The story of Lav,
~ a listening ~
~ an honoring ~
~ a listening ~
~ an honoring ~
of the self, in knowing there are so many parts that make-up the self, so there is much to hear and adhere to.
Lavender became after a woman was harmed in 2015 by a co-worker friend, though she aimed to play it off that the harm was never done amongst her co-workers and friends. A video game occupied her mind, where she got to have lavender curly lox. "Lav" is an old nickname she found during a very short stint of being a step-mother to a 7 year old version of herself, stemming from the feeling of giving your power away in the moment only to reclaim a meaning as to why.
Since years of recovering a sense of agency and a building of empowerment, she has taken a cocktail of regimented prescription medication -- yet, slowly tapered off a list of anti-convulsants during the period of the global pandemic and widespread quarantine. During this time period, she continued pursuing her dream to be an anthropologist alike Nancy Scheper-Hughes and went on to study theology to be amongst scholars and people of faith to feel the Earth always.
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After completing all of her required BA courses at UC Berkeley in 2019, she went on to conduct professionalism and practice ethnographic research -- People's Park Soundscapes as her Senior Honors Thesis in Anthropology and Creating Peace as her Practicum in Education. During this period, on her IG account, she was named Empress Lavender to finally openly acknowledge her 2017 lavender tattoo, and her warrior patch, symbolizing rebirth (with the red poppy) and (with lavender as) the spirit of survival -- to note to the world she is mastering anthropology, aka all things "roots."
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Empress Lavender then phased into Lavender Priestess when she heard of the word 'chaplain.' Her strife for/with anthropology continued through the time as she aimed to be apart of decolonial research and prevent harm wherever possible while also being within a community market and network for health and wellness. Her IG account is now simply her given name and her chosen vocation title as a forest chaplain, sharing content @sounding_anthro as her own means to safely represent {one's natural process of grieving} through open-sourced media.
Lavender Spirit Creations (LSC) is her brand and business directive, in which she is circulating an eco-ministry service and production company for directly honoring indigenous wisdom and shared knowledge, while holding space for community learning in film studies -- encouraging skills-building in the art of sharing vision quests and rite-of-passages.
Early Ethnography
This was a formative audio ethnographic interview, which was organized through the Experimental Ethnographic Media course at UC Berkeley, viz. Anthropology and Media Studies.
Gillian Cameron | Yoga Instructor, 2017
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...at a time when sound medicine is EMERGING into the GLOBAL-LOCAL NEXUS...interviewing on her practice into a gradual build of personal techniques, finding a healing pathway or otherwise known as a groove within her own healing craft and her own etheric awareness...US
