The other necklace in the poster, made of carnelian and agate beads, was a gift to me from the poet Anne Waldman. She told me it was initially a gift to her from the poet Philip Whalen. The bones of the Earth move between poets. Another of my favorite collaborative adventures was with the designer and fiber artist Claudia Hill. She wove a poncho by hand and asked artists and healers worldwide to wear it and infuse their energy into the fab-ric. It was such an honor to be one of the people to wear it when Claudia and I were together at an international dance conference in Dresden, Germany. The conference was called Tanzkongress, and was directed by Meg Stuart. Many brilliant dancers, artists, and poets were present, like Ana Rocha and Ezra Green. Claudia calls her project Social Fabric Earth Return, and here are photos of us in Dresden with me wearing her poncho:
Two collaborators who changed and quite possibly saved my life are Belinda Schmid and David Welch of Delinquent Films. They made a documentary about me called The Book of Conrad, but the thing that is most important to me is that they believed me when I said the police were lying when they called my boyfriend Earth’s death a suicide. This man was so kind and beautiful. If you knew him, you could never imagine these terrible things happening to him to end his life. He was bound and gagged, tortured, raped, and burned alive. How is any of this a suicide?
After Earth’s death, I closed my apartment off. I used to have people over all the time reading poems or playing cards and listening to music. One night I began a spontaneous drawing of a circle on the wall near my face in bed. Each night I added to it as if I was trying to force an opening in the wall. Then, I could see a spirit when I would stare at it while falling asleep. At least,
