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CAMBRIDGE, Vermont -- Semi-bedridden by a rare, atypical neuromuscular disease, model/poet
Jocelyn Woods is displaying her body in erotic images inspired by mystic
visions, proclaiming the New Jerusalem is at hand. Dubbed "Anais Nin
meets Teresa of Avila" by psychotherapist/tantric facilitator Fiona
Daly, Woods has launched a crowdfunding campaign at http://igg.me/at/WeAreTheCure to raise $7,695 to create a multimedia art series with Atlanta-based photographer/artist Thomas Dodd.
"We are told that neuromuscular disease is a progressive wasting
disease that will eventually kill us from respiratory failure," says
Woods, "But 'Jerry's kids' are growing up, and the dismal predictions
used to gain millions of dollars have proven gloriously false. Rather
than prostitute myself for the agenda of medical research fundraisers
that promise vague future cures while vastly ignoring the needs of those
currently living with NMD, I have inaugurated a campaign to recognize
and encourage our ingenious ability to pioneer our own cures; cures that
unleash full presence and participation in our miraculous physicality.
And the biggest cure of all is authentic expression."
Jocelyn and Thomas began their convergence in 2012, releasing Part I
of Ecstasy of a Cripple: the Resurrection of Passion, a series of images
geared towards shattering limiting paradigms surrounding disability,
sexuality and immortality. "This looks as if it should belong in the
Sistine Chapel," says artist Kim Waldrop Evans of "A Dance of Veils",
not displayed here due to mainstream media's prohibition against nudity.
Part II: WE ARE THE CURE shall reunite the team this summer of 2013,
this time to include dramaturgical performances by Woods of her mystic
poetry in Dodd's first experimental short films.
Boldly displaying her fully exposed "disabled" body in photos that
resemble paintings, Jocelyn emphasizes that "This is not about
glorifying 'struggle" and "triumph.' I find these trendy depictions of
disability to be sappy invitations for pity that emphasize the
marketability of what I call the 'freak factor:' exploiting people's
limitations in order to produce a mental aphrodisiac of egoic comparison
in the viewer. Many of my NMD peers refer to such portrayals as
'inspiration porn.'" Rather than separating the person from the
physical, Jocelyn wants to combine the two.
"It ratchets sex up into the divine realm while anchoring it in a
body that baffles expectation," remarks psychotherapist and Tantric
facilitator Fiona Daly. "First it challenged my notion around
physicality, that some how the perfect body would support the best
sexual experience, and then I am astounded to read of ecstatic states,
that took many years of Tantric practice for me to touch." Noting that
"There is so much stuff out there about sacred sex," Daly feels Woods'
project is "Wild and challenging...exquisite and really unique. In this
time when sexuality is so tied to an ever narrowing look of a body,
Woods explodes that by presenting the perfection of the physical vessel
in which she experiences divinity."
Contributors to the campaign on http://igg.me/at/WeAreTheCure
will receive limited edition canvas prints, t-shirts and
behind-the-scenes footage; for higher level contributions Woods is
offering personal consultations and daring improvisational performances,
calling her audience her "co-creators in summoning the muse."
"Jocelyn Woods is a mystical erotic visionary," exclaims sacred sex
blogger Kama Keshish. "Once you have glimpsed her rapturous art and
divine poetry, you will be changed forever!" Woods' poetry is written
semi-automatically in non-drug-induced altered states of consciousness.
"Rather than pander to this trend of marketing suffering," says the
young muse, "I wish to share ecstasy. Rather than separate the person
from the physicality, I want to show how the body can be an integral
vessel of wholeness. That is the real inspiration. It is not about
re-wiring perception, it is about throwing the compass of reference
points out the window. Concepts of mortality, solidity and the human
condition have no ground in states of rapture."
While her experiences of ecstatic union with the divine have been
compared to Saint Teresa of Avila, Jocelyn says that "Unhindered by the
heavy chains of belief systems which deny and condemn the body as a
corrupt condition of sin allows one to enter a rapture beyond the iconic
saintly portrayals eulogized in history. To realize the body and soul
are but inseparable components, facilitates the alchemical recipe of
resurrected immortal flesh. Resurrection is not the product of
conditions, but the removal of belief that imposes the conditions of
decay and strife, rendering us re-membered of our natural state. It is a
passionate love affair, both intensely ferocious--untamed, even
feral--and the silence of a peace that passeth understanding, which
characterizes incorruptible matter."
Jocelyn's proposition of immortality may seem preposterously
outlandish, a hysterical fancy of offset wits, yet it is this very "mad
lucidity" that Jocelyn says facilitates the breakthrough from linear
mind to effortless genius. Deeply inspired by the leading mystic of the
world, Almine, whom Jocelyn describes as "a teacher whom is not the
Other, but speaks as though from within my infinite self in a way that I
cannot help but overwhelmingly recognize as the Voice of the Mother,"
she studies the esoteric science and metaphysics of immortality, and
along with her fellow students, is a living example of the miracles
thereof.
