Rhizo Magazine Summer Solstice 2024 by rhizomagazine

Summer Solstice 2024

About the Cover: Mindfulness by Cut & Paste the Body / Kristin Anchors

@rhizomagazine

rhizomagazine.com

Contributing Artists - Rhizo Community

Moon Calendar - Diggy & Sue

Letter from Sue - Editor’s Note

Astro Insights - Sue Hunt

On Place, Belonging, Relations and Land - Avi Farber

Alternative Taos - Montanna Binder

commUnity - SMKM

Dolce Vita - AnnaMarie Vaughan

Letters from the Desert - Shhor and Miles Bonny

Sun Song - Audra Elizabeth Knutson

The Space-First Mindset - Kristin Anchors & Sue Hunt

Tabernacle - Erica Jago

Hot Dawn - John Oliver Lewis

Grace Note 1, 2024 - Jessica McCambly

He Thinks We’re Making Love - Natassia Marie

She’s Gone - Diggy Lloyd

The World Around Us - Alexandra Cancro

Editor & Creative Director - Sue Hunt

Designer & Photographer - Diggy Lloyd

Published by - Rhizo Magazine Taos, New Mexico

Opposite Page & Back Cover Photographs by Alexandra Cancro

Summer Solstice 2024

6 10 14 26 26 30 38 40 42 44 46 56 58 59 60 62 71 CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Alexandra Cancro

Alexandra Cancro is a freelance travel and portrait photographer from Taos, NM and has worked in the Luxury Travel industry for the past 8 years. Having visited over 50 countries and lived in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Argentina, her appreciation of foreign and local cultures continues to animate her body of work. When she is not on the road, you can find her planning her next adventure or spending time with her friends and family. Discover more on IG @acanc1 and alexandra-cancro.com.

AnnaMarie Vaughan

AnnaMarie considers herself a dynamic creative who is deeply connected with bridging the lens of human potential and the natural world. As the leader of a women’s outdoor travel group called Work Your Wild, a bodyworker, a yoga teacher, and graphic designer she enjoys writing about interpersonal experience and the landscape that lives within each of us. Residing in Taos, New Mexico AnnaMarie has come to deepen her lifelong love affair with writing. You can connect with her at annamarievaughan.com.

Audra Elizabeth Kuntson

Audra Elizabeth Knutson is a weaver, painter, writer and jewelry maker. She lives in the quiet wild of Northern New Mexico. Find her work at desertshipbuilder.com and @desertshipbuilder.

Avi Farber

Avi Farber is a multimedia artist and designer working with fire. His work incorporates several mediums including woodfired ceramic sculpture, documentary photography, 3D printing, and new media. Working with local clays and firing with wood, his work explores the natural phenomenon of our changing climate and alternative modes of production. It is elemental, raw and refined, subtle and gestural. His sculptures are exhibited internally and held in several prominent collections. Find Avi here @avi.farber.studio & avifarber.com.

Diggy Lloyd

Diggy Lloyd is a commercial photographer based in Taos, New Mexico, with 15 years of experience creating compelling imagery for brands such as Target, Sephora, Adidas, Bliss, and Athleta. As the Co-Founder and Principal Creative of Benthouse Creative, Diggy specializes in defining and building meaningful brands throug research, strategic planning, and a collaborative design process. One of Diggy’s greatest joys is creating this magazine alongside her sister, Sue, and spending time with her incredible family. Find her work here @diggylloyd & diggylloyd.com.

Erica Jago

Erica Jago, a visionary graphic designer and sacred business mentor, empowers spiritual solopreneurs to attain independent wealth via their digital teaching house platforms. Leading with a blend of creativity and healing, she inspires others to manifest their aspirations with clarity and care. As a two-time published author and advocate for personal growth, Erica’s journey of triumph over addiction echoes globally. Explore her creative path at jagoyoga.com, where boundless inspiration awaits.

Jessica McCambly

Originally from Massachusetts, artist Jessica McCambly lives and works in San Diego, California. She received her M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas, College of Visual Arts and Design. Influenced by sentimentality, memory, and the landscapes of Southern California and the North Shore of Massachusetts, while also drawing from various histories, including Light and Space, Minimalism, and Luminism, the work is stirred by ideas of both physical and metaphysical splendor and phenomena. She can be found at www. jessicamccambly.com / Instagram: @jessicamccambly.

