𝖆𝖘𝖍𝖊 as in ashes

I have been touched by death and have touched death multiple times in this life.

my diagnosis of Stage IV adenocarcinoma lung cancer arrived to me the day before my Saturn return began on March 6, 2023. the catholic holiday Ash Wednesday delivered me to receiving my diagnosis when I admitted myself to the hospital on that date - not yet knowing metastatic disease had already manifested and divided upon most of my body. I have had cancer spread to more areas within my body than countable. I have yet to count them - yet I write these words here with close to no evidence of disease. I believe this is because of my fundamental belief in healing. I believe our bodies were created with the intelligence not only to survive but to heal. I believe in community and communion. I believe in living and the plurality of lives lived. I believe in animism and the spirit in all that’s alive. I believe all of these things are evidence of miracle.

origins

my name is ashe jimenez rodrigues. I was born on the soil of the island of Luzon in Manila, Philippines and I am born from islands on both sides of my family. the Philippine islands of which there are seven thousand and the small islands of Azores and Madeira, Portugal. I am a queer and mixed raced Filipina with indigenous Malaysian, Spanish, Basque, Chinese, and Portuguese roots. my wish is to exalt these roots in my practice and, in turn, my ancestors who have granted me them.

I identify with fluidity. I identify with the liminal. I identify with spaces and meanings between here and there, worlds inconstant and consonant. I was raised bilingual until I wasn’t, and in school as a child I wrote answers with drawings and symbols instead of words. the words creator, destroyer are etched onto my body. I was raised Catholic and the catholicism resides within my body too. I believe in God, but I don’t identify with the mechanisms of organized religion. I identify with animism. when I pray, I pray to the spirit of all things, to primordial cells, and to my ancestors. I pray to you. gratitude is my prayer always. I believe in cellular and interstellar regeneration. I believe in entropy. I believe in impermanence and I believe it’s eternal. I think every artist engages in the myth of Sisyphus and I do too. I think most artists are masochists and I am too. I believe in pleasure and play. I believe both are forms of survival if we allow them to be. I believe in living.