Thoughts From The Editors - Tierney Bailey

She Who Invites

​Izanami—one of the first divine beings summoned in Japanese myth—sways hips and spear to create an island, speaks first during her wedding ceremony, propriety be damned, births devils and fiery children. Breaking from tradition, reacting in both self-preservation and indomitable persistence with no recompense for the men who continually push her to the underworld, to the cave in which she is buried. Housing a dichotomy of life and death in her palm, Izanami, “she who invites,” peels herself free, resisting at every turn the story laid out for her. These peels exist in women—the will survive in terrifying times, the knowledge of creation and destruction, the resistance of stories we’re fed time and again; we all know some facsimile of these truths. Never be fooled into thinking the narrative written by yourself is not an act of revolution. Izanami wills herself into any place she wishes, fighting to be heard by all. Izanami's invitation is for you. We know this fight. We know it well.