Rhizo Community

John Oliver Lewis

Originally from Wisconsin, John Oliver Lewis currently lives and works in San Diego, CA. He earned a BFA from the University of WisconsinEau Claire, Department of Art and Design, and an MFA from the University of North Texas, School of Visual Arts. Lewis’ work was selected for inclusion in the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s exhibition Here Not There: San Diego Art Now and the exhibition Uberyummy at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at Cal State San Bernardino. Lewis’ sculptures, drawings and installations have also been exhibited nationally at venues such as the American Museum of Ceramic Art, as well as the Amarillo Museum of Art. See more of his work at johnoliverlewis.com and on Instagram @johnoliverlewis.

Kristin Anchors

Kristin Tera Anchors (American, b. 1987) is a visual artist and emergency medicine doctor based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her current studio practice includes dissecting the textbooks she accumulated in training to develop hand cut collages which aim to heal the fractured relationship between body and mind, human and the more-than-human world. Her mature sense of wonder manifests in every piece, which are both playful and meaningful. Find her at kristinanchors.com or on IG at @cutandpastethebody.

Montana Binder

Montanna Binder, b. 1997, is a storyteller based in Taos, New Mexico, who embodies photography to uproot the self and identity in order to re-shape and re-story how we view divergence and worthiness. Selftaught analog and alternative photographic processes are implemented to provide visceral, diverse modes of expression. Discover more work here at bindi.media & @nnontanna on instagram.

Natassia Marie

Nastassia Marie is a Psychological Abuse and Trauma Informed Practitioner & Educator. Her work takes a multi-faceted approach that incorporates spirituality, nervous system regulation, somatic healing, shadow work, parts work and several other modalities and philosophies. She is an international best selling author in the book ‘ Women Who Rise’ and devoted mother to her young child Eliana. You can find her on Instagram @theartofintuition.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Photograph by Diggy Lloyd

SMKM

SMKM is an artist, mother, doula, curator, and space builder. She produces community conscious events through her businesses Maggie Knox, an arts incubator/non-profit for women and families with a mission to inspire through creative expression and 1020 Collective, an arts and event center based in Erie, Pennsylvania. She works in darkroom photography, clay, painting, and writing as well as curating art exhibitions, and happenings. Find her at sarahmkmoody.com, maggieknox.com, & 1020collective.com

Shhor and Miles Bonny

Married parents Shhor (Siobhan Bonny-O’Rourke) and Miles Bonny met in Melbourne Australia while they were each on their paths as solo performing musicians. Separately and together they have performed and run workshops in Europe (Germany, Poland, Austria) Australia and the USA. Now they combine their soulful story and sounds on their first album together, Letters from the Desert. We would love to collaborate with you to showcase this album to our local Taos community, we also worked with local visual artist Boramie Sao on our album cover art. We are aiming to release singles at the end of May/start of June, each single has different cover art. Find more info. here @shhorishere & @milesbonny, miles-bonny.squarespace.com & shore.bandcamp.com

Sue Hunt

Sue Hunt is a radical Buddhist, author and astrologer. Her first book was published in 2021 Transitory Nature: Breaking Binaries for Integrated Being. Sue is also a real estate broker in Northern New Mexico and loves the tangible and ethereal aspects of HOME. As a Cancer Pisces Virgo the root of home and place identity is a cornerstone in her creative practice. She is also co-author of The Sister Body Oracle Deck and Creative Director and Co-Founder of Rhizo Magazine. She lives in Taos, New Mexico. Find her at suehunt.com @suehunt_.

Rhizo Community

MOON CALENDAR

How to use this Rhizo Moon Calendar:

Each moon design contains the date, the new or full moon, the zodiac sign in which the lunation occurs, and the somatic touch points deeply affected by this lunar transit.

Connecting astrology to the map of the body is very supportive in your ritual process for these new and full moons for the next six months.

June | Full Moon Capricorn

22 Backbone, Joints, Knees, Skin, Hair

July | New Moon Cancer

05 Stomach, Mucosa, Breast, Womb, Ovaries

July | Full Moon Capricorn

21 Backbone, Joints, Knees, Skin, Hair

SUMMER SOLSTICE TO WINTER SOLSTICE 2024

It’s very transformative to actually connect movements of space weather with your physical form, hence the reason here at Rhizo resident astrologer Sue Hunt gives you her interpretation of astrology’s somatic touch points, so these transits have a place to actively live in your body/mind.

