Friends, Defyers, CountryThems
Lend me your Eyes (Aye)
Founder Mirirai PaídaMoyo here! My mother (whom I love and loves me) says I still don’t know how to say my birth names correctly. Allegedly, I add too much pizazz and allegedly Shona is “bland”…? Alas, here we are, doing a thing on the internet anyway! And that’s on assimilated privilege, COLONization, and lower-case t: “trauma”.
First things first: NoThing is linear. I believe the Art of StoryTelling - across mediums - is circular, referential/reverential, and a bit of a fever dream; not necessarily in that order. The aforementioned beliefs do not represent a complete list or deeply thought out contribution on how or why I believe Art, Artists, and The Tools (seen and unseen/artificial and ancient) that help them make Art are essential and important. I am biased. And Aye, I’m correct.
This company (Aye Defy); this smoke screen of “defiance” in the lineage of all good Elphabas… is an invitation and an offering. Always was; always will be. ‘til QUINGdom come. The Invitation: How do we say YES (Aye) to ourSelves in an Industry/Vocation/Field overdosed on scarcity, competition, extraction and willful ignorance on “what it takes” for an artist, and/or a Collective to choose Their Craft over stability and/or WellBeing? This invitation is also an olive branch of inner peace guiding you towards sovereignty (softreign) that I extend to you…having done “the work” and now knowing even “Rock Bottom” (multiple bottoms in my case) has its place in a creative, spiral shaped life.
Ho’oponopono y Making Amends 5ever to all who partake.
Lastly, the invitation is calling you/us/me into aligned and embodied relationship with your instrument/vessel/humanity and “body as the bank” - as Nikhol Rei would say - so we operate on Barter-Based-Equity. That includes ALL CURRENCIES across Zones of (Time) and Department of the Interior-Made Borders…(Space). Your soft-reign lives on the other side of saying AYE to yourSelf because your intrinsic value and worth is not quantifiable. That said, join me/us/we: set your rate($); don’t flinch.
The Offering then is a dance with sacred reciprocity within the Performing, Healing, + Visual Arts. An offering of spaciousness. An offering of Queerness removed from the incessant link to sexuality; as opposed to a Way of Being in collaboration with non-traditional ways of co-creating and sustaining human(e) communities outside the bounds of 1950’s lobotomized American dream$ (?) aka the dreammare of “The Nuclear Family”. “Don’t Worry Darling” had us worried and we only caught the tail end.
Here, your dreams (sleeping, waking, percolating) are held and stewarded into ma’aterial form with the pillars of Ease, Rest, Joy Practice, and Devotionally induced Vitality as our Foundation. We are devoted to your personal (FREELANCERS UNITE) and organizational (Prophets for Non-Profits) mission-vision(s). We light up at the opportunity to Create Cultures of Belonging alongside common-unity that embraces difference. Most (?) authentically, we walk beside the shadow *as* the light. We stan Integration and Clarity (Kujeka) in this household which means: we Leave Room for “mess” “chaos” and not getting it “right”.
Failure is InFormation.
We might dream up a movie version of your play that ends up stagnating in a google doc, we might pitch an event for a well known skincare brand with “no budget”, we might toil over HOW 2 PRODUCE “Romeo + Juliet” for three years…but while we yet…breathe…we can still compost our “failures” our “stuckness” our “collective grief” at the state of our world(s) into precious metals. We just gotta sankofa, “Go back and get* it!” Process over Perfection.
I might not say my name in a way that my own mother recognizes, but my given name is in fact and Truth…mine. I believe I chose (pre-birth) every single letter…down to my Maiden name. It is so jazzy and wild and full of color so why would I say it blandly? Alas, I am buoyed by a deCOLONized lens + rooted in my Zimbabwe-Massa-adchu-es-et indigeneous-settler vybe so mayhaps one day I’ll get* the accent that they (my English teachers) Lavinia’d from me. ‘til then…watch this:
S P A C E
Second things second (this is really 1a):
The above screenshot of my Zoom screen is from a JVP Power Half Hour for Gaza meeting. You can register for the meetings (Monday - Thursday) using the previous link. The presentation was by E. Siegel and there were ASL interpreters. I cropped their zoom screens out of the screenshot because we did not ask and thus do not have consent to share their names or images…but we do have consent to spread. the. word.
At the top, the picture reads “Killing Truth Tellers Will Never Kill The Truth” And the caption reads “‘Truth Tellers’ mural in San Francisco, CA painted in August 2025” honoring murdered journalists.
Which leads me to: SOLIDARITY FEST We also endorsed this #LiveEvent (!!!)
We will follow up with highlighting our fellow Endorsing Organizations ^^^ in a future #amplifAYE post. ‘til then:
Thank you for reading, listening with your HeartMind + Inner Ear, sharing with a F/friend or colleague, commenting, subscribing, creating, living, being!
Aye; Defy Expectations,
Mirirai PaídaMoyo, APK
Founder + Chieftess of Systems & Strategy~
{NetWeaving a New Ancient Earth where Artists are valued holistically}
A Virgo sun+rising who came to COLLECT<3
P.S. If you witnessed some yummy theatre, cinema, opera, live band, best reiki session ever, etcetera in The States or Abroad and you want to YAP ABOUT IT (and the folks involved), message us a short pitch for a Guest Post.
~title subject to… C H A N G E
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