P2: The Edenic Zone - Portal of Rest and Beauty

P2: The Edenic Zone - Portal of Rest and Beauty
By Ruqayyah Al-Baari
May 2021

One person would have a hard time trying to save the world, but they can offer a shift in vibration within the micro to positively affect the macro. My belief is there exists many realities on this planet and ultimately varying frequencies we may step in and out of. It was through communion with plant-based intelligence (medicine), that I received the understanding and significance of raising the vibration; one human catalyst at a time will offer a shift in collective frequency reality over time.

I decided to begin imagining what the ideal might look and feel like from my own perspective, and these were the components of that ideal world:

Beauty
Space
Rest
Truth
Understanding
Acceptance
Abundance
Comfort

I felt it was possible to provide this to the world (my community) in my own way, and through the vehicle of Zona Baari, my creative expression, I decided it would be realized.

Primarily I had been creating tangible objects of beauty for sometime, exploring different mediums – ceramic, metal, textiles…but still felt there deserved to be a place where others might exist in my ideal world. This became the impetus for the Edenic Zone. The Edenic Zone itself is a concept that I’ve been working on independently for sometime now, and a few months ago I began seeking the right opportunity to realize the first iteration of the Edenic Zone, which I intend to continue in different locations and involve other artists, from location to location, to collaborate with on an element of the experience for future pop up experiences.

Simply putting the energy out there, I made a post online to see if anyone would be interested in facilitating a pop up for Zona Baari. Shortly following, I was contacted by Coco Villa of Casa De Coco, to try out a retreat style residency at her space in Asheville, NC.

I had never visited Asheville before, and never met Coco, but I felt illuminated by her spirit of trust and openness for the sake of creation. I was interested in trying out soft sculptures, and with Coco’s skill in fashion design, it seemed to be a perfect pairing for where my creativity was seeking to explore. I learned that Coco also uses dance as another form of her own artistic expression, which signaled a major green flag for the possibilities of our working together.

(images by Ruqayyah Alzona Al-Baari)

As the Edenic Zone has become clearer over time, I realized I am primarily interested in offering a space for rest amongst beauty, two essential elements to the world building I was doing. When I shared this goal with Coco, she mentioned an amazing floral farm she had relationship with in Leicester, NC called Lady Luck Gardens. The idyllic setting of this floral landscape being available as our location seemed nearly too perfect, almost ordained. As the time went on and Coco and I continued to plan virtually prior to my arrival, everything fell into place, and the vision to collaborate on soft sculpture pillows together was decided.

The pillow forms arrived from my bone shapes -born from my studies on freestyle dance as an alternative mode of communication. They began as flat drawings, sculpted in the form of ceramic as well as metal objects, and now we would be bringing them to life in their largest as well as softest form. As the bones themselves served as a physical representation in the observation of instinct to be truth, they became a functional tool for comfort as well.

(images by lydia see)

Instinct → Truth → Understanding → Comfort = Beauty

The Edenic Zone Experience itself invited guests to rest on these soft objects, and play amongst the grounds of Lady Luck. Many in attendance helped themselves to go for a dip in the body of water nearby and take delight in eating the citrus fruits placed sporadically on site.

I wanted to offer a movement activity that would be accessible to even those with little to no previous dance experience/training. The movement meditation was an intentional construction of circular movements in counts of repetitive 7’s.

We acknowledged all four directions throughout the exercise, facing north, south, east, and west before breaking into small groups to give people the chance to invent their own movements one at a time with frequent freezing in motion to observe one dancer then allow the next person to respond in movement while the previous dancer watches.

It was an opportunity to permit each other the space to communicate with movement uniquely our own.

Throughout the exercise I began to hear soft giggles as the time went on, there seemed to be no verbal language being used in the group however. Eventually the collective was able to break out into freestyle group dance at once, making it a climax moment of movement until it seemed the only thing to do next was collapse into the soft objects on the ground and enjoy the clementines that surrounded us.