Aug. | New Moon Leo

04 Heart, Aorta, Blood Pressure & Circulation

Aug. | Full Moon Aquarius

19 Calf, Ankle, Shin, Achilles

Sept. | New Moon Virgo

21 Pancreas, Small Intestine, Digestive tract

ECLIPSE SEASON

Sept. | Full Super Moon Pisces

Feet, Toes, Pineal Gland, Sleep & Dream Cycles

Partial Lunar Eclipse

Oct. | New Moon Libra

Kidney, Urinary Tract, Bladder, Veins and Skin

Annular Solar Eclipse

Oct. | Full Super Moon Aries

17 Head, Teeth, Tongue, Arteries

Nov. | New Moon Scorpio

01 Genitals, Anus, Urethra, Prostate

Nov. | Full Moon Taurus

15 Throat, Vocal Chords, Thyroid Gland and Neck

Dec. | New Moon Sagittarius

01 Lower Hips, Thighs & Sacrum

Dec. | Full Moon Gemini

15 Bronchial Tubes, Communication, Shoulders, Hands & Lungs

DIAMOND FACETS

The Story of Rhizo Magazine

It starts in the mid-90’s when my little sister was obsessed with the camera feature on the first Game Boy. I wasn’t much into “techy” things as a kid, I was building forts and romping in the forest. Meanwhile, Diggy (or Ducky as we called her back then) was obsessed with the Game Boy camera, the video camera and the Blu-ray DVD player, if something piece of low-fi tech broke in the house in the mid-90’s we would scream up the stairs “Ducky, come fix this.”

Her obsession then morphed into film and technical lighting, when she started photographing me in our teens. I have always been down for a weird adventure outside so I was game for these creative endeavors.

We thought we were so clever and making powerful political statements about femininity. Looking back makes you appreciate the untainted, give no fucks attitude of a teenager and their budding creative process. Slowly, overtime, the indoctrination into a visually stimulating commercial culture bombarding us with images from every angle, robs us of that unique drive to create for the sake of creation.

LETTER FROM SUE Editor’s Note

Both Diggy and I have always had our own unique spark to create, no matter what the end product looks like, it takes so many amalgamations of failure to land on something authentic. I went on to pursue writing and Diggy photography and design. Decades later, I find myself in the commercial publishing pool trying to stay afloat; honestly, fighting tooth and nail to publish my first book. It took four years to bring it to press.

I became very disenchanted, and a bit jaded. No problem though, anger is a great vehicle of creation for me. I was coming to the realization that many authors don’t even write their own books, and it’s a pseudo-celebrity rat race. Oftentimes it didn’t even come down to the quality of work, but more about the size of the sales and public relations platform as the benchmark of what gets published. This was dream shattering honestly, but I pushed on.

It’s no secret, social media has totally changed how we consume on every level, we are reading less as a culture, and being an “artist” and a “content creator” are tragically being confused as similar roles in society.

Amidst my publishing and marketing book process, even though I was writing so much. I started to miss the actual process of ART.

That chaotic spark that rises, with sometimes no reason, and you get weirdly obsessed with it, so you follow it. You give it so much energy, trying not to hold it too tight to snuff the flame of its uniqueness. I missed that no rules, no end game, no ads, no promotions — just “making shit” kinda vibe.

So in my antsy, angsty state, I started madly talking about the “Rhizo Idea” to Diggy. Trust me I can get very annoying and overbearing because it’s all I can talk about. I love the brainstorm phase and so does she so we both leaned into it.

We didn’t have a name yet, but we knew it needed the following:

No themes because that limits the artist, a collective voice, not one voice, art across mediums, no ads, and open submissions. We wanted ART for the sake of ART, IN PRINT, not in the 24-hour social media scroll of numbness. And…Rhizo was born. Each volume would tell its own story and we would support it.

For us, the ART is not even really about the end product, or how many views it gets, or where it’s published. It is truly about the PROCESS, the way we shape our entire lives to give ourselves a creative voice and outlet. This drive changes the way we see out of our own eyes, look into the vastness of the world and the details of others.

This is truthfully a VERY HARD thing to do in a world obsessed with over-production and the demise of organic space that gives rise to the creative spirit.

