THE UNDERSTANDING OF DUALITY

Firstly, happy international women’s day. Ladies, this one is for you.

It took until very recently to begin to understand the natural, dual nature that resides in me, a woman. Thirty years of feeling like I did not belong in my own body, in my own mind and only partially knowing the woman I present to the world. The one who is seen to be hustling at life and seems pretty much put together and succeeding in all she does. This is the true nature of the external. Nothing about it is fabricated.

But for those bold enough to go beyond the eyes, which pierce with an intensity that is truthfully welcoming and loving, they will meet the primitive, fierce woman who resides within. This is the woman most people run from— including myself.

Photo Credit: Baskoro Prass

Creative Director: Gabriela Dapena

For Nalu by EmerieSeins

I think it would be true to say that this is relatable for most women in the modern world. We learn what we learn from our mothers, who learn it from their mothers. We have generations of ancestors who lived close to nature, told the stories of age to their daughters and the tradition moved down the line. However, not only did the stories and wisdom move, so did the world around us. The rate at which it changed is alarming. Eventually, we knew the stories, but we had no understanding of their meaning in the world we live in. They just did not fit anymore.

It is easy to look at a woman, observe her for a while, and make up our minds. We think we know all we need to simply by watching. Like the old saying about books goes, this rings true when getting to know a woman, and more importantly getting to know yourself as a woman. But how do you get to know the two sides? I don’t have a universal answer. All I have is my personal experience of life, the discovery of self and the deep, hard, painful treasure hunt to the centre of my being.

"In a single human being there are many other beings, all with their own values, motives, and devices… Rather than corrupt her natural beauty, our work is to build for all these beings a wildish countryside wherein the artists among them can make, lovers love, the healers heal.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, 'Women Who Run With The Wolves'.”

I have been deep into the final words of my debut book, Nalu in the past months and each time I feel am close to the manuscript being complete, I discover there are many more points to be made. That there is more I am discovering about the years I have lived and how they have lead me to the woman I am, and the understanding of the entity that is without and also within.

Photo Credit: Baskoro Prass

Creative Director: Gabriela Dapena

For Nalu by EmerieSeins

Introducing Nalu

In the book I share my story from before birth to the present time. It is to be a work of art. Combining an autobiographical voice in a raw expression of who I am as a woman, an artist and a lover, in her many forms, through prose, poetry and artistic black and white photography. I have been mesmerized by the power I have discovered in myself throughout the process of pouring my heart and soul into telling a story so real and confronting. It has been the most cathartic shadow work I could have ever embarked on. Not only has writing my story been healing through each trauma, challenge and failure, it has also forced me to face myself. Face the darkness. The darkness I have spent years romanticizing in soul-lead poetry.

What have I discovered about the dual nature of Emerie Seins?

That they must coexist. They must meet each other. To live a life that is true to the entire being of woman. In Clarissa Pinkola Estès 'Women Who Run With The Wolves, the dual nature of woman is explained as this:

"Anyone who is close to a woman is in fact in the presence of two women: an outer being and an interior criatura, one who lives in the topside world, one who lives in the world not so easily seeable. The outer being lives in the light of day and is easily observed. She is often pragmatic, acculturated, and very human. The criatura, however, often travels to the surface from far away, often appearing and then as quickly disappearing, yet always leaving something surprising, original, and knowing".

The inner woman knows and understands death. Not simply death of the physical body, but death in its nuances. The end of a journey, the end of a relationship, the end of a version of the self who no longer serves. The shedding of skins. I understood this woman, but what I learned, is I did not know how to let her into play with the light.

From a piece called 'Blank'

"A darkness

That will kill me

If I felt it"

I have always sat in favour of the dark side. The one which is closest to death. Death is something I understood from a young age, and living in the physical world was actually more difficult to enjoy. My mum always tells me that she trusts my moves in life because I have always paved my own way. Though this is true, I have, without admitting to regret it hurts to acknowledge that it was not until I was thirty-one, that I feel like I finally dropped into my life and into my body. Finally it feels like I am making choices, whereas before it felt like I was making a choice simply to run from another.

Death poured out of me in poetry, which continually felt like messages from the spirits, from above, below, or wherever they came from. I tried to write hopeful messages, motivational pieces to inspire. Instead of the easy feeling of breathing, they were laboured and wheezing. But something did begin to shift.

I found that instead of running from the words pouring out of me, I allowed them to speak. It was habitual to stop at the depth of the pain, yet allowing that darkness to peek its head out into the light, called for a transformation to take place. Like a beat in a scene, on an exhale, the butterfly would leave the cocoon. Wings spread out across the page, celebrating the bravery of this inner being to rise and melt with the outer. A hopefulness that felt true began to bleed onto the pages, and a new understanding of this duality began to solidify.

From a piece called 'Hiding places part 2

And I know now

As sure as I know anything

That every failed pursuit

Was in turn

Both a rise and a set

Always bringing me a new day

To bravely dive

Into anything I feel

Deeply compelled to do

I no longer hide

The burning efforts behind me

I honour them as my greatest lessons

Another chapter in my masterpiece

Because no great story is without

Births, deaths, declines, rebirths and endings

Photo Credit: Baskoro Prass

Creative Director: Gabriela Dapena

For the Nalu by EmerieSeins

I have had to learn to honour and give space to each voice I possess. I now understand that they both need their time, their breath and their manifestation. Both hold power and both are essential to living a life that is most authentic and true to my nature. Neither side is bad or good, they just are. I can now openly invite the depth of my inner woman. Allow her to shed tears, scream, fight and stand up to the cages that constantly come down on her. Simultaneously, finding joy in the mundane workings of life itself, celebrating the times I have fallen, and lacing up my boots to do it all again, hopefully in a new way. All the while, continually coming closer to the invisible line between the two beings, and guiding them to stare each other in the eyes.

I want to leave you with a poem I wrote back in 2020, it came to me when I was walking the beach, new to Bali and witnessing the most vast and diverse audience I have ever seen watching me back.

Woman

When you raise a daughter

Don’t you dare feed her

The false hope of

Rainbows and sweet dreams

When you raise a daughter

Don’t you dare tell her

That her looks don’t matter

As much as her brain

When you raise a daughter

Don’t you dare tell her

That when her body sprouts

Curves and bumps

She will be able to walk

The street the same way

When you raise a daughter

Teach her

Teach her

That she will be the main attraction

As soon as she steps out the door

Dressed tidily in her summer school uniform

When you raise a daughter

Teach her

Teach her

That the cat calls will echo after her

As she walks towards the classroom

As fully grown ‘men’ drool

Over her freshly grown breast

Or her virginity

When you raise a daughter

Teach her

Teach her

To keep on walking

And not give the predators

Anything else

When you raise a daughter

Teach her

Teach her

To shut them down

The instant the open their foaming mouths

When you raise a woman

Make sure

Make sure she knows her power

Is not in her beauty

Yet in the strength

You helped cultivate

When you raise a woman

Make sure

Make sure

She knows she can step into the day

And encompass all that she is

When you become a woman

Know this

Know this in certainty

That you can exude sexual energy

And not have to direct it to anyone

When you become a woman

Be

Just be

The fucking goddess

You were born to be

It inspired me again to look at every experience, and use it as fuel to light my fire each time I wake up and plant my feet on the ground. It is a battleground being a woman, and without the joining of our two true natures, one would eat the other alive.

With love,

Emerie Seins