Metamorphosis Booklet

Metamorphosis A SHARED EXPERIENCE AROUND GRIEF

Visual Sensing designer: Anna Maggi Editorial overview: Anna Cabré-Verdiell Bosch Artistic director: Crystal Zillwood

“While the caterpillar goes about its earth-crawling business, these cells, deep inside, are imagining flight. The caterpillar’s immune system believes these imaginal cells are foreign and tries to destroy them, not unlike the way uninitiated human egos and their egocentric cultures often try to destroy the soul, nature, and the feminine. It’s as if the caterpillar doesn’t realize its destiny is to become a butterfly. Likewise, the uninitiated ego doesn’t realize its destiny is to become an agent for soul. (It’s no coincidence the Greek word for butterfly means “soul.”) Once in the cocoon, the buds link up, the caterpillar’s immune system breaks down, and its body literally disintegrates. The buds then build a butterfly from the fluid contents of the cocoon. The caterpillar and butterfly are not really opposed to each other; the butterfly is not an alien organism within the caterpillar. They are, in fact, one and the same organism with the same genetic code.”

Passage from Bill Plotkin ‘Soul Craft Crossing into the mysteries of nature&psyche’

A FEW WORDS FROM CRYSTAL In life, I’m inspired by the individual and collective experiences.

Through the series of lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, I experienced grief, change, transition and navigating the unknown as a strong collective effort. This project is therefore inspired by my personal journey and my curiosity to reflect on grief as a collective metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis is a shift, a modulation, a rearrangement, an evolution... Metamorphosis is essentially a process; a transition from one place to another, whether this is a physical, emotional or relational place. Metamorphosis is a transmutation both uniquely individual and universal at the same time.

Over winter 2022, I received public funding to explore the collective odyssey of grieving through the creation of a dance film and a booklet. The film would capture my intimate perspective through movement, whereas the booklet would gather the voices and experiences of others, whilst celebrating diversity of perspective.

The poems in this booklet are the works of members from People Poetry, a creative writing group functioning under the umbrella of the Leeds based charity Space2. In their sessions, People Poetry explores different themes through interactive exercises, mindfulness, combined arts and improvisation. The group took my invitation to explore grief, and the writings in these pages are their responses.

United together, the film and the booklet become the wings of the same project, a synergic butterfly for you to enjoy!

PEARL EYES There was once comfort to be found in amongst coral bones.

The bodies of ancient creatures pulsed with colour and life.

Then man came to the land; progress warmed the seas, reefs were stripped of their splendour, becoming graveyards once more.

Do not let your inheritance become tales of lost treasures; salt water streams from eyes made pearls with hindsight.

Rachel Flint

- Pearl Eyes is a eulogy for our climate, inspired by a line from ‘The Tempest’ written by William Shakespeare. It is a warning, a call to action, to act before it is too late. -

A RECIPE FOR ELDER TEA Take a walk on a dry summer’s day, take time to visit the Elder Tree.

Observe it, laden with blossom.

Pick its delicate flowers... one by one.

Each petal holds a story, each story holds memory.

Bathe the petals in warm appreciation, soak in their ethereal wisdom.

Know that the flower’s essence is never truly lost. You, will carry it with you.

Know too, that the winter will come.

And when all the petals have fallen, berries will take their place.

Reach for the sweet and subtle essence, and breathe a little deeper.

Natalie Anastasia Davies

- A poem written whilst brewing elder flower tea and meditating upon the connection between family and nature. -

TALE OF A LOST COMPOUND A lush kingdom ruffled by a balmy breeze this giant rumbles upward, through leaves waxed by a midday sun.

Coiled branches, graced by sap setting into jewel drops.

Inky denizens swirl into corners, untouched by light diligently building their home with nature’s abundance.

As leaves shake, they whisper but the giant does not understand.

She is only a visitor in this temporary paradise.

As the giant descends, time shifts her into new shapes of adulthood.

That life exists only as memory, re-looping in the cinema of mind.

She cannot go home again.