And if you make art, you know what I am talking about…

You have to make that time, you have to allow yourself to invest in yourself. To invest in an idea that has no legs yet, it’s in its infancy and you have to trust yourself to see it through.

You consume media a bit less, so you can hear your own voice and desires.

You schedule that untouched time so you can create spaciousness in your body.

You go hard in the paint when it comes to exploring your emotions and giving them a vehicle to sing.

YOU SPEND TIME ALONE IN PROCESS WITH THE MANY SIDES OF SELF, SOMETIMES IN CONFLICT, AND THE ART CREATES THE RESOLUTION.

by SMKM

Photograph

YOU ARE ON AN ENDLESS QUEST TO LEARN NEW SKILLS, SOME WE BECOME ARTFUL AT, AND OTHERS CREATE A SENSE OF HUMOR AROUND THE EGO BECAUSE SELFEDITING IS THE MOST HUMBLING PROCESS.

We wanted the readers and artists of Rhizo to feel this process in its pages.

This took us two years to figure out, and now Rhizo is free to the reader, and print publications still remain our focus. This was also so important to us here at Rhizo — to get off the screen, because there is a longer format process that happens when you know your work is going to be published in print. More care, more love, more secrecy, more time to marinate on its genius when you know it will live physically in the hands of others.

In the pages of Rhizo you will find creatives and artists of all types: Career writers, authors, painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and poets. You will also find mothers, bankers, nurses, athletes, business owners, bar tenders, nomads, doctors, chefs, entrepreneurs — you name it. Creatives from all over the world have been published in these pages and we hope this unbridled spirit of art continues, and Rhizo is here to kindle it.

+ Sue Hunt

SUMMER SOLSTICE

June 20, 2024 to Winter Solstice December 21, 2024

Transits and Key Astrological Movements

Together from this volume until the next, we will travel through the following seasons: Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius seasons. These astro seasons in the second half of every year trace the archetypical archline of universal mother energy, to external gratification, to the depths of self-exploration, to community building, sex energy expansion, to creative and philosophical magnetism.

It is quite the ride, it’s most relevant for you personally, as we transition from one astrological season to another, that you are familiar with where that zodiac sign sits in your own chart. From there, you can be done with those basic AI horoscopes and apps and have more understanding of how each season affects you personally.

Every January, I make a master document for myself as an astrologer of the key transits for the year — the mega ones that will be felt deeply through the collective field. Of course, some will be more relevant to a cross-section of the population than others, so it’s helpful to keep track of the ones that affect your chart and the waters of your body most personally.

ASTRO INSIGHTS Sue Hunt

This transits begins before the Summer Solstice but travels through solstice and into September 3rd, Anaretic Degree Neptune in Pisces.

The anaretic degree is the 29th degree of any sign in the zodiac. It is also known as the “degree of fate” or “degree of karma” or it might feel like crisis energy if we don’t recognize this massive portal of transformation. Sometimes in the human psyche, we mistake out-of-this-world change as crisis because our central nervous system doesn’t register the change as helpful; it just registers it as “different or turbulent”. This will be so important when Neptune is sitting at the 29th degree for several months.

CHANGE IS SCARY, it’s never not SCARY and sometimes the feeling of nervousness is the catalyst towards your dreams. I say this in Transitory Nature, “alignment is scrappy, it’s 99% action”. The 29th degree of Neptune is a catalyst to take some steps towards your mega dream, don’t let the feeling of “change is scary” turn into paralyzing anxiety. We can do things and have that inner tremor all the way through it. Please don’t hinder your growth by thinking moving towards your dreams should feel charmed and easy, that’s the ego’s cop out moment to keep itself intact and stay the same!

Full Moon in Capricorn on July 21, in Cancer season, is a heavy hitter in the second half of 2024. For your personal chart find out where the Cancer/Capricorn Axis falls.

Cancer/Capricorn are the mother/father, grandmother/grandfather, matriarchal/patriarchal energy lines in your chart. This full moon in Capricorn in Cancer season on the heels of the Summer Solstice, this one is significant because it also falls at the anaretic degree, 29° of Capricorn. Big self-understanding around your reparenting process. As well as where you have allowed the healthy masculine to rise within your personality and self-understanding. There is non-binary energy current that can arise here between the healing we have done in our lifetime to our patriarchal and matriarchal lines.

