Jun 8, 2013
This offering began in the community, and it still belongs to the community.
Back in 2013, for Mangos With Chili’s FREE: Two Spirit, Trans and Queer People of Color Visions of Freedom show at the National Queer Arts Festival, artists S.D. Shah and Devi invited folks into a healing ritual — part video, part performance, all heart. Audience members were asked:
What are some things you’ve done to support your healing and community healing — physical, emotional, cultural, sexual, and spiritual?
People responded with deep tenderness and truth — scribbling notes, posting to the event livestream, and placing their offerings on a physical altar. Though this wasn’t a Peacock Rebellion project, we’ve archived it here as a digital altar — more lasting than a Facebook thread and lovingly preserved, especially since the Mangos With Chili site is no longer active.
We’re so grateful for every word shared and every story offered. We believe these reflections are still medicine. We hope something here holds you, nudges you, makes you laugh, or reminds you that you’re not alone. Here are some things we've done to support healing:
I've developed my inner dialogue and taken time to make intentional goals
Let myself cry
Go to therapy
Kink
Learn the truth and speak it
Honor my body and sex it up
Dress in drag
Allowed myself to focus inward and cry for a lot of years
Hibernate
Smoke pot
Light candles
Learn to meditate
Eat orange and green foods
Write down my dreams
Connect with other survivors and healers
Make art about my experiences
Stop trying to organize and run everything
Learn how to let myself be touched and feel my body
Find people to love authentically
Singing and teaching people to sing
Stare into someone else's eyes
Study Kabbalah
Unlearn oppression
Support my friends and lovers and community
I came out at 45
Create cultural spaces for marginalized folks like myself
Cook and grow food as medicine
Stayed in my body
Held my sexuality and pleasure as central
Therapy and more therapy
Loving and massaging my dying friend
Loving my friend/her girlfriend
Sharing my amazing daughter with the world
Sharing my dreams and journaling
Coming to this show with a hot woman
Not accepting how things are
(Trying really hard to) love my body
Listening to trauma
Speaking despite fear
Care-giving for caregivers
Food making
Write stories
Playing a lot
Share knowledge
Be open and vulnerable
Be able to accept pleasure
Knowing I deserve
Masturbation
Allow myself to be adored
Unlearn Catholicism
Love
Learning – always
Make art with other people
Have sex with a lot of people
Listen to our elders
Short skirts
Dance
Breathe
Burn medicine
Stay out late with [someone's name]
Walk naked with no shame
No judgment and open to infinite possibilities
Sharing smiles and kindness
Taking steps to take care of myself
I forgave myself and asked my family to confront our collective historical denying to begin ending the ancestral cycles of violence in my family
Let myself be
Listen to others
Meditation
Walk my dog
Being open
Being honest
Shared my experience
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