The preceding is loosely based on a dream. It symbolizes the visuo-spatial photisms and other synaesthetic experiences I undergo as I navigate the world, representing how external stimuli put a strain on my mind/body, which responds via a cross-sensory internal process. Philosophically, it is a commentary on the connection between objectivity and subjectivity. Women are the central characters of this fable because if not for women in my life, and my own journey with transgender/metagender womanhood, I would not have turned to stories or to science in order to understand myself, my health, how my brain functions, and the world in which I exist. It was my mother who encouraged my art, encouraged me to write, to perform, and I was inspired by her own talents, the stories she told, things she drew and crafted with her hands. She had been a dancer in her youth, and often sang alot during my childhood. At the same time, my mother would teach us about the water cycle and other science topics. This was because she had a heavy interest in nature and biology.

I remember being drawn to science encyclopedias my mom had lying around and I used to flip through them because I loved the pictures. At first, because I couldn't read, I didn't really understand what was being shown. Then, when I started to learn to read, I was able to make out the fact that one of the most interesting pictures, a graph showing a river with these bright circles, was talking about pollution. Apparently there were these farms run by big industries, and when it rained, the chemicals used on the plants in the farm would get washed into the water. Those chemicals would poison the plants and smaller animals in the river, and the animals that consume them would internalize the poison, and once humans and animals outside the water ate these creatures, we too would inject the toxins. This process is called biomagnification, when an environmental hazard finds its way up the trophic ladder (“food chain”) and gets concentrated in an organism’s body, to its detriment. This instantly impressed upon me the fact that the economy had an impact on the environment, a huge political influence for me all these years later. When I got older my mother pushed me to join a youth program where I could get involved in aquatic restoration. I started helping along the Bronx River, trying to restore it back to health, in the midst of a neighborhood impacted by environmental racism. I began to learn about the EJ framework at the time, and later about radical Black Ecology.

Endnotes: The word for “woman” in the Undulatrix is <<i’awa>>, derived from <<ia>> and refers to “brightness.” The web of social relations within <<Nya Ragwa>> is an egalitarian, non-hierarchical, gender/sexually fluid though somewhat matrifocal one. There is a range of roles available to a child, beginning at age eight. Each role is itself a continuum, associated with myths and labor practices that are to be studied through ritual training and age-grade processes that peak at age sixteen, and continue into adulthood when one is considered <<I’anwi>> (“fully initiated”). The purpose of this framing was to give name to the warm feeling I often felt inside growing up whenever I did things as the eldest sibling within my home. Long before I could understand that the sensation I was experiencing is called “gender euphoria,” I found myself trying to imitate and show up for my mother, and viewing home life from the lens of an African village (which did historically have age-grade and gender variant relational systems before colonization). From this view, I was a member of the community: and so I was supposed to lead and contribute in the ways my mother did. I remember there were times my younger siblings would accidentally call me “mommy” and that inner spark would always shine a little brighter. I openly embraced having had oldest Brother assigned to me, because through the attendant labors, I was able to taste a measure of what I knew to be a certain feeling of light in my soul. It took years for me to find the space and bravery to step into what it meant to nurture this inner fire permanently, outside the family, and outside of being assigned Brother, by stepping into my Afro-transfeminine identity. I am one of the sun-kissed dolls now and proudly so.