A merger of self-identity aspects that define the goodness of being human, and don’t need to be socialized by gender. It’s a heavy hitting healing current bringing to light how much trauma you have integrated from both the matriarchal and patriarchal karmic lines and how this integration is deeply affecting your action and intentions in the world.

I like to think of the embodiment of the 29th degree of Capricorn like my grandfather’s voice. Frenchie, a cigar smoker and devastating alcoholic, with a raspy radio voice. No matter what he was saying, people stopped and listened. Let the universe speak to you with this kind of raw authority during this full moon lunation. The universe doesn’t always speak in “soft spiritual” ways; Capricorn 29th degree is anything but soft. It should be a kick in the ass to wake up.

August 5, 2024 – August 28, 2024 Mercury Retrograde in Virgo and Leo Mercury is retrograding in fire signs the majority of 2024. So expect this hot, inflated, fly off the handle, burnout kind of energy in these Mercury Retrograde periods. This is a hang-on-tight, let-it-ride, try-not-to-get-yourpanties-in-a-twist 3-week period. Life will certainly try to rile you up here and its cool to just let it ride, a practice of giving less fucks in all three Mercury retrograde periods in fire signs this year, in 2024.

The first in the Pisces-Virgo eclipse series, this is a North Node lunar eclipse at 25° of Pisces.

September 17th Lunar Eclipse in Pisces. Those with heavy Piscean influence in their chart are likely to experience shocking creative breakthroughs, and with the close conjunction to Neptune, there is a very good chance that some revolutionary new music, film, and visual art will be released, or will arise out of you around this time! Rhizo vibes here for sure; Pisces energy likes to break down all the boundaries.

By early October we will be in Libra season, and the final eclipse of the year.

A solar eclipse at 10° of Libra — while the sign of balance still remains on the South Node.

Libra in the South Node will be with us from July 17, 2023, and will continue for 18 months until January 28, 2025, so throughout the entire second half of 2024, of course. Libra in the South Node is bringing out all relationship issues we have been blind to.

Rose colored glasses inside imbalance power dynamics of relationship are no longer an appropriate coping method. This can be so confronting to our identities because it’s the death of relationships that are not reciprocal. When a relationship dies, a piece of our identity dies. This is the darker, more intense energy of transformation. The South Node is like the underworld, what is percolating beneath the surface that socially we often just don’t want to confront.

November 25, 2024 – December 15, 2024 Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius. Another fire sign to bring up the intensity of Mercury Retrograde.

I like to describe this as “airport energy”: hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. Mixed with angry people yelling at the desk lady in the terminal and it’s not her fault. It’s kind of a maddening feeling, and this is sprinkled into the holidays. Again, laugh this off and truly give your central nervous system enough space so you can handle some weird shit that comes down the pipeline with grace.

December 6, 2024 – February 24, 2025 Mars Retrograde in Cancer. Mars a masculine energy that tends towards aggression, will be retrograde on the soft accepting feminine sign of Cancer. So innately we can see how this will create the right kind of tension. Dull, unaware men will be easy to spot, and hopefully they begin to wake-up to their bluntness.

Because the growing evolution of femininity is on the rise and women will feel more passionate about their identities and personal power in this retrograde. This can cause breakthroughs in relationship and collective systems or this can cause aggressive conflict.

It is important here that you pay attention to the emotional safety of your surroundings. Not every space is fully safe to hold conflict. Keep seeking relationships and well-held spaces where this Cancer Mars retrograde work can be held. Therapy, group therapy, certain spiritual spaces, couples therapy, somatic work, astrologers you love, theater groups, improve groups the list goes on, this personal /relational work will need to be expressed in word and body.

These are very important portals for the second half of 2024. I would recommend marking these on your own calendar and letting them be active markers in time and transformation for you in the second half of this year.

ON PLACE, BELONGING, RELATIONS, AND LAND

+ AVI FARBER

Every morning at four, just before the sun begins to climb from behind the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a wave of cold wind blows across the sage flats.

The dogs bark, a rooster calls, the rough hewn beams above the kiln creek, and my shoulders pull tight as I zip my canvas jacket up just a little bit tighter. This is the place I found a community—where I have come to refuge.

I pull my truck to the side of the road just north of Abiquiu, New Mexico. The hills here are full of clay—layers of deep purple, red, green, and black earth that move with the sun. Geologic paintings so beautiful that you feel them in your chest when you walk through the belly of their canyons.

