a history of

prayers
In 2008, when I was 20 years old and a college student, I lost the ability to sleep. Anxiety ruled. I
plummeted into a nightmare existence -- night after night of insomnia, plagued during the day by
fear of not sleeping the next night. My mind was in a constant fog of confusion and distress. No
clear thoughts. Diagnoses came -- depression, anxiety disorder. Therapy, psychiatry, medication.
Over the next 10 years, I fought and fought the weight of my pervasive sadness and fear. Many
things happened in this time. I had a lot of joy. Three loving partners. I went to Harvard. I commit-
ted to my lifelong dream of being an artist. I met my creative partner and expanded my creative
output beyond anything I had dreamed. I started a business. I traveled. My friends loved me and
I loved them.
But throughout all this, I prayed and prayed, trying always to outrun, to escape, to push off forev-
er the weight of this darkness that seemed to be stuck to me, so much so that I came to believe
it was me. I did not have hope of escaping it, could not imagine it, but still, I never stopped trying.
But the sadness was always with me, lurking.
My prayers took many forms. At first, paintings. Dances. Running, stretching. I covered a room
in mantras then painted it white. Then -- learning -- landscape architecture, sketching, think-
ing, ecology. The prayers were installations, parties, notes, travels, imagined landscapes. Then
-- connection: my brother, my friends, lovers.
When I met Paul, the prayers took the form of love for another -- of new dreams of partner-
ship, of connection, of health, of caring for someone, of living for someone, of harmony. I prayed
the prayer of love over and over, trying always to learn it. Prayers of love for Mars, for electrical
equipment, for trash, for polluted lands, for my friends, for the things of the world.
I prayed for 10 years, for many things, in many ways, but all of them were also, underneath, prayers for
myself. Prayers that I could be as good, as free, as light as the world I could envision but could not reach.
No matter how much my life changed, this fundamental practice did not.
On July 6, 2018, I said my final prayer of this kind. I did not know that’s what it was at the time. It was a
desperate, violent prayer, sitting on the street curb near my office, sobbing and isolated, desolate. I was
lost, so far down inside a black hole, farther away from grace than I had felt in years.
A few hours later -- walking out of work -- it happened. Long fought for, desperately clawed at, in this
moment the salvation I had been seeking all this time but never thought was real, just came, just like
that. It fell upon me from the sky, crowned my head and poured down my uplifted face, streamed down
my body and sublimated into a cloud of light and truth that framed me, cocooned me, and buoyed me
down the street -- and me, sobbing, laughing, dancing in its presence.
It was simple in the end -- the weight I had been trying to escape all those years, that was so stuck to
me I thought it was me -- it turns out it wasn’t me at all. It wasn’t mine. It did not belong to me. And so,
there was no escape to be made -- it just left. And I, showered in a blessing long prayed for, left too - -
dancing : )
This book is a collection of many of the prayers I made. In celebration, I look back at this history of prayer.
And I, here, now, a quivering blob of flesh, raw sweet and newborn -- I look out at the world with a vulner-
able heart, an open smile, and an excited patience to receive the blessings of the world as I give it me.
Thank you.
 Part I
to Paul to Susan to Ivan

for love your guidance has been immeasurable because you were there and you
still are

and to myself
After it \ In it
because you worked so hard and you were worth it
Tattoo 1
Tree
 oh Larissa,
don’t be so afraid,
you’ll make yourself alright

OK
gift from susan
 Jose’s photo

the meadowlands
Tattoo 2
House

gift from susan

 tree

where Jose Jenny’s Morin’s

lives house house

my house
where I used
to sit
my
house
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Dear Larissa, There are good days and there are bad days. Love always, Larissa Battle.
Battle.
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your forte. Transitions are not your forte. Transitions are not your
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Battle.
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I just want to try as
hard as I can
 Part II
Trying as hard
as I can
I’m feeling pretty badly about this right now.
Why
-wasting money in renting the studio
Solution: make it worthwhile
-thinking to myself that I’m not worth it.
Am I worth it?
-not being on a working schedule
I like getting up early.
Tomorrow I will be getting up at 7:30 no matter what.
12-31-14

I did not purely just want to be alone. I wanted to spend the night in a way that means something
to me. The expectations are stressful – expectation for it to mean something. I am not learning how
to be alone. I am learning how to be me, who I am and what I am, without anxiety, or disappoint-
ment. How to enjoy regardless of having this or that. Without doing something to prove something.

