River me.

There's healing in these waters.

I love the phrase “river me”. There is something so compelling, so evocative to it… it brings to mind lazy days lying on the riverbed, allowing the river’s water to flow over and around my body. It brings to mind the playfulness of a waterfall, the giggles barely heard over its rush. It brings to mind quiet contemplation and companionable silence with a soul-friend, with just our toes in the cold water.

Every time I am blessed by a river, I remember this truth: I am Divine.

at a little river in Brasso Seco with a friend

I remember the first time I heard Feroza’s music in December 2022. It was when we did a joint live performance at Junckollage for E-Lips, which was a monthly offering of music and poetry that was done in partnership with the coolest human that ever human’d, Sho. (Feroza also worked with them to produce this kick-ass album!)

I typically did not know the guest artists we invited, preferring to be taken along with their art alongside the audience, and gosh, was I taken away by Feroza’s soulful and vulnerable offering. From her lyrics to her voice to her guitar—and knowing that this was her first time playing in front of people since her hand injury just made it all the more bittersweet.

I wrote a poem for that E-Lips especially, titled The Prayer, and it seems as if my own art inspired Feroza—because she came to me afterwards to ask if I would want to work on a song together. It was always a goal of mine to work on a song, and to do it collaboratively with someone I thought was magical? Absolutely.

Feroza’s Offering:

In early March, just a few weeks after the song was born, I asked Britt if she would be willing to work with me to bring it to life. I think of this moment as one of the seminal moments in the evolution of the song because while we had talked about collaboration at E-Lips, I was a little reserved about whether she actually meant it. So, when I asked her a few months later, I was half expecting a flat out “no”.

I remember sliding up to her all smooth and sly, and being like, “Heyyy, remember when you said you’d be willing to collab on something together? Is that still on the table?”

And her response was to squeal with a small leap back, shoulders slightly hunched. It was easy to discern that it wasn’t an “eep” of “no”, but an “eep” of “you remember what we said about collaborating and you still want to do it????”

I assured her that there was absolutely no pressure. I invited her over to my garden to simply listen to the song and decide whether it was something she could work with.

That evening in the garden is another bright moment in my memory. Dusk was turning to nightfall, frankincense was burning and we stretched out on blankets while listening to the song on a speaker. In a way, this was deeply terrifying because she was listening to the scratch demo with my wobbly voice and very basic vocal loops. Generally, I hate being in the room when people listen to my music even when it’s finished, much less the scratch demo.

But honestly, I felt gratified and affirmed when she asked to hear it again and again, each time inching closer to the speaker until she had it on her belly during the river mantra. Having someone listen to the scratch demo and not laugh in my face, but rather, draw closer in curiosity and in willingness for further offering, was something that soothed the raw edges of my own worries about how the song would be received, even in its unfinished stage.

This song is full of healing energy for the listener, but the making of the song was deeply healing for me. The simple act of connecting with another creative soul who also held nature in great esteem warmed tiny crevices in my heart that I hadn’t realised had grown cold. And really, it was fun to just experiment with sonic textures together, panning Britt’s voice from left to right and back again in the second round of the poem as an illustration of the river spirit saying these words to us while slowly circling us (so be sure to listen with headphones on, to get the full effect!)

When we started working on Bring Me Back together, I blended in elements of that first, original poem from December into the song (I’ll speak more of this poem, its evolution, and the poetic forms I used to bring it into being in my upcoming Poetics blog), but most importantly to me was the folk-lore-ish aspect I wanted to embody: The idea that the river is a woman, someone who offers healing and rest and rejuvenation of the soul.

During the time I was writing this poem, I was also in the wrapping-up stages of my book, Tales of Root, Silk & Bone. It is not a stretch to say that the poem was inspired by our very own Maman D’Leau, and I will admit, a lot of the poetry I wrote at this time was moved through me by her.

Maman D’Leau, or Mama D’Lo, is Trinidad’s river deity. She is inspired by (carried over) the Yoruba goddess of the waters, Oshun, and can be found in the rivers of the deepest forests, but also in the liminal spaces where the river meets ocean. Depicted as half-woman, half-macajuel, she is a protectoress, snaring men who harm the rivers and waters by marrying them—in this life, and the next.

