Allowing love to be louder than fear, with Kah Yangni
Allowing love to be louder than fear, with Kah Yangni
The first installment of "The Gentle Reminders Podcast."
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In honor of releasing my “Gentle Reminders” Oracle Deck, I wanted to create a podcast that shared how the deck works by giving a couple of people readings from the deck. Thanks to my paid subscribers, who have helped me fund making this podcast happen and accessible for everybody. Below is the written transcript of this week’s podcast episode. A new episode will be released every other Wednesday for the next few weeks.
Barry: Hi, my name is Barry Lee, my pronouns are They/Them, and you are listening to “The Gentle Reminders Podcast.” This podcast is a miniseries where I give people readings from my “Gentle Reminders” Oracle deck. Each episode features one card and one guest. I wanted to read my intentions for the deck, which are written inside the box - “Sometimes we just need a reminder. A reminder of our humanity. A reminder we aren’t alone in this. This Oracle deck is here to support you & your loved ones with reminders to help you move through the day. Take a moment to get yourself comfortable, shuffle the deck, and pull out a card. Maybe the reminder you pull is meant for you, or maybe it’s for you to share with a loved one in your life! Reminders aren’t always easy, but they have the potential to make us feel nudges of ease.”
This episode’s guest is an artist and friend of mine, Kah Yangni, who is based in Philly. We had been internet friends for a while, and I actually had the chance to meet them last year when my partner and I were on a road trip. I really felt that the card I pulled for Kah was fitting for their spirit. I loved this conversation I had with them, and I hope you do too
Kah: I'm Kah. I'm 32, I’m an Illustrator person, muralist, Scorpio, trying-to-be-positive person. Yeah, I have some mental stuff. I'm still doing my best. Eldest of four, living in Philly. (laughing)
Barry: Heard
Kah: That's a bio, but it's not an official bio. It's a bio.
Barry: It’s giving very Myspace bio. Well, thank you for introducing yourself, and thank you for just spending time with me today. Like I said earlier, before we started recording this has been really interesting to see what cards have come up for certain people, and I think the card that I pulled for you really, I think embodies a lot of the work that you bring into the world.
The card that I pulled for you says, "Allow love to be louder than fear," and it is an illustration of an abstract character flying in the sky, with these butterfly-type wings, and the character is flying above a storm that is happening.
I feel like this card, when I pulled it for you, I was like, of course, this would be the card that I - that we discuss today because I feel like the work that you put out into the world really does hold space for love in a time of so much exhaustion and frustration, and I think like your work still acknowledges these frustrations but embraces love. So, yeah, what were your feelings when this card came up for you?
Kah: Yeah, I really liked it. In the sense that it is something that I think about a lot. Like, I read years ago this thing on writing. I think the book is called “Bird by Bird,” it's like a writing book and it was like tips on writing your first book and how you can write your book, like how you would drive in fog where you can only see a foot in front of you. So, you can feel like you don't know what you're doing but by the end, you finished your book. I think that's a good summary for how I feel a lot of the time. Like, I think that I have tons-- I have major anxiety and my whole family has anxiety stuff.
So, I'm always balancing feelings of wanting to do things or wishing the world was a better place with being really afraid it's not going to happen or I don't know what it takes to be part of making things any different. So I really appreciated-- when you pulled the card, I was like, fear is like-- I've been dealing with fear for years and it feels really on point.
I think I'm learning with my art, too, I think; in the past, I felt like other people were not afraid when they were trying to do art or trying to make any kind of change. That they were all these super confident, really stable together people that fully believed in whatever they were trying to do and I think I'm only now realizing at the end of having done a lot of projects while feeling really sick or even just like working on the last election here in PA while feeling really anxious I was going to live in a state run by a christofascist and being afraid the whole time and not thinking it was going to work and then watching it work or like being afraid that I was not going to be a good kids' book author and then having a book in the end anyway even though the whole time I was really sick to my stomach, realizing that there's a lot of stuff you can do while you're freaked out and it actually doesn't matter that you are freaked out, you just have to figure-- If you can find a way to keep going, that's like the whole thing.
You don't have to feel comfortable all the time.
Barry: Totally. I really relate to a lot of you sharing that because I think that we both have-- I think our work, the work that we put out in the world, for the both of us is deeply personal even if it's not explicitly direct. Yeah, when we give ourselves - when we show up with love, there are still those lingering feelings and thoughts and this message really derived from when the pandemic started. It really derived from what I was seeing collectively happen at the beginning stages of things, but not so much now. I think, allowing love to be louder than fear asks us to really show up with community. I know that's something that you have been doing as well.
Kah: Wait, can you say more about the origin story of the card?
Barry: Yeah. So, basically, in Atlanta, we have this group of public art curators known as Living Walls Atlanta, and at the time, they were putting around signs around town, hiring different artists to put up messages of hope, and they commissioned me to do like a digital billboard. When I was asked to do that, I felt like the term "Allow love to be louder than fear" the sentiment of it felt really important to hear when the beginning of the pandemic, there was so much uncertainty and isolation, and all of that where like - I think, fear could have easily consumed us.
Something that I get really frustrated with is a lot of the spiritual bypassing that happens just generally, especially when it comes to topics of disability and topics of our bodies. I knew that I wanted to say something that would acknowledge fear and acknowledge our own anxieties and personhood without just being like, "It's going to be okay," because it didn't feel like it at that time, and there are moments where it still doesn't feel like it.
