our shoulders branch across time

Abstract

This hybrid MFA thesis, our shoulders branch across time, is a nonlinear homage to intersecting lineages—familial, spiritual, and somatic. It centers the matriarchs of my family, descendants of Donita Buffalo and Irvin Hicks Sr.—living and deceased Black women whose lineage I continue.Alongside these familial roots is an evolving spiritual practice, drawn from Buddhist traditions and grounded in mindfulness of the body. I also write from my lineage as a hands-on healer, shaped by my work as a physical therapist and bodyworker. Through prose, poetry, and photographs, I experiment with space and structure to surface what the body, memory, and lineage hold—what’s hidden, misremembered, or in need of healing. I write through the lens of multiplicity embodied in the ouro~ensō, a merging of circular symbols from African and Buddhist traditions. I write from inside the circle, adjacent to it, or gather fragments that have bled into its periphery. In this act of witnessing, I may be breaking chains or conjuring what resists a single narrative. From roots to body to rupture—and back to the unseen—the words stretch across time and space, branching into a form strong enough to hold the discomfort of more than one truth.