REturn, a Trashion Tribe photo essay

Return re·turn \ ri-ˈtərn \

Verb
1. come or go back to a place or person.
. go back to (a particular situation).
. divert one’s attention back to.
. reoccur after a period of absence.
2. give, put, or send (something) back to a place or person.
. feel, say, or do (the same feeling, action, etc.) in response.
. (in tennis and other sports) hit or send (the ball) back to an opponent.

Noun
1. an act of coming or going back to a place or activity.
. an act of going back to an earlier state or situation.
. the action of returning something.
. (in tennis and other sports) a stroke played in response to a serve or other stroke by one’s opponent.
. a thing which has been given or sent back.
. a ticket which allows someone to travel to a place and back again.
. an electrical conductor bringing a current back to its source.
. a second contest between the same opponents.
2. a profit from an investment.
3. an official report or statement submitted in response to a formal demand.
4. a mechanism or key on a typewriter that returns the carriage to a fixed position at the start of a new line.

In Lexico by Oxford

Theme

REturn is the second Trashion Tribe photo shoot and a very special one in which I dress my own creations and go for a walk in a wild London’s alley with my father, the photographer Fernando Matoso.

It’s very rare that I pose for someone’s camera but I felt the urge to register and now share this moment as a way to overcome certain vulnerabilities and strengthen my willpower. The result is a photo essay exploring the connection with and the way back to the source through the transformation of the self and surrounding matter. It represents the ambiguity of our times and aims to challenge us to envision a transformation that for long is calling upon us all.

We are made of the same water that runs in the rivers, the same earth below our feet and even the same dust from far away stars. We will always be a part of Nature and the more we nurture it, the more we can evolve as a species but if we destroy it, it will eventually turn us back into dirt.

We live in what many call a “point of no return”. It is not a myth that human actions are condemning all life on earth as we know it and that substantial change is becoming eminent, but in truth, either one way or the other, we are returning to the source, because there’s no way out of it.

It’s all part of cycles within cycles, endings and beginnings intertwined until infinity and it’s up to us to dance and flow but also create and seed the change we want to see manifested.

“We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.”

– William Shakespeare

Constant Change

Returning implies a sort of going back, meaning something was once, then it wasn’t and then it was again. Of course, we know how impossible it is to go back to anything as we keep evolving and nothing really get back to what once was because everything is always changing.

Change has been a constant and my life long partner. I learned to embrace it and now believe it sustains me. Every day I water seeds of change in me and grow acceptance to all that will be left because I understood that to create something new, something else needs to be destroyed and this is true to all in life even though we might not realize that we do it by simply breathing in and out.

It’s normal for change not to know what will become, nevertheless, it furthers one to stretch out of the comfort zone [caterpillar] and develop a new sense of self [butterfly]. I wonder if the dragonfly will remember it’s life as a water naiad or if the butterfly recognizes the flower where she grew from above.

We too go through a metamorphosis in a way, birth and death are still very confusing for us and it’s uncertain what we turn into after this state. And we don’t actually remember being in our mother’s womb or even how we perceived the world around then.
Perhaps we were not aware but if we were, wouldn’t we wonder how would life be after that? Or if there was any at all? How different would we be if we remembered how it was? To be in the source? Being born? And what if death was another birth channel?

As if a cycle is ending and a new one is beginning. In reality, there is no end or start as in truth they are the same. Like all opposites, they converge and form one another. Being impossible to set them apart we must indulge in the cyclic dance and flow of life and death.

“Arrival in the world is really a departure and that, which we call departure, is only a return.”

– Dejan Stojanovic

Returning Cycles

Cycles are not circles but rather spirals, that’s why we’re never here again and that is the importance of Now. All works in cycles and these are a return in a way with an inherent duality in occurrences and perspectives.

Some are short, others very long, there are cycles within cycles and I came to believe they’re kind of cosmic clocks.

REturn is a way back to where it once was, a previous place, state or condition, but if every turn of the way is different, is only to expect that each return will be so too. We never go back as we were because we accumulate experience. Life happens in such ways that it is impossible not to be transformed by it.

We are shaped by the water cycle, the moon phases, the seasons of the year, the coming and going of people or from/to places…

These influences are not always perceivable but invariably present and the more we can accept the tides ups & downs, the easier will be to cruise because life is an ocean and waves our paths, we can surf them or dive but we definitely can’t hide.

We are moved by unseen currents pulled by infinite polarities stretching from within all the way out to space and cycles are the rhythms pulsing us into life.

” If it feels like slipping back into a state you thought you’d finished with, remember that life is a spiral not a roundabout! […] We do indeed revisit things many times, but always from a slightly different perspective or point of view. […] We are never the same person twice, no matter how much we may feel ourselves to be.”

– Sarah Varcas

Self Duality

It all emerges from connecting with our own breath, understanding our inner cycles, dancing to our own rhythms so we can then tune with what resonates best with us, knowing that even that will change but fully trusting in the way.

Self discovery always leads to self duality. When we allow all of our self to express we find contradictions between aspects or parts of our whole hiding or closed away.

When we stop fighting or deceiving these parts we start forgiving and loving ourselves and others more readily, living more happily.

As I look back, I recognize how certain cycles and patterns have been playing in loop, and how far out I have walked to find my way back [with]in. It has taken me an incredible amount of time and inner work to overcome certain dualities, fears, habits and especially fake truths I kept about myself and to return feeling and being me.

I know the journey is never really over and we must keep juggling our lights/shadows but most of all we must keep returning to our life force wild nature to remember our flow.

If we understand that night forms the day, that shadow is cast by light or that opposites depend on one another, we can comprehend that unity is born of diversity and that we’re each made of many while part of a bigger organism, connected in an infinite moment, called a singularity.

“Mist to mist, drops to drops. For water thou art, and unto water shalt thou return.”

– Kamand Kojouri

Wild Love

We can experience this singularity when and only when we’re feeling love. When we are taken by rage or fear we always feel the opposite, and create a wall separating us. Love is the spice of life holding us together to the natural world and the source of life itself.

The importance of letting love grow free and wild is because only then can it be true. Love for the wild enhances a wild sort of love in which raw sincerity is carved with tenderness and delivered with humour.

Wild love is letting in but also letting go, is to accept emotional seasons and to respect both cycles of abundance and scarcity, of closeness and freedom, of joy and boredom… To know that one follows the other in an ever ending dance is to love fearlessly trusting unconditionally. Is to become aware and adapt to change with respect, honesty and compassion for ourselves and the other, supporting each others growth.

Unfortunately, love is often seen as a superficial moment in time when everything is in tune and not the whole spectrum is as experienced by most. We expect to meet the perfect person but are not willing to endure the growing pains of overcoming our shadows together. We give up easily when love isn’t breezy, as we expect it to be a sort of effortless magic that happens unexpectedly to the lucky ones.

Life really is a mysterious weaving of places, moments and dreams, each one of us is connected with all others one way or another and mainly in invisible ways, so we can’t always see what moves us but it still does no matter what…