Hair flowing down your neck, your shoulders, your spine, Hair springing outward to kiss the sky. Hair curled around your fingers and placed on the altar. Hair wrapped in forever to seal the amulets. Hair of Circe who sits weaving destiny. Hair oF Isis wound through Osirus returning life to him. Hair of serpent. Gorgon. Libyan Medusa. Metis. Anath. Athene. Waters. Wisdom. Hair of Protection shaken over the babies who grow strong underneath them. Hair in harmony with our nervous system. Hair of Death who covers you like water bringing you into her gaze. Hair who commands the weather, whose tresses run with creation or destruction. Hair unbound close to the Earth to support the birth and the milk that flows through the mother.
We were supposed to be rendered harmless, when they shaved our heads. Stripped of our magic. When the razors nicked our bare scalp blood dripped into our mouths, our power fled into the vaults they kept underneath us. When we were burned by hot irons, and chains cut into us, dragged into open air with festering wounds, it was our exposed heads that hurt the most, the missing braids, the newborn scalp.
Mari edged with pearl foam. Shrine of Marion. Marib. City of the Moon. Sa-Marie. Underworld womb. Mar-Marie. Cave of the sea. Mera. Land of waters. Mer. Mother love. Mare Baruti. Sea Mothers. Kel-Mari. Hindu Womb Chambers. Marici-Tara. Diamond sow on the lotus throne. Yemaya. Mother whose children are fish. Kel-Mari. Kali of the south. Meri-Ra. Waters of the sun. Moera. Spinner. Older than time. Mrytea. Myrra. Mermaid. Mare-mynd. Mareminde. Mare Nostrum. Mother of us all.
Photography: Ariya Martin