I AM trying as hard as I can.

At the same time, its good to care how things are to a certain extent- so that they feel good and
true. But there are still things – needing to wear a particular sweater. But then, if I only wear those
clothes, I do feel better. That can just be. I don’t need to ‘rationalize’ why. That’s what Susan Pinco
has been trying to tell me. Not everything is figured out through explicit, conscious reasoning. Know-
ing which clothes feel right is another way of figuring out.

01-01-15

* my first instagram post

There is great peace in simple work that I hold to be
worthwhile. Maybe it’s not that I am filling myself with
anxiety because I am not honoring a sense of urgency,
but because, like wearing certain clothes or eating some-
thing, it is just what I want to do.
Don’t get discouraged. I am learning how to be the per-
son I want to be. How to do the type of work, at a
healthy pace, while maintaining a healthy lifestyle
 If I just consistently make and draw, I will get some-
where. There is a lot of mystery right now. I don’t know
what I’m working towards, but I can determine what the
next step is
I am doing the best I can. Just keep doing that. I have
really tried this summer to work on self-improvement, on
becoming more reliable for myself. I am learning to trust
myself. I can trust myself to eat well. I can trust myself
to keep clean and have clean clothes. I can trust myself
to know the value of hard work. I can trust myself to be
driven, and to be true to myself.
 I collect the things I need because I don’t know when I’ll need
them. They find me, and I pay attention to them.

Loneliness. What to do about it

(I am building a home for myself. I will inhabit it.)

Tattoo 3
Scribble
 Self-improvement is the only way out of this.
I have been having a tough time lately

Things: grampa died

nana died
uncle bobby died
my parents divorced
Ivan has been in China
Willy died
I broke up with Tim and he moved away
Mom started dating Mr. Raucci
Mom is marrying Mr. Raucci
of ess Mom is selling the house
i t
a b sadn I moved away and live alone up here
my vaginismus

This is really a lot. I feel like lately I

haven't been able to do school to
the fullest because all this is taking my time
and attention.

Maybe I am a late bloomer. I think so. I

feel like I am just gaining confidence now.
Its fine to have patience with yourself.
I feel like I need something besides school
and those people. Something that's just mine.
 Broke up with Tim
Willy died
Jenny got married and I went to Vegas
Uncle Bobby died
The house got sold
Nona died
Mom married Mr. Raucci
I got 2 step brothers
UPDATE LATER THAT YEAR => Ivan got married
Ivan is angry with mom
Lukas is a teenager

I liked the intensity and saturation of this year

I gained an ability to say OK, this is what’s happening now. I wasn’t ready for this. I
wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t thinking of it. But it’s here, now, and I am in it.
IVAN
The best thing you ever said to me was

“You know what was brave?

