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When the Levi Broke

About the Artwork

“This is a mixed-media (photography, found items, digital illustration) piece on the medical, health and aesthetic disparities affecting people racialized as ‘Black.’ You can find a more complete description of this work here: When the Levi Broke.”

“I am Taína: a feminine reclaiming of a Spanish colonial misnomer that has long described the indigenous Arawak people of my West African and Scottish ancestors’ most recent expression in the (Caribbean) Antilles.

“The proverb ‘they tried to bury us / they didn’t know we were seeds’—of Divine thought in the forms of stars, elements, mineral and plant material, human essence, etc.—describes my life’s HeartwoRx, flowering daily via the embodied ethics, progressive inquiry, creative expression and related Indigenous narrative medical practices; always centering the marginalized.”

“You can learn more about me on my website.”

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Comments

2 thoughts on “When the Levi Broke”

  1. Avatar photo
    Ashvin Sangoram

    Taina
    Your image is captivating!
    your proverb also so evocative…
    they tried to bury us/they didn’t know we were seeds !!
    reminds me of a Mark Nepo poem:

    The Courage of the Seed

    All the buried seeds crack open in the dark, the instant they surrender to a process they can’t see.

    What a powerful lesson is the beginning of spring.

    All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see.

    And this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life we call spring.

    In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which is ultimately an awakening beyond all imagining.

    As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.

    The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way.

    ~Mark Nepo

    also the links to more info about your image and your website is behind a firewall and inaccessible without a password. I’d love to learn more about “when the Levi broke”

    1. Avatar photo

      Ashvin,

      Thank you for bringing the context page’s access barrier to my attention via your gracious feedback including Nepo’s powerful poetry!

      I am grateful to embody well-Loved, loving, and peaceful he/art and invite you to review the woRx’s background info at https://souljournalism.life/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tt-tf_when-the-levi-broke-artwork-context.pdf.

      All but the home and contact pages on my website are private by design as I occasionally share select pieces when Inspired and appreciate healthy intentional inquiry towards mutual trust-building foremost.

      About the proverb, it celebrates the wisdom attributed to Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos’ “The Trunk and The Saraki” (n.d.) and the perseverance prose I first heard on International Workers’ Day 2006 via Mexican labor activists whose voices for equitable pay I heard in solidarity. I love how its range supports the outcries of diverse matters remanded to society’s margins!

      Please let us keep in touch by sharing your valid contact info with me via my “Come, Unity” page.

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