Before Tungusic Shaman began their practices, the dead were trapped in the living space. The first shaman was chosen to travel across the lands beyond and in the cracks of the mapped, the dead and the yet alive.

Untreatable illnesses are when the soul leaves the body in confusion to the space where the dead and the alive converse then hug each other. Only the shamans are willing to convince souls back to the yet alive still decaying body. They understand in between birth and death, it’s an enormous autonomous space for the weathering of the bodies. Engagements and movements within this space are both resurrective attempts.

When the shaman reached the land of the dead, she found millions of shadowed souls surrounding her. They look similar to each other, but as the shaman touches these shadows, she feels the cuts, scars, birthmarks each soul had in their lives. She asks the family to recall what happened to the dying person’s body and compare with what she senses. Slowly, she would be certain, she would breathe the soul into her lung, travel back to breathe it out back to the body.

I was sitting on top of a mountain overlooking the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. In between dry winds and blowing sands, I increased the sensitivity of the directional microphone and I heard the recorder overloaded with distorted noises leading to distorted space and self.

The murmuring of ghosts away from home passing through me that haven’t been taken care of.