Staying at home.
That was brave too.”
My own too muchness and I did not feel the same. because it told me I wouldn’t stop
And therefore I didn’t want to have him look at me until my three year headache went away.
What salvation in hearing that with some kind of expectation.
too muchness is OK. I only know him because my own too muchness My own too muchness
My own too muchness has been with me made me sign up for Tinder the day that I got to Germany means that I can’t take naps
I remember it in my first memory and run through every tinder profile in the area for the type of person I had or watch movies
When I was told not to pick up a baby specified in one week.
but I did it anyway It might have been less. I came up with recently that I can’t watch movies
and when I put her down again, she cried because it is giving over two of my senses
and her mother came in Then my own too muchness made me go home my sight and my hearing
and I, full of the shame and guilt to change out of the tight clothes to something else
that a three year old can feel because I had to wear exactly the right sweater for too long
lied about it. to feel both good about myself that doesn’t respond to me.
I said she hit her head on the leg of a table. but unsexy enough that he would know I wasn’t trying.
Too muchness—I had to do it, and too muchness in shame And when I got here, my own too muchness made me message him Two nights ago when I saw for the second time
I had to lie. to tell him that I wouldn’t meet him after all, the boy that I fell in love with
but would stay home. he looked at me and told me what he saw
Today my own too muchness I told him I was depressed and didn’t know the right thing to do to take care because I asked him.
made me walk home from work of myself. He wanted to go home,
to cook two tomatoes and two eggs but I did say thank you, and I added “truly,” so he would know I meant it. so I asked him, then why did you come here?
to smoke a cigarette on the balcony which I did, but not as sincerely as “truly” means. And he said, to see. I either have to stay me
and drink a glass of wine So I asked him what he saw. by keeping it out
before going back. My own too muchness And he said or it gets in me
makes it hard to decide what to eat for breakfast, or lunch, or a snack or he saw someone who was nervous and makes me something else.
Later my own too muchness caused me to smear on eyeliner and mascara dinner which wasn’t quite true
and dress in tight clothes because I have to mean everything I do. I wasn’t nervous
and ride my bicycle nowhere But it makes it easy to eat too much food I wanted him too much
smoking a cigarette. once it is past 11PM and so I couldn’t feel normal or relaxed or the usual way
I stopped riding in a place that was not a place, and I am free. I wanted him to see me very badly.
just a piece of grass next to the sidewalk next to the road. And he said
It was only five feet wide maybe, What is the freedom that comes when the sun goes down? he saw someone who has been alone a lot
and my own too muchness made me put my bicycle down It is why I can never go to bed early which is true
and sit there Why I hate being sick and someone who cries at movies
and sort of cry, but not really, or tired which didn’t feel true
and send a text message to a friend telling her that I thought I might be depressed like sleep deprived tired because I don’t watch movies.
because I had fallen in love with someone I had only met twice where my whole body hurts and my brain stumbles around
and felt listless and useless But it made me think about whether or not
because he did not love me back, My own too muchness I am someone who cries at movies
and how else could that have happened once wouldn’t let me sleep because I always thought of myself as someone who never
unless I was depressed and already lonely in a desperate way. for three years cries at movies.
and it only relented when my own too muchness and my own too muchness maybe
In the same spot, my own too muchness made me message a guy fought itself won’t let me watch movies
to ask if he still wanted to go for a walk and made me put on my converse sneakers because my own too muchness takes up so much of my en-
because he had asked me that morning which are horrible for running ergy.
and I told him no, because I felt that he was interested in me but I didn’t own exercise shoes But also because they get inside me
romantically and go outside and make me feel lonely, usually.
and just start running
Tattoo 4
The turnpike in the
meadowlands
I feel more like myself than I ever have before, and I’m excited to rejoin circles
of familiarity with this stronger, growing sense of self and to nurture it, feel it,
even more to allow it to keep growing.

Why do I feel this way?

Because I have nothing to rely on, nothing to fall back on to inform who I am,
to myself and to others, other than myself. It has been a year of finding delight
in my own company, of learning what it is that feels good and right, what I do
when I’m on my own.
Part III
Paul
about your song --

here is the process of me feeling around about your song

before you began to play the song, i was apprehensive because of the chance that I might not like it. It could
have proved to be a way in which the way that you express the stuff of what you are doesn't resonate with
me. in more blunt terms, i was worried it wouldn't be at the level of my taste, in which case I would be
unavoidably made to feel off in some way about you. this is a fine and sometimes desired quality in a friend,
and i have many friends that i love whose taste is drastically out of whack with my own, but in a lover it's
surely something that turns me off, even if i were to try to have it not to.

when you told me it was a lament of loneliness, the apprehension started to go away, because that is a topic
that excites me and that I am often drawn to, indeed will even seek out or make things about. I love things
about loneliness.

when you began to play the song, some apprehension came back, and also a feeling that this wasn't what I
might have thought a lament of loneliness would sound like, which then made me concerned that indeed it was
of a different taste species than my own.