How can they tell their quiet, quaint wives that they almost died
Lusting over the divine?
I must crush their bones as the secret of the moon becomes undone.
—Kirby Moses, Pillow Talks on the Riverbed
from Tales of Root, Silk & Bone

Internal by Ana-Alicia Montano

Though the song is called Bring Me Back, the line that plays on loop in my head when I think of it is “river me to my soul”. It is the line that inspired the feeling of my poem, because, as I stated earlier—it is so evocative.

Most especially because the original poem, the one I read aloud in December, the one that started this whole trend…was birthed in one of my lowest times in my life. After years of not seeing, or speaking, to my father, he returned to Trinidad unexpectedly, catapulting me into a downward spiral of all the emotions that I have pushed aside, or simply ignored; the feelings I refused to acknowledge. But with his presence, it was impossible not to look at them and see them as they were.

Although The Prayer is originally a love-and-heartbreak poem, in the days after writing it, I found myself returning to the base feeling of being brought so low, all you can do is sink to your knees and pray. (There is a core memory of me on my knees in my bedroom as I sobbed and this poem “played” on loop in my mind.)

The day I found out he was in the country and wanted to see me was the same day we were performing for that December E-Lips. I remember going to my friend Isabel as I walked through the doors to Junckollage and asking her to take me to a river—because I knew I needed to alchemise this. A deep, soul part of me needed the water, the healing it gives. And I do not joke when I say when we went, I lay, face-down, in the river, and allowed it to flow over me.

on my knees, I am drowning on dry land, wondering—
if ever there is an end to endless rain, flooded fields, rotted root.
let me go with you, I'm struggling.

the river where the poem was conceived

This river walk was the first time I called upon the river, upon Maman D’Leau, upon the waters, to wash away. To offer to the waters my sadness. My anger. My guilt. My deepest, darkest secrets… to wash it away, to let it go. To allow myself to receive. I intentionally let my self break down, give in, and give my broken heart to something greater than my Self. To receive forgiveness. To be blessed. So I may, in turn, bless him.

It’s all well and good to bless someone or something when your cup is full—it’s another when you do it when you’re past empty. When you’re gutted out and you’ve done all your forgiving, and yet, and yet—lingering dark emotions arise, ready to snap out at unsuspecting victims.

So I asked the river to bless me, and I offered the river flowers.

if I look at the “crosses” in my life and instead see them as tribute to gift to the earth, to carry as softly as flower petals, up and over and around obstacles in a river, to then be released at the end of a journey - then, I can treat others with a soft, loving kindness.

then, I can treat my heart with a soft, loving kindness.

I wrote this almost immediately coming out of that river—if not at the river itself, typing frantically on my phone so I did not forget the feeling, the epiphany, the revelation gifted to me.

It is the feeling I wanted to embody with the poem for Bring Me Back: the surrender that comes after the numbing out. The release that comes after the resistance. The blessing that comes after the fighting.

you carried me to the depths to show me—
I only drown when I fight to breathe.

Whenever I listen to Bring Me Back, a part of me feels like coming home. It is familiar to me, every whisper and creak and break and pause and lift. Though it still will take me some time to be okay with hearing my recorded voice (I don’t know if others experience the dissonance of what your voice sounds like to your own ears versus recorded), there is something so lulling about the song itself. It carries me into the depths of my heart and reminds me of the light still found there. It shows me how much I have healed and grown.

All because I gave everything I was to the river, to our Maman, and allowed myself to receive.

I now take an offering to the river every time I visit and leave it for Mama D’Leau. I made a pact with her and Papa Bois that I will never take something from the forests or rivers without their consent, nor will I leave anything that is not an honouring of them and the environments they protect.

at the river with Feroza and Isabel while we listened to the song, receiving.

This song a reminder that you can gift yourself to the river, and the river will give back. You just have to be willing to lay yourself down and receive.

With love,
ᛝBritt

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Post-Scripts:

✨ read Feroza’s love letter about the song here:

Bring Me Back

✨ we invite you to support the early release of Bring Me Back via Bandcamp. This directly supports our creative work, making it sustainable for the two of us.

✨ for Spotify users, you can pre-save the song here so that it lights up in your Spotify on the day it drops.

✨ Feroza’s first witchy af single, Human, pt ii, is available wherever you get your music! Listen on your preferred platform here.