So, I think saying, "Allow love to be louder than fear," holds space for the fact that it's okay that we feel fear, but we have to do our best to override that and let love be louder like we can still have whispers of fear. I feel like that as somebody who also lives with anxiety, and that's the practice of having to constantly be like, "I don't know what the hell is going to happen next,” but something in me allows me to just keep doing this, to keep making art, to keep showing up.
Have there been any practices for you or things that have been drivers in your life, things that have driven you where you can be able to hold space for fear but you still feel motivated to keep moving forward in the work that you create, or just your being?
Kah: I guess my practice is going (laughing) - going to therapy is such a boring answer. Honestly, it's my old therapist Dr. Allison. She is the first person I worked on this stuff with because when I was in my 20s, and I knew I wanted to do art in some form but I didn't know what my place was, and I had a family that didn't understand that. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety.
I would go to appointments with her, and she was like, "Our whole job is just to decrease your anxiety enough that you can just work, because it's always going to be there at some level given the way the field is and what's hard about it, but we just need it low enough that you can do what you need to do."
I think she's like one of the first people that introduced the concept of you're only trying to get enough space to move you don't have to set not being afraid as a goal because that's not reasonable, and I think that lesson has kind of stuck with me just because it feels so applicable to now where I don't think it's actually reasonable to not be afraid of like climate change, you know? Why am I having iced coffee in the middle of February?
I don't know. You know, it's not reasonable to be unafraid of like losing your job one day or I don't know, things going badly because that's like a fair risk and I think it's more about giving yourself enough mental space that you can like still do things.
A friend of mine named Garza also reinforced that lesson. They used to say that all the time about like one “have a life motivated by love” and not just being afraid of things falling apart, motivated by the projects and things they want to work on the most, the things they love the most and want to make happen in the world and for the world and for themselves. I think, yeah, my therapist and my friend, Matthew Garza, those are the two people who say those things that I think they didn't make a-- It's not necessarily a practice; it's more like a mindset that I have.
Barry: Yeah, I like that framing of mindset, and that makes a lot of sense. Especially as artists.
Kah: Yeah, because it's reasonable and I think it's a good skill to have, especially now just because I think in the context that we're living in now, in the US specifically, I think, things have been pretty... Yeah, there's just a lot going on.
Of course, there is stuff everywhere but also here, you know. I feel like there's no way to deny that there's a lot of really hard stuff happening.
So, I think it takes a lot of pressure off if you come in with an attitude of like, "Yeah, I can be afraid because I see these extremely difficult things happening." Like, I see what the police are doing; I see what our government is doing. I see what's happening. I see a lot of scary things happening.
It's actually not reasonable to not have a human response to those things and like I just need to decrease it enough to get anything done or to go to this meeting with people that live near me or to go...
I just need to decrease the fear enough to know that I have the money right now to give to this fund. Like, I just need to get it low enough to do that, and so, yeah, that is something that I'm thinking about a lot just because there's a lot of big things happening but if I can get my feelings in check enough or low enough, then I can actually act and do something.
Barry: Does making art, for you, help you to relieve anxiety, especially with the subject matters of what you amplify and embody?
Kah: Yes, it does. In a big sense. I feel like my trick is to say like my brain is like-- or my level of hope is like when you're in an-- what's that machine that like watches your heart rate? Like a heart rate monitor where like my-- I'm trying to say that, there's a word for it. We don't need the word, we just need the concept, the heart rate monitor. My hope goes up and down.
Kah: My hope is very up and down, so I think I wait until I'm at like a high point and make art and then, naturally, my faith goes up and down, but I've made this. I try to make something, and it's like really bright, and it's really intense, and it's really strong so I can look at it when I'm not feeling that way.
It's like it's not actually every single day that, you know, I'll make-- I made a poster a few years ago that says, "Trans is freedom," and that's like a very particular thing. That's like a strong statement, and I think some days if I'm with my Queer friends or Trans friends, or I go to the doctor to get my T and they are showing me how to do the injection, it's like really sweet and affirming and great.
Then, on a really good day, like, "Hell, yeah."
That's like 100% also how I feel, and then sometimes, I'll read something bad in the news or somebody cuts a look at me in a weird moment or whatever, and I feel like the hard part of being Trans.
I feel like that's the moment when it's like, "Okay, I'll go back to my apartment, and this thing is on my wall, and I feel that way."
It's reminding me to feel that way. It's like a visual reminder. It's a note to self but more in artistic form. I feel like I definitely make art that way. Did I get the question?
Barry: Yeah, you absolutely did.
Kah: Okay, I lost it.
Barry: You did not, no. You were like right on target. I mean, I resonate a lot with that, I think. That was one of the main intentions of making this deck. Was to...
Kah: Reminders!
Barry: Yeah! Reminders, because originally it was going to be affirmations, and I'm like, affirmations can be cute, but like...
Kah: That's such a good — So on target.
Barry: They cannot hold the space for those moments like you were communicating, right? Like, they cannot hold space for me when I'm like feeling really frustrated with my doctors or being misgendered or anything like that. I don’t want an affirmation.
Kah: An affirmation! Totally.
Barry: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Gentle Reminders Podcast,” you can read the transcript of this episode at barryleeart.substack.com. The “Gentle Reminders” Oracle deck is available at emandfriends.com; I also encourage you to reach out to wherever you buy books or oracle decks to order the deck from your favorite spaces.