Schronienie : : Refuge
A Polish woman in her 60s shares memories of her childhood forest, revealing the profound impact it has had on her throughout her life.
In the early 2010s, I participated in a guided meditation led by an energy worker. Usually left cold by them, this time I was knocked back by the vision I saw: close-up images of women speaking from their hearts about the effects of the climate catastrophe on their spirits, minds, and lives. The images were stark: vivid black and white, almost shimmering in their beauty, reminiscent of old silver nitrate films from the dawn of cinema. As I watched them unfold, I realized that the women were all me. Then the idea of the Gaia Project was energetically presented to me: I was to channel all of the grief I carried within my own spirit over the climate calamity into the stories of women who had their own unique expressions regarding their relationship to our Mother, our Earth, our Gaia.
Since then I have written many Gaia pieces, Schronienie : : Refuge being the first. I’ve considered The Gaia Project as a multi-actor theatre piece, an interactive podcast, or a one-woman show. But I remained stuck (and tormented by my inaction). I’m profoundly grateful to Noon Miracle for providing this platform for artists to share our work with the world, and for giving me the nudge I needed to get off the sidelines and bring the long-ago vision to life at last. Going forward, I hope to submit more of my shimmering women, and to inspire others around the world to record their own testimonies of love for our beloved, beleaguered, Mother.
About the Artist
Valerie Spencer is a 2nd generation Los Angeles native who inherited the arts gene from her grandfathers—one was a Hollywood writer (until he was Blacklisted by the HUAC zealots), and the other wrote cowboy songs for Roy Rogers. She’s been a vegetarian since 1977 (before it was cool). A proud graduate of the vaunted UCLA Theatre Arts program, Valerie has been a member of LA’s acclaimed Critical Mass Performance Group for over 30 years, co-devising and appearing in Mariology, Ameryka, Apollo, Alcestis, The Akhmatova Project, and Untitled Communion, among many other works. She sometimes appears in TV and film, and due to her decades-long voice-over career, you may have heard her voice on the radio or in video games without knowing it (most recent video game: the yet-to-be-released Dune). Valerie’s Gaia Project has been percolating for many years, with the goal of waking humans from their slumber and sparking the universal love of the Earth that resides in all of us. Having successfully launched her daughter, Hannah, into her own happy life, Valerie intends to devote the remainder of hers to the one thing that truly matters: the protection and restoration of Gaia.