“Salus” was a six hour performance located within an ambivalent landscape constructed from 700 tons of rock salt. Using metal dowsing rods, a beechwood pendulum, sage, a found image and stones gathered from Mt. Wakefield, New Zealand, one of the nineteen Holy Mountains of The Aetherius Society, I performed esoteric healing rituals with a handmade Energy Box—an object exclusive to The Aetherius Society, who I’ve been working alongside since 2012.

The Aetherius Society believes this object is capable of storing healing energy which they release during yearly pilgrimages to the Holy Mountains. Using this as a blueprint, I modified their ideology to create a box that can hold physical objects representing personal trauma. The images cast into the box were taken by my godmother and published in 1998, without my permission, in her photographic book titled Up Top Down Under: photographs of unique New Zealanders. They were taken at a time that I was being sexually abused by her son.

I began by using steel dowsing rods to identify the ideal location for the box and marked it with four stones gathered from Mt. Wakefield. The Aetherius Society believes this mountain and eighteen others scattered around the world are holy conduits for healing energy transmitted between our earth and the universe. Once I determined the site I performed a series of rituals. A page torn from the book was cast into the box, on it a picture of myself aged twelve holding a unicorn by a rope in a field of oranges. Healing energy was channeled and collected into the box. Each action and object had been passed onto me by a different spiritual medium or healer who has collaborated with me on a previous project. In the final act, a protection circle was built out of the rock salt that the landscape was constructed from. The performance, unfolding over many hours, felt futile and labored. My body endured its environment, sinking and sliding as it worked. The salt crystals drew the moisture from my skin leaving my hands and feet peeling, cut and bleeding. My body carried with it the cumbersome discourse of trauma. An uncomfortable, heavy narrative.

I reclaimed my body, the space, this story. I shifted the energy attached to my memory. I reclaimed my youthful body and gave her a safe place to rest. I built a space for healing.