Even if I started to tell you about this journey in detail, I would not be able to tell you even two percent. Because these emotions and experiences are not reflected in words. They are too deep, multilayered, ambiguous, changeable, and so real.
My trip to the art residency mixed everything, combined with each other in an elusive mixture that cannot be conveyed or shown, which can only be remembered with gratitude and love.
I'm grateful to have come here now, just like this, at this time, and with these people. My time here included everything, even Buddhist stupas, Crimean pines, the sweet smell of the evening air, otherworldly portals that everyone had heard about but no one had seen, magical crystals that only the chosen few could step inside, magical fragrant plants, healing multi-colored smoke, memories of the past and dreams, devils and demons that peered out of the windows of Grandma Zina's house but were afraid to come to us because we would dissolve them with our light, a huge number of stars and unidentified flying objects, morning coffee and afternoon siesta, tattoos and cigarettes, sketches and paintings, a snake that caught a fish, choked on it, and died right in the water, homemade flint knives, pieces of Trypillian jugs, pizza, banosh, pancakes, borscht, dumplings with bacon, bitter cucumbers, pancakes, homemade raspberry jam, a summer shower, the smell of a fire from a shirt, a roommate who brought coffee from the store in the morning, stories that have neither beginning nor end, hands and clothes stained with paint, pupils dilated with happiness, hair that he cut off my head and the birds took it to make nests for themselves.
I went on this journey with strangers, and I am returning from it with friends who suddenly became close to me, different, and so very much my own. I may miss the courageous shaman warrior, the deep conversations, the unity of thoughts, the love that emerges and immediately dissolves in the hot air, the clear light water that washed away everything superfluous and gave us presence here and now.
We had the opportunity to stop time, exhale, take a break, and deal with old thoughts. The ones that should have been buried in the ground or burned long ago.
I brought with me sacred ashes to be smeared on my forehead and heart, ancient mantras that God chanted when he created the world, a stone that contains another stone inside, dried plants, zucchini, kohlrabi, a book about Bakota, drawings by friends that I will frame, a bouquet of lavender, and a ring with sodalite to protect me.
I will also take with me the desire to stay here forever, to buy Baba Zina's house and drive out demons from it, to bring my cats and dogs there, to put straw to make it soft and warm, to hang hammocks and dream catchers, to protect this place like the Guardian protects the Sacred Portal.
This journey healed me, helped me to remember myself, to feel that I should not mold myself, not sharpen myself, not create myself, but listen to what I am. Bakota gave me the strength to gather the lost fragments of my soul, to put them together, and invite them to become me again. I will now be whole and complete, strong and powerful, and very brave.
So far I have started sleeping again, listening to music, and dancing, and I am very much looking forward to kissing again.