Yet it is not in anecdotal reports or research alone that Jocelyn
bases her firey summoning to her brothers and sisters, but from actual
experiences facilitated--ironically enough--by exploration of her
neuromuscular disease. In a recent interview with David Bollt, CEO of
ModelSociety.com, she says: "Upon convalescence from repeated
respiratory infections that can be fatal for people with NMD, I found
that the body is most malleable when it is healing. Furthermore, in
releasing identification with either the soul or body as disintegrate
and tyrannical isolated segments (inaccurate bifurcation causing
distortion and externalization), it is remembered as an incorruptible,
fluidly renewing field, contrary to the belief that matter is immutable
solidity."
"It was the sensation of this fluidity that inspired me to begin
using the body as an artistic medium in itself. When I model, I feel the
body shape-shifting to express the emotive attitude or state of
consciousness. The body is an absolutely limitless, living work of art
that embodies the disrobed self-recognition of divine perfection."
David Bollt, founder of ModelSociety.com says, "By fearlessly sharing
a loving message of universal human beauty, Jocelyn is helping create a
world where differences in our circumstance, and physical form become
far less important than the light we bring into the world. She truly
embodies her message, speaking and relating to others in such a way that
a sense of divinity dwelling at the heart of our shared humanity is
almost impossible to ignore."
With the charisma of an orator, Woods' Indiegogo speech summons
contributors to challenge the notion of freedom. "No longer do our lives
have to be dictated by the trends statistics and prescriptions of a
systemized matrix when the power is with the people," Jocelyn proclaims.
"The power is with the people. This statement has long been
interpreted politically, as people's right to advocate, lobby, protest
and fight for their rights. But what true birthright has to be advocated
for, fought for in blood and tears, if it is already ours? You cannot
liberate somebody who is already free. It is the deflection of focus
from a paradigm valuing external dependence and profitable victimhood
that convinces us, by our own acquiescence, that we lack what we already
have. It is an error of vision to perceive anything as unwhole when the
power of authentic expression is our natural and exulted state."
Some may call this a revolution, but Woods claims to behold a
revelation, likening her project to an apokolypsis ad infinitum: "It is
in the revealing of our authenticity that we find ceaseless passion,
wonderment, zest and enthusiasm for a life that becomes a Living Work of
Art."
A cure for disease? A New Jerusalem? Big claims for someone who
cannot stand or walk and uses partial mechanical ventilation to keep her
airways open during rest periods. "I do not call for a demonstration,"
she explains. "For decades we have resorted to activism, to the blood
sweat and tears of protests, marches, sit-ins, rallies and conventions
to procure often slow and laborious results that fall millions of
light-years short of the need at hand. It is at a point where we must
ask ourselves, my brothers and sisters, Do we wish to continue to burn
down the walls, or do we wish to rise altogether above them? For all too
often, the mechanistics of a programmed society will rebuild the wall
again and again with relentless robotic perseverance just moments after
you have given half your blood or even your life to burn it down.
Movements spawn counter-movements which cause counter rebellions in a
chain of ceaseless pillaging. Who would we rather be: the robots
mechanistically rebuilding the walls or the eagle with vision who flies
above them?For the covert operations that surround us, are but the
shadows we cast by our own selves every time we believe in the program
of lack."
Woods beckons for a change in perception: "If we choose to be the
eagle with vision, who can fly above the thickest and highest walls or
barriers ever known to mankind, then sooner or later we shall soar, and
in the vision restored by our soaring we will realize that the walls
have never truly existed. Americans have long said 'I have a dream,'
only to continue in the slumber, that becomes a garish nightmare of
hostility that pits brother against brother. A dream will remain
unbalanced on one side of the equation until the eagle vision goes hand
in hand with it. We must see the change we wish to see in the world,
because an obscured sight is what makes us think it's not there. By what
we see, we create our world. To see beneath the appearances and behold
the pristine core of innocence and empowerment is to sweep back the
curtains to the temple of that stands here, here in the core of your
being."
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Thomas Dodd is an Atlanta-based photographer/artist. Dodd’s
digitally manipulated artwork resembles paintings and contains a
cohesiveness and attention to texture not usually found in digital art.
His images never look assembled or computer-generated and he shuns the
“cut and paste“ clichés, preferring instead to assemble his scenery,
costumes and models at the time of photography. Dodd’s primary subjects
are mythology and their relations to emotions and psychological states. http://www.ThomasDodd.com
Woods' global audience follows her fanpage at http://www.facebook.com/Resurrection of Passion
Argentine poet Bruno Cruz ardently calls Jocelyn "One of the few if not
only person who can actually touch upon the skies and make us all
realize that Heaven and Tartarus lies arm in arm within our selves."