as i listened and watched you play the song, a few things were happening. I could see in your body the way
in which you were nervous, which made me feel very affectionately towards you. i also began to feel that i was
watching something beautiful, and of a beauty of a different timbre than my own. this was loneliness, sadness,
solitariness, but somehow bright and sure of itself at the same time, well-formed and contained. there is a
very distinct way it presents itself in my mind, which is a little something like this, altho i just made this v.
quickly right now so keep that in mind. its an approximation as much as the words are, but quite a bit closer.

this is a type of sad beauty that i often don’t know how to respond to, because its different in many ways
from my own expression of sadness. so in that moment you seemed a bit impenetrable / unapproachable, but
as you also seemed beautiful, it made me feel uncertain and even something like dumb in an emotional sense.
this was also still paired with the apprehension that it could just be that the taste of the song wasn’t of the
level of my own, so altogether there was a lot to go through in order to properly be able to understand my
feeling about the song.

after the song was over, i suppose it was rolling around in my brain, and occasionally this image of the lone-
liness would come into my head, the same feeling of my own dumbness in comparison would accompany it.
at some point i must have realized that taste wasn’t the issue, it was clear it wasn’t because of this funny
reaction of awe i was having.

until eventually i found myself singing your song while i was taking a shower, the other day, i suppose it was
yesterday. and i realized that i came to regard the song as a thing that i was a bit shy of, felt a bit of awe
towards, but that i could stand in the same space as it and let it be in my space, could understand it in some
ways and have it remain different and mysterious in others. its a lot like looking at your face and smiling at
you, knowing you are some other thing, and enjoying the simultaneity of strangeness and understanding
The world that we have participated in making ; our actions get away from us in this world of others. Love
Shame
Approach engineering, technics, human involvement in systems of material change. with emotion, intuition 00 aesthetics
being the realm of relations between things, of sensuality

Take on problems of global warming, the immensity of our footprint, so big that it gets away from us, and we repeat on
loops, eating way past we’re full
Luxury
A pause
For honesty
Loneliness
Creates measure
And discipline Others
Deconstructing binary of life and nonlife ; dismantling nature ; the decentering of the human on a level with the nonhuman
for the sake of mindfulness with ourselves Strangers
Always acknowledging the mystery and obscurity of others
The nondispellable unintended consequences
Halo
The elevation of maintenance and care
Friends
See the others as others,
The mystery of them means we can never be too respectful, too caring, too careful Void
Learn how to be better humans – how to care, how to steward, how to be mindful of ourselves on a species level
, work our way through Exuberance
To find exuberance
Rave
Joy
In the ugly parts of ourselves Free
Inhabit our sadnesses as a species. Face them. Dwell in them. Discover that the void is chill as fuck. Operate from the void. Release
(the luxury void)
To find the luxury void Honesty
Ecology
*an antidote to loneliness* Interaction
- we are not alone in a world of our own making, the others
that we have made are alive, vital, brimming with life, in need of love Care
feeling feelings with my
baby Paul
Me with anger and sadness, together we
go with love for each other and our friends
1

Sit. Notice your pelvic muscles.

Are they gripping?
Let them go.
Remain and breathe for a while,
focusing on maintaining a floating pelvic state.
Tattoo 5
a gentle mark of continuation
2

Look at an object in front of you.

As you look, notice your face. Paul,
Are your eyes straining? Is your jaw tight?
Or perhaps there is other tension in your gaze. Yes. Yes!

I love you dearly, and I am so grateful for your bravery.

Breathe in.
As you breathe out, soothe that tension. I love you deeply, so deeply. This email is a gift, a beautiful, beautiful gift that has made me joyous. Thank you, thank you.
Bring the face to a place of neutrality.
Keep gazing at the object,
Love,
letting the gaze too become neutral.. Larissa
 wake up

stretch

run

breakfast

shower

In my grandmothers clothes in the house of

my birth readying myself for the next
With new ecological awareness and reality comes the need for new modes of environmentally-based party. How do we enter into commu- World, where he writes of the need for “community therapy” in “healing our relations to the widest community -- that of all living be-

nion with the rhythms and power of plastic geology, cyborg honeybees, time crystals, 3D printed organs? How do we celebrate alongside ings.”10 The basis of this therapy is joyful interaction with the nonhuman -- a joy that springs from the realization of an “intimate rela-

and within the planet’s life forms and systems while carrying with us knowledge of the immense and often destructive human presence? tion” to something that is other than ourselves.

