of respect but you are able to catch a bit of their conversation. Hayano asks about the man’s well-being. There are no accusations. Hayano simply tells the man, “I hope you’re okay. I’m just trying to prevent suicides. Please take this way back.” Hayano points to the trail that leads out of the forest. When Hayano comes upon a stuffed animal nailed upside down to a tree, he tries to figure out why someone would do that. “I think this person was tortured by society,” he reasons. One of the most distressing scenes is when a skeleton is discovered. Hayano is visibly upset but also says he feels sorry for the victims of suicide. It’s these moments that show that Hayano deeply cares about people and is trying to stop them from ending their lives. As a scientist, he’s trying to find a reason these things happen in the Jukai in order to stop them. Although he is a geologist, he studies the Jukai because he is fascinated by human behavior. “I was curious why people kill themselves in such a beautiful forest. I still haven’t found the answer to that.”
As the crew follows Hayano around, he starts to discuss why so many commit suicide. His theory? Face to face communication has been rendered obsolete. Extreme isolation is such a phenomenon with young people in Japan that the word “hikikomori,” social withdrawal, was created to describe it.
“We still need to see each other’s faces, read their expressions, hear their voices, so we can fully understand their emotions,” says Hayano.
Yesika Salgado, also known as Yesika Starr, has the honor of being one of the few poets that can actually fuck me up with words. With the recent release of “Corazón,” her first book, I wanted to look back on other works from Salgado. “Sentimental Boss Bitch,” a chapbook, was self-published this year. It’s eighteen pages long. In those eighteen pages there’s love, joy, longing, pain, heartbreak and of course, learning how to be a sentimental boss bitch.
In a previous post, I mentioned how the body is one of the many recurring themes from Salgado, however, these poems are more about the interaction between body and feeling. She explores why we do certain things with our bodies because of our emotions and how the perception of the body is dependent on someone’s worldview. In her poem “Fat and Sexy,” Salgado challenges the notion that you can’t be both. “Like beautiful and cellulite / can’t kiss thighs” is one of my favorite stanzas from the poem because it subverts the stereotypical idea of beauty – the impossible standard that makes almost every girl feel like shit at one point in their lives. Yesika Salgado basically tells those ideas to fuck off with her poetry.
Overall, “Sentimental Boss Bitch” fills a tiny space with an abundance of prose and feelings. You could flip through the book with your eyes closed and pick a random line and no matter what it says, that line would always mean be beautiful. If you ever get a chance to read any of Yesika Salgado’s chapbooks, I would highly recommend checking this one out first. You may emerge from it as a sentimental boss bitch yourself. If anything, you can leave with one of the lines from the chapbook that I look at constantly, a self-love reminder.
