They lack hands

In this series of Polaroids, documented during the month of May, the artist records the most frequent rituals in her daily life. Some are inherited, others she created herself, all connected to something greater than herself. In their diversity, they form what the artist describes as her own mythology: a personal symbolic system that no external system has managed to take away from her. Through these rituals, the artist gains a sense of agency. Even in her most difficult moments, in the most exhausting work, and in the most hostile environment, the artist can still carry out her rituals.

The rituals:

Being in the rain
The artist asks the water to wash away everything that no longer serves her. She performs this ritual especially when the rain takes her by surprise and getting wet is unavoidable.

Washing off the salt
Soaking her feet in salt water and then washing her body with the water, always letting it run. A ritual of cleansing and release from external burdens.

Egg cleansing
An ancestral Mexican practice to remove envy and accumulated negative energy.

Going to hug and confide in trees
Trees help release energy when the artist feels overwhelmed. A ritual of liberation through nature.

Going to pray at the church doors
The artist does this from outside, because the church is almost always closed. This doesn't prevent her from speaking with her Father. The threshold is enough.

Lieing down on her parents' bed
For genuine rest and energy recharging. A return to her origins.

Dancing in the dark while smoking a cigarette
To let go and reconnect with herself.

Looking her father in the eyes
To ask for strength.

Wearing her grandmother's Manila shawl
To connect with her female clan.

Mircea Eliade (1957) proposes that the sacred does not require an institution to be valid; it is any practice that a person imbues with meaning and that connects them to something greater than themselves. For the artist, each ritual fulfills this function: a personal cosmos constructed and sustained in the face of the chaos of the outside world.

Bibliography: Eliade, M. (1957). Das Heilige und das Profane. Rowohlt. [Spanish translation: Lo sagrado y lo profano. Paidós, 1998.]