In coming to such questions, the architect has the ability to weave new material realities that embrace the intertwining of synthetic and The party can intentionally bring people into intimate encounters with foreign others--be they other people, different creatures, ideas,

biological forms. Flagship projects like SCAPE’s Living Breakwaters promote infrastructures that mediate ecological conflict--in this memories--and grow those encounters into mutual experiences of beauty and joy. The act of invitation is an intentional establishment

case between coastal human settlement and encroaching seas--by hybridizing human construction and marine ecosystems. Bio-architec- of community that catalyzes who and what will be brought into relation. Through the creation of material, spatial, and temporal frame-

tures like R&Sie(n)’s I’m lost in Paris create intimacy with the nonhuman; in this case, a laboratory clad in a hydroponic assemblage of works, latent scripts are embedded within the party that emerge to provoke and guide interaction. In parties where dance is a fundamen-

blown glass, ferns and nutrient and bacteria-rich water becomes a lively facade, sited within a neighborhood the designers imagine “is tal element, the guiding presence of music creates an open network in which bodies are brought into constant perception and reaction to

both attracted by the green aspect and repulsed by the brewage and the process to produce it.”9 one another, continually encountering the foreign body and together finding ephemeral modes of resonance and unity.

musk buffet

Employing party as a tool for growing intimate relations amongst all types of creatures and forms is not so much a novel application as it

But there is also the ability to guide the psychological transformations implicated in the art of living with ecological awareness. Indeed, is a continuation of an ancient practice. The party lies before us as a design medium uniquely suited to engaging the human experience of

new social rites are blooming within the domains of ecological art, scholarship and activism, grounded in theory on the role of the psyche a world of knotted interdependencies. As an architectural endeavor, this means crafting spaces and experiences tuned precisely to bring

in cultivating healthy human-nonhuman relationships. Scholar and activist Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects sets forth rituals for participants to a place of intimacy and resonance with the rhythms and creatures of the contemporary nonhuman; experiences that take

environmental healing and forms the basis of a global community of creators, thinkers, healers. Ecosexuality is blossoming as a sexual place in particular spaces, times, communities, atmospheres.

identity and set of social practices: the collaborating artists Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkles craft group weddings to soil, coal, rocks;

art collective Pony Express’ Ecosexual Bathhouse offers visitors an array of experiences that couple human sensuality with intra-sub- Participating in a party can be ecological understanding made crystalline--condensed, immersive, and parsable as a distinct experience.

stance and -species relations. The party is the living choreography of psyche and substance, massaged into being through a promiscuous web of co-conspirators and

Harmonious cohabitation with the nonhuman may not simply be a matter of engineering the right systems, but an act that draws on the friends of all kinds, its only lasting impression the psychic reverberations and social imprints that echo long after it has ended.

whole human self. This thought is well articulated by philosopher Arne Naess in his Self Realization: An Ecological Approach to the
3

Maintain the gaze on an object.

The gaze is neutral.
Bring your hands up,
holding them in a soft airborne position, wake up
restful yet poised for movement.
stretch

While holding the gaze, run

bring the hands to touch the body breakfast
in whatever way presents itself.
shower
Perhaps the hands press into the chest,
or perhaps the fingers
push and release gently into the face,
creating a line from the ear to the jaw.

Spend some time exploring,

all the while maintaining the gaze.
I choose to
love you.
walk in peace from the couch to the kitchen

Stand.
wake up In your mind, set a destination.
Somewhere close by – perhaps to the kitchen,
stretch
or to the couch.
run Walk to this place.
breakfast As you walk, keep empty of anything
but the walk itself.
shower
 what doe s it me a n, to love you ?

how ?
 wake up
wake up
stretch
stretch
run
run
breakfast
breakfast
shower
shower
After you read this, look
Afterup.
you read this, look up.
If you know the people you are looking
at,
see if you can make them

strange to you.

