(m)Other Tongue

(m)Other Tongue emerged as a fragment of a collective show, shaped alongside The Little Wild (m)Others collective. I seeded it as a prayer, sparked by an initiation on Dartmoor, where I came across the skeleton of a Dartmoor pony. I felt called to gather some of its bones and carry them with me on a two-day hike through rain, mist, and bog. As I walked, I listened to the spirit of the moor, the echo of the pony carried on the wind through that ancient, untamed land.

I was drawn to the archetype of the shaman - one who communes with the Otherworld through deep psychic training and initiation. While I acknowledge this is not a lineage I can claim through Indigenous inheritance or have undergone the extensive training, I felt compelled to explore what it means to be in relationship with the more-than-human, to listen beneath the soil, and to use my voice as a conduit for prayers from the unseen. 

At the time, I was reading The Madonna Secret by Sophie Strand, a reimagining of Mary Magdalene- known as both sinner and saint - told from her own perspective. Strand roots Magdalene (Miriam, her Hebrew name) in the ecology of place, myth, and the natural world. I was struck by the possibility of her holding power equal to that of her lover, Jesus/Jeshua - a symbol of lost narratives and untold lineages. Magdalene as mystic, shaman, wild woman - cast out yet deeply in tune.

A gentle but insistent question rose within me: How can I embody both the masculine and the feminine? That question echoed through this work. I composted my readings, my encounters, my longings - into the fertile ground from which this piece grew.

I translated this prayer into spoken word, sound, live performance, moving image, and installation. Storytelling, myth-making, and deep rooting in place are at the heart of my practice. I built sacred altars from objects gathered along my path - such as the horse bones from Dartmoor. These objects became spells of protection for the chthonic womb/tomb: a soft cave, an echoing space to listen to the whispers of (m)Other.

My costume became a portal, outwardly expressing both masculine and feminine energies. Inspired by folk heritage - Morris dancing, handmade ritual attire and genderqueer figures like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando- I began stitching together a Funga-worshipping character. Opulent and otherworldly, yet grounded in the earth, this being emerged through reclaimed fibres, re-spun into a story of renewal. 

This prayer was birthed in a grandmother’s garden and echoed through a small village in West Cornwall. The journey was held by The Little Wild (m)Others, a collective of companions who supported and witnessed each other’s work—bound by a shared vow to the Cosmic Earth (m)Other.

m + Other = (m)Other

(m)Other is a term we created to move beyond the gendered expectations of “Mother” and honour our queerness - our resistance to the binary imposed on female-presenting bodies.

The Cosmic Earth (m)Other is wild, fluid, and ancient - beyond gender, beyond culture. She/He/They live in each of us: a wild seed longing to grow, to die, to rebirth.

This is an invitation to the underworld, the sacred womb, the chthonic tomb - where language is not yet bound to name, and prayer moves in sound, gesture, and breath.

I enter the forest as my temple and descend into the underworld/innerworld—(m)Otherworld—communing with kin, forming relationships with the more-than-human and the mycelial web, breaking the boundaries imposed by man.

I am a changeling child.
I speak my (m)Other Tongue to liberate our bodies.
I entangle myself in the dirt, return to the void, and express what has been silenced.
I reach toward healing - through body, through cosmos, through heart.

My prayers are not about the (m)Other.
They are for the (m)Other.

They are for a wild, multispecies world—a world that serves not one, but ALL.