Shortly after recording the ‘Black Snake’ ep I got the image of this video stuck in my head. Every time I listened to the song ‘I Am the Ocean’ I imagined myself starting in a meditative space, slowly standing and knocking things over like a cat, then gradually becoming more and more insane and destroying everything in sight. I just felt right. Something about the madness and the beauty of seemingly going insane in an enclosed space made so much sense to me.
I wrote this song coming out of a marriage and coming into a pandemic. It was equal parts freedom and containment. I found the ocean to be the perfect metaphor for the human psyche: vast, mysterious, terrifying, infinite, and wild; all while being contained by the earth’s shore— the ‘brain’ if you will. How could I incorporate the essence of that without showing literal images of placid waters next to tidal waves? That is where this video was birthed.
The energy of this song felt like going insane, but in a beautiful and empowered way. Going insane back to sanity.; knowing, loving and embracing all the emotions and states of being. It is a human compulsion to put labels and boxes on and around people; but no person is ever just one thing. We contain multitudes. The message of this song, and in turn the message of the video, is to empower yourself to feel everything and reclaim the big scary parts of yourself that the world around you tries to diminish. Sometimes it is necessary to break everything in sight in order to make space for new things. Allowing yourself to let go of the things, places, and sometimes people, that no longer fit. It is an invitation to embrace your whole self and relish in the extremities and complexities of humanness.
Unapologetic wildness: that is what this song and this video aim to embody. As a female identifying person, particularly, the societal norms imposed upon me are to make myself smaller, try not to take up too much space, and apologize for my existence. Nearly every woman I know has been told from a young age to ‘calm down’, ‘don’t act crazy’,’cover up’, or some variation of any of those; and it’s my prerogative to challenge that norm. Feminine energy is incredibly powerful; that’s why people fear it and try to contain and tame it. This brings the focus back to the energy of the Black Snake— snake is a creature that has been demonized and misunderstood by modern Western culture for centuries. In reality, and in many indigenous and ancient medicinal practices, the snake represented creativity, groundedness, transformation, closeness to the earth, feminine energy— all beautiful and necessary qualities for growth and creation. And all qualities which require a bit a destruction to fulfill their full potential. Portraying an earthly manifestation of ocean energy was just that: vulnerable and intentional destruction. Owning and taking up space. Showing the full spectrum of emotion. Feeling both the overt and nuanced qualities of creative expression. Allowing myself to be crazy, to be wholly me.
And on top of all of this: it’s just really fun to get in a room and smash everything with a baseball bat.
Perhaps joy is the final piece of the puzzle.
http://vevo.ly/ZFctV0
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