If you don’t know them

,
calmly notice
what they are
doing. For a
moment, relieve
yourself from
pressure to
interact.

Notice your breath.

Maybe you are breathing
fast or slow,
Maybe
it just Continue to focus your attention inwards.
feels
normal.

Notice your
emotional state.

You may be feel-

ing one way,
or maybe you
are feeling many
ways.

Briefly, drift
in those feelings.
You are a part of me forever . Good bye my sweet baby angel . I love you

always forever and ever . When I think of you you are wrapped and

cocooned in a pink fragrant cloud of love and light and flowers. That is

the place I always wanted to make for you. I tried my hardest.

I love you for who and what you are
Tattoo 6

me Jose Charles

phragmites
3 weeds that won’t give up
And so, I’d like to take this moment to ask every one of you to call up in your heart, your mind, Loving each other, as you know, isn’t about perfection, or luck, or anything that seems impossible or

your fingertips --- wherever --- the love that you have for Kacie, the love you have for Jose, even unlikely to find. It is a choice -- the act of every day choosing to create within yourself a home

and the love you have for their shared joy in each other. Close your eyes for a moment if you for another person and trusting that they will do the same for you. It is seeing someone for the truth

like, and just feel that love inside you, however it manifests. Now I’d like you to imagine sending of who they are, accepting and loving this truth, and extending yourself to support them as they grow

that love out of your body, so that it comes to surround and create a beautiful halo of strength and transform into the person they desire to become. Love is, always, an action. Today, you are affirm-

and support around Jose and Kacie, bearing them up as they take this step. ing to each other that over and over again, unfailingly, you will choose the act of love for each other,

when it is hard and when it is easy.

Jose and Kacie, now I’d like to ask you to just take a moment to feel this love and support, and

to recognize that all of us here with you, in this room, filling it up with our love, are doing so

because we love you and want to be with you as you affirm your commitment to each other.
Having witnessed the two of you to-
gether, I am confident and joyous to
say that I believe in you.
 It is tomorrow.

Slowly, you become aware of your body. Your eyes are closed. They have been for some time.
As your mind awakens --- you realize, you are lying down.
You are curled on your side, comfortably.
Your awareness of yourself grows. You feel the ground beneath you.
It is hard and cold. A pebble digs into your thigh. Another pokes into your ribs.
They are uncomfortable, but not so much that you feel that you are ready to move.

You continue to lie there. Now, you start to listen. In your stillness, you hear
That around you it is not quiet, but that there is the far off sound of wind moving, whistling and gently blowing past things.
You are still and you listen for some time.
Eventually, you open your eyes.
Your head is resting on the ground.
In front of you --- dust, pebbles. The color orange, golden red.
Your eyes move farther away, along the ground. Nothing interrupts your view except rocks, here and there. The small ones are the
size of your fingernail, the large ones the size of your head.
Farther away, a rock perches that is about the size of your own body, hunched over. It hovers over a ground of fine sand.
Your eyes continue along the ground. They reach the horizon. It is vast, punctuated by a craggy hill far in the distance. It is hazy
in the pale orange light. Your head still on the ground, you gaze upon the landscape before you.

You realize --- you can move your body. It is waiting for you, ready for you tell it what to do.

Feel in your body, in all its potential --- in this moment, you might choose to press your palm into the ground, push your body
to sit. Or perhaps, your head might turn to gaze up at the sky. Or you might inhale deeply, bring your lips together, and blow out
a breath onto the dust before you, sending it scurrying away.

I am learning to love Think now --- and go slow. Whatever you choose, it will be the first of its kind.
5

Imagine, if you can,

a resting state of smile

Go on --

see if you can find yourself

walking along

and notice

that at the corners of

your mouth

your lips are gently lifted

and your gaze expects kindness

 ////////////////
//////////////
July 6 2018
Larissa
this is one battle and it is won
at least: it is over I mean: over,
finished.
Part IV
o
hi