They call this O’Keefe country because the famous painter Georgia O’Keefe was fond of painting this enchanting place. Before that, probably God’s country, Spain’s claim to the new world and lost cities of gold. Someone always wants to own it, easily forgetting the Jicarilla Apache, Pueblo’s, Comanche, and Núu-aghatʉvʉ pʉ Ute that have dwelled here for thousands of years.

And now I am here, nauseous from a diesel exhaust leak. The occasional car blows by on the state highway wondering what I’m doing. I don’t stop until the springs on my old Ford have started to sag, not yet fully aware that this clay is a gift.

+ SMKM

The road cuts the hillside and exposes earth that was once the bottom of a lake, dinosaur critters and probably algae was once here. I don’t know how old this stuff is. Decomposed plants and time have compressed these creatures into clay that will take on new life now that my hands have pulled this fresh from the earth and driven it back to my studio.

Inside the thirty foot long anagama kiln dug into a berm of chocolate dirt and volcanic boulders, seven hundred pieces of pottery are being transformed by the fire. As I stoke, ash from the wood falls onto the wares like snow on a boulder in a scree field.

Over the next five days, the heat of the kiln melts the ash into a glaze. The pots share a distinct organic beauty only achieved through firing with wood, this process holds a deep magic. By the end of the firing, you’ll find me and six artists strewn around the kiln exhausted in the sand.

Tired. Happy. Soon to be drunk. We value this connection more than anything. We come here to work with fire.

ALTERNATIVE TAOS

+ Montanna Binder

Red River 30

El Salto del Agua, 1

The Church, 2

Lover Boy

Hot

Air

River Bed

Opposite Page: Saltwater Women

UNITY COMM +

We the people

Seek the need for connection

Regular, deep, face to face

Connection

Time in commUnity creates growth

Stimulates healing

Engages all senses, exchanges energy

Connection

Like a hand on a page or A hand shake, or a hug

Connection

We the people

Call out for connection

Redirection from our hearts to the Earth

We seek protection from all evil

That superficial, icky, low blow low vibe

Controlling domineering aggressive stuck in the mud

Be gone

Instead, Deep rooted Love

Long lasting connection

Thriving reciprocal, infinitely regenerative

Connection

SMKM

DOLCE VITA

+ AnnaMarie Vaughan

My heart is the rich ruby of beet roots

My veins a plump aqua beneath my opaque skin

The same as winters water

When the birds disappear but the river keeps beating under windowed ice

My hips are an antique copper

Hung like pots along beams of a Midwest farmhouse

My hips

Are the hips of

My mother’s mother

The wife of a dairy farmer

Of a garden tender

A hand-spun spaghetti maker

When quiet enough I can hear them throb

For the eight humans they gave life

To milk cows before dawn

Earn their taste of dolce vita

Only for it be gambled away

These hips have been the first thing noticed

And also, desperate to be forgotten

One decade they are in

The next decade they are out

Tell me how it is a body can be trending

These hips have been the make-it-work

The ill-advised

The boiling point

The aftermath

And the antidote

These hips are my ancient map

They are the vacuum that spits up dust from past lives

A keeper of grief

A chamber of hope

A still life

That keeps on living

LETTERS FROM THE DESERT

+ Shhor and Miles Bonny

Married parents Shhor (Siobhan Bonny-O’Rourke) and Miles Bonny met in Melbourne Australia while they were each on their paths as solo performing musicians. Now they combine their soulful story and sounds on their first album together, Letters from the Desert.

Miles Bonny is the Lumberjack Soul Singing and Flugelhorn playing underground legend with a track record of working with top tier dance and hip hop producers including Kenny Dope, Osunlade, Waajeed, Ta-Ku, DJ Day, Tall Black Guy, Suff Daddy, Brenk Sinatra, J Rawls, Reggie B, Joc Max, Buscrates, Twit One, Chrissy Murderbot, and more. His music has taken him through Europe and Australia, where he met Shhor.

Shhor is the Tasmanian-born songstress who has been produced by Louie Vega, M-Phazes, Mike Steva and a top tier of artist in the Melbourne, Australia music scene which includes Allysha Joy, Audrey Powne, Jazz Party (Harry Angus) and Hiatus Kaiyote, mutual friends of Shhor and Miles’.