Maria Amuesi

- A memory of my Maternal Grandparents home compound in Accra, Ghana, in the early 90s that has now changed into a residential area. I would frequently climb the tree in the middle of the compound with my cousins, sitting amongst the branches, noticing the oozing sap and ants. -

THE FINAL JOURNEY Light filters through soft grey clouds, bouncing lightly across the horizon.

Shudders of excitement. Anticipation fills the air, as a new arrival awaits not the final journey...

Red flashing lights descend from the bosom of the heavens A bold beastly figure propels ever nearer, thunderously making its presence felt.

Mist blooms from the screeching brakes as rubber and ground collide not the final journey....

Squashed nostrils, line darkened glass, eager to witness another miraculous feat tannoys echo with rapturous applause, announcing the good news to all;A welcoming script that the eagle has landed but not its final journey...

Tired passengers shuffle across tarmac, like ants scuttling to the safety of a warm nest.

Conveyor belts of dusty bags, are grasped by tired grateful hands, ready to reach home.

Another clearance granted for take-off, A new beginning, a new journey.

Michaela Clark

- Inspired by a treasured childhood memory, spending hours at Leeds Bradford Airport with my family. I used to sit and imagine what was happening in far-off destinations, where the planes had come from and what was to follow. -

MY GOLEM A mound of mud, a sarcophagus of unsettled earth under unsettled sky moulded clay, dew from a meteorite wet soil pushed this way and that. Nudged into shape.

Build a body, supine and expectant a solid form that will rise up through rainwater and unbury itself.

Let the lines of chalk dissolve and slip give this golem a wingspan, a height more fearful press in the knuckles, knead the soil make a wide, closed mouth.

This is no smooth sculpture, this body shapeshifts.

This is the grit and gravel of disturbed land.

Rocked by broken bricks, their numbers cracked, waves of discarded shells and shards of china.

Ridges left in my golem’s surface by a spade, a key, my fingernails.

I will push down the heels of both hands leave a boot print on my golem’s chest.

Will it to wake. Will it to rise.

Yasmin Hafiz

- A golem is a mythical being from Jewish folklore: formed from clay to serve or protect its creator. The golem is shaped like a human, but cannot speak and has no soul. It can be a symbol of danger and hope; many myths end with the destruction of the golem. This poem was inspired by an episode of The X Files (‘Kaddish’) where a widow sculpts a golem in the image of her late husband, using the earth from his grave in a physical expression of her love and grief. -

GRIEF The trouble with grief is... it can show up in the weirdest of moments, in moments of joy, when you have cause for celebration.

Grief taps you on the shoulder and reminds you, that a loved one is not here to share in that moment and it tinges your joy with sorrow.

The trouble with grief is... it can show up in the worst of moments, it can show up in times of pain and be a brief console, reminding you that a loved one is saved from such terrible pain.

The trouble with grief is... it doesn’t know.

It doesn’t know, you can isolate yourself from it.

It doesn’t know, you can replace any sorrow it brings, with joyful anticipation.

As someday you will meet your loved one again, even if only in your dreams.

This is the sweet sorrow, the bliss, that grief cannot take from us.

Njaimeh Mboge

- This poem was written to smooth the sadness when my Dad passed in August 2021. I learnt that grief is something we can hardly move on from as it’s a frequent visitor, sometimes showing up in the least expected moments. The day I wrote this poem, I had just come out of a very successful meeting but my joy became incomplete when I couldn’t share the good news with my Dad. However, I do believe, in the end we triumph over grief because we meet our loved ones again, no matter what form that takes. -

SPECIAL THANKS To Space 2, the People Poetry Group and Natalie Anastia Davies for their involvement To Wainsgate dances for holding space To the outreach team whose reflections and recordings were part of the inspiration of the visual designing process of creating this booklet. They are Katy Hewison who facilitated classes with Thirsk Youth Dance group; Tora Head and Georgine Buchanan facilitating in care homes in Leeds; and Mati Torres Laborde facilitating with Dance21 Down Syndrome Training & Support service Ltd. To Arts Council England for their support