Forthcoming book release - summer 2020
Ahjo's level of heart-based truth-telling is what the world needs most right now. I'm forever grateful that EarthBodyBoat: Queer Journey of a Somatic Earth Artist made its way into my life! This beautiful book is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit. — Quinn Alexander Fontaine, author of Hung Like A Seahorse: A Real-Life Transgender Adventure of Tragedy, Comedy, and Recovery
EarthBodyBoat is the artist’s journal and memoir
of Ahjo, a queer feminist. When a crisis erupts at a political event, Ahjo faces the possibility of needing to build a defense of their right to expose their naked female nipples as a means of artistic expression and resistance. In response, they build a boat that is this hybrid book—exploring multiple art forms, selves and bodies as they navigate the stormy waters between the personal and the political.
Along the way, Ahjo encounters ancestors, Baba Yaga, spirits of the land, The Crone, The Tree of Life, and a host of other travelers of liminal spaces who have much to say after generations of being silenced.
EarthBodyBoat journeys beyond the wounding of binary ways of thinking and gendering that fracture everything into parts, and, instead, offers the gifts of standing in the threshold with it all.
Praise for EarthBodyBoat
The body, the land, the river, time. The breath and feelings of the queer and tender heart…EarthBodyBoat is all these and a sneak peek into your favorite time-travelling, virtuoso-performance artist's private journal. As you prance across the landscape where art, body, healing and prayer intersect, never mind the grit n tears! Part body-ritual book of shadows, part dreamscape, part nipple-liberation handbook, read this when you are done done done with your boring corporate job, and ready to admit freely to your stardust nature. You won't feel so alone after. —Dr. Pavini Moray, somatic sex therapist, ancestral healing guide, doctoral in Somatic Psychology, and host of “Bespoken Bones: Ancestors at the Crossroads of Sex, Magick and Science” podcast
Ahjo’s manipulated photos are beautiful, lush, and powerful. Watching her work unfold over time has been amazing, and reading the process makes them all the more intense. This work is truly transformational. —Erika Wanenmacher, artist and witch.
EarthBodyBoat's willingness to sink into the folds of flesh and examine the personal and universal stories that the skin holds is, simply, a beautiful endeavor. EarthBodyBoat is a season of discovery. —Emmaly Wiederholt, author of Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond
Press
Some Serious Business #fiftyquestions
Stance on Dance Being in Body in Nature on Earth
Growling River Books