When Miles visited Melbourne to perform with Osunlade, he met Shhor and the rest is history. The songs Miles was known for such as 5 o’Clock Suff clarified Miles’ interest in meeting that special someone and now he had. Together they have performed and led workshops in the USA, Australia, Poland and Germany.

Shhor has moved to the USA with Miles where they are now parents. While in the high desert town of Taos, New Mexico, they created this album as a reflection of their lives together. As referenced in the songs “Flyyy Away” and “Honor my Love,” in the future, they will move to Tasmania, Australia Shhor’s homeland. While parents raising children is not a rare concept, it is rare to hear an album created by those parents about the process. With no curses and messages for any age listener, this clean album will be embraced by parents and music fans alike.

Photography by Hayley Harper

RELEASE DATES

Album Artwork by Boramie Sao

MAY 31 ST

JUNE 21 ST

JULY 12 TH

AUG 2 ND

AUG 13 TH

SEPT 6 TH

PARENT DEDICATION

FINALLY HOME

FLYYY AWAY

BIG LOVE

HONOR MY LOVE

LETTERS FROM THE DESERT (single) (single) (single) (single) (single) (Full Album Out)

2024

SUN SONG

+ Audra Elizabeth Knutson

Swim into a shell of protection

Luminescent water-worn ever-expanding

The shell is pearl maze

The shell is undersea light

Dwell here for awhile.

Rhizo Feature

THE SPACE-FIRST MINDSET:

Cut and Paste the Body, an Interview with Kristin Anchors and Sue Hunt

Sue

Kristin, I am so happy to feature your work and interview you for this volume of Rhizo. I have loved sitting for tea in your home and our sometimes lengthy direct message conversations over the years. It has been such a joy to watch your “Cut and Paste the Body” work grow over the last year.

What was the creative inspo to begin this body of work?

Kristin

Sue

Kristin

I started “Cut and Paste the Body” towards the end of my emergency medicine training, with materials I had on hand: a stack of old textbooks, a pair of scissors, and some drawing pads from childhood that had blank pages in them.

Yearning to reconnect with spiritual and artistic aspects of myself that took a back seat during residency, I channeled my first collage at the end of a grueling stretch of days in the hospital. Through playful exploration I inadvertently – and inevitably – became a collage artist.

Do you find visual arts to be a rejuvenating force with all of the time and pieces of yourself you give in the hospital?

Creative expression has always been therapeutic for me. As a child, I would lose myself in drawing and coloring. It was my first form of meditation and how I made sense of the world.

I remember art and drawing was my favorite class in all of grade school. Our art teacher had us lay outside on the ground to observe the clouds passing overhead. I still enjoy cloud spotting to this day, and think it is what has kept me in New Mexico for this long, with its abundance of perfect cloud days.

Bound Liberation

ART IS LIKE THAT – IT’S ABOUT SLOWING DOWN ENOUGH TO TRULY PAY ATTENTION.

Tree

Life #2

Someone in high school told me that art was a hobby and I needed to choose a career too. I believed them and entered college with an interest in biomedical research, specifically aiming to cure AIDS. While my schedule was filled with science courses and philosophical studies, I continued my artistic practices through intricate note-taking and doodling. Although I did work briefly as a life drawing model to try to sneak in some formal art education.

Today, I maintain a steady daily creative practice through journaling, drawing, and a newfound love of watercoloring. I enjoy exploring new mediums and spent a recent winter learning ceramics. This devotional practice helps bring me back to myself and balance my work in the fast-paced, buzzing environment of the emergency department.

Collaging, in particular, requires that I work at the slow speed of nature with a focus that is hard to reach amid an endless supply of distractions. The imposed boundaries of analog collage both challenge and focus me as an artist. Through conversations with the texts, new and unexpected meanings and patterns arise. I can and do sit quietly for hours flipping through every page until something emerges. Each piece takes its time to come to life. There is no need for the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, as Walt Whitman says.

How does medicine and spirituality overlap for you?

When presenting to the hospital with an acute, life-altering, or life-threatening ailment, patients often grapple with profound existential questions about the nature and meaning of life, suffering, and death.

In such moments, spirituality is always present, even if it remains unspoken.

This layered physical and spiritual crisis offers a unique opportunity to explore deeper questions and find meaning in the midst of difficulty. It invites both patients and caregivers to recognize and address the spiritual dimensions of the experience, seeing the potential for growth and understanding in the face of adversity.

You and I have a sweet friendship that began from afar with some similar life experiences. For all of us reading this and absorbing your layered work, can you describe the themes behind your aesthetic? I have sat for tea with you in your home, and there is this effortless, straightforward, minimal and textured beauty in everything you create!

My tea, qi gong and meditation practices have taught me that less is more. This space-first mindset is why my artwork leaves more blank space than most.

The negative space in each piece pays homage to the necessity of emptiness, stillness, and rest –medicine I need as much as any. My home, arranged according to this same principle, is a sanctuary to which I retreat.

I also love being outside in the natural world. As a kid, I played outdoors and helped my family with gardening and yard work. We gathered on the beach and camped in the woods for vacation. Now, I grow food and tend to the land around me with the same reverence I bring to my other practices.

Kristin Sue Kristin Sue Kristin

Interconnectedness

52 Potential Synthesis

WHETHER I’M WORKING IN THE GARDEN, SITTING WITH TEA, OR SHARING TIME WITH A FRIEND, THESE ACTIVITIES REQUIRE THE SAME PRESENCE AND PATIENCE I BRING TO ART.

Cha Dao

Sue

There seems to be a metaphysical influence in your collage work, I think that’s why it’s so deeply captivating and mind expanding. Here at Rhizo we also have such an appreciation for the analog tactile piece. Can you please elaborate on these worlds coming together for you.

I come from a working class family — truck drivers, house cleaners, mechanics, and the like. My mom became a nurse when I was in college and my dad is sort of a jack of all trades, but currently working as a nuclear consultant at a large clean-up site. Both are incredibly handy and always fixing broken things. They taught me the value and pleasure of working with one’s hands. My hands have always been in the ground, in the mixture of elements that we are all made of – in the star stuff that fell to earth.

Sue

The energy of the body and its fractal imprint in space comes through in your work, can you elaborate on this from an artist process point of view? Or in how you find inspiration to create?

WE, AS LIVING BEINGS ON EARTH, HAVE EVOLVED IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNIVERSE. INFLUENCED BY THE COSMIC BODIES SPINNING AROUND US, EXERTING GRAVITATIONAL PULL, SHEDDING LIGHT AND WARMTH,

AND PROVIDING THE ELEMENTS FROM WHICH OUR BODIES WERE BUILT.

Our physiology is interwoven with natural patterns: sleep-wake cycles with the sun and menstrual cycles with the moon, for example.

This cyclic and seasonal nature of life comes up in my work as a commentary on our current dysrhythmic culture.

I believe it is this disconnect that contributes to much of our dis-ease. This intersects with other recurring themes, such as collective liberation and interdependence that, I hope, awaken us from the illusion of separateness and into the realness of belonging.

In our western medicine complex there is such a tendency to diminish the body to “its parts” or the basic symptoms, seeing it as something to “fix” or “conquer”. Can you describe how your wellrounded and multi-layered approach to college through body and spirit has been affected by your intense work in medicine and the emergency room?

Scientific advances in the recent centuries gave way to a view of the body as separate from the mind and soul, thereby reducing it to a set of parts, which have been divided into smaller and smaller pieces.

Because investigating and treating disease in this way has worked extremely well, it has been allowed to situate itself as the primary paradigm of health care. However, by viewing our bodies and the world in a purely mechanical and reductionist way, and treating them solely with scientific technology, we lost sight of health and wellness as states of wholeness.

HEALTH IS AS MUCH OF A SPIRITUAL, MENTAL, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN AS A BIOLOGICAL ONE.

Kristin Kristin Kristin

As such, medicine remains an art just as much as a science. This is seen in the way health is not produced but made present; it is brought-forth, never forced. Physicians guide people to and through recovery and restoration, helping them become, or maintain, their true selves.

Remembering that we belong to nature, and repairing the disconnect between the body and mind, human and more-than-human world, is part of what I aim to achieve in my artwork.

When I work with my hands — whether in the emergency room or in the garden — or when I gaze up at the clouds, I feel restored. My collage work is like that too: a creative act that is also a healing one, a public statement and a deeply personal experience.

What a beautiful heartfelt answer. Thank you for sharing your inner world, and foundational worldview behind your captivating work.

Find out more about Kristin Anchors at kristinanchors.com