About Of Starlight and Soil

A little stardust, a little dirt under my fingernails, and a whole lot of fucking questions.

Hi, I'm Ari!! ✨

I'm an artist, poet, songwriter, mother, dreamer, recovering people-pleaser, professional overthinker, pattern-noticer, rabbit-hole enthusiast, and human-shaped collection of contradictions.

I'm a little witchy, a little feral, a little philosophical, occasionally chaotic, and almost always thinking about approximately seventeen things at once. My brain is basically a conspiracy board made of poetry, ancient mythology, social justice, psychology, music, Mother Earth, and a bunch of red strings connecting shit that may or may not belong together.

And yes, sometimes I need to step back, take a breath, and figure out whether I've discovered a meaningful connection or just haven't eaten enough today.

I'm working on it. 😂

I have a tendency to look at the world and go, but WHY, though?

Who decided that? Who benefits from that? What happened before the version of the story we were handed? Why the hell do we treat the Earth like an endless resource instead of the living world that keeps us alive? Why are we so disconnected from ourselves, each other, our bodies, our communities, and the natural rhythms of being human?

And why do so many people seem perfectly comfortable accepting things just because that's how they've always been done?

I'm not built for blindly accepting shit. Never really have been.

Sometimes that gets me into trouble. Sometimes it sends me down a three-hour research spiral when I was supposed to be doing laundry. Sometimes it leads me to something genuinely beautiful, something that changes how I see the world.

And sometimes I end up with forty-seven open tabs, six new creative ideas, and absolutely no idea what I originally sat down to do.

Such is life.

Welcome to Of Starlight And Soil, my little corner of the internet where I get to explore all of it: the art, the questions, the weird shit, the hard truths, the beautiful mysteries, the big dreams, and the very real work of trying to make this world a little less fucked up.

This is where the stars meet the dirt. Where poetry meets politics, dragons meet regenerative agriculture, spirituality meets critical thinking, and big existential questions occasionally have to wait because somebody needs a snack.

It's all connected in here. Or at least, I'm forever trying to figure out how.

So, who the hell am I?

Honestly? I'm still figuring that out.

I'm someone who feels things deeply, questions things relentlessly, makes a ridiculous number of connections, and has never been particularly good at fitting neatly into the boxes people seem so determined to build for one another.

My brain is fascinating. It's also a bit of a menace.

I'm neurodivergent/traumatized, and the way my brain works influences pretty much everything: how I create, how I process the world, how I notice patterns, how intensely I get interested in something, and how difficult it can sometimes be to turn the twelve thousand ideas in my head into one actual completed task.

I can spend hours thinking about consciousness, ancient civilizations, trauma, symbolism, the future of humanity, and the meaning of existence.

I can also forget what I was saying halfway through a sentence because another thought just barged into the room wearing a fake mustache.

The struggle is real.

I have an enormous imagination and a lot of big ideas. Execution doesn't always come as easily as inspiration, and I'm learning to work with my brain instead of constantly beating myself up for not functioning like someone else's idea of a productive human being.

I'm not lazy because I struggle. I'm not broken because I do things differently. And I'm done pretending that the only way to be worthy of taking up space is to be consistently organized, endlessly productive, and good at performing normalcy.

I'm a work in progress. A weird little ecosystem. A human being trying to make sense of herself and the world while also making art and raising a tiny human.

Which brings me to another part of who I am.

I'm a survivor.

My life has had chapters I wouldn't have chosen. I've experienced things that changed me, hurt me, challenged what I believed about people, and forced me to look at parts of myself I might otherwise have avoided.

Healing has been messy as fuck.

It's been learning, unlearning, therapy, hard conversations, uncomfortable realizations, boundaries, grief, anger, compassion, and occasionally discovering that the thing I thought I'd already worked through was apparently waiting in the corner like, Hey girl, remember me? We're doing this again.

Healing is not a cute little before-and-after transformation montage. It's not always graceful. Sometimes it's two steps forward, three steps sideways, and a very confused woman standing in the kitchen wondering why she's suddenly crying.

But I do believe we can change. I believe we can learn to understand ourselves more deeply, interrupt patterns that hurt us and other people, and build lives that feel more like our own.

I don't want to become someone who has never been hurt. I want to become someone who can hold what happened to me without letting it dictate every part of what happens next.

I'm still becoming. Still unlearning. Still discovering which parts of me were always mine and which parts I picked up because I thought I needed them to be loved, accepted, or safe.

I don't have a perfect ending to that story.

I'm living it.

And honestly, I'd rather be real about the process than wait until I've achieved some mythical state of enlightenment where I never get triggered, never fuck up, never doubt myself, and somehow always remember where I put my keys.

If that person exists, good for her. I have questions.

I make things because sometimes my brain needs somewhere to put a universe.

I'm a poet and songwriter, and I create music under my artistic identity, AELLA//ARI.

Art is one of the ways I process being alive. Sometimes an emotion is too big, too complicated, or too fucking strange to explain in an ordinary conversation, so I turn it into a song. Or a poem. Or a visual. Or a whole imaginary mythology that starts with one random thought and somehow becomes an entire creative project.

That's just how I work.

My musical world moves through dark alt-pop, ancient-sounding melodies, tribal rhythms, deep bass, celestial imagery, fierce feminine energy, grief, rage, tenderness, transformation, and the strange beauty of being a human creature on a living planet.

I love music that makes something stir in your chest. Music that feels ancient and futuristic at the same time. Music that sounds like a forgotten temple, a thunderstorm, a woman reclaiming her voice, or a dragon waking up somewhere beneath the roots of the world.

I like my art a little weird. A little dark. A little magical. A little feral.

And I like it when there's actually something underneath the pretty imagery.

I write about the messy parts of healing, the contradictions of motherhood, the experience of being misunderstood, the ways people hurt each other, the stories we inherit, the truths we bury, the systems we normalize, and the beauty we overlook because we've been taught to look somewhere else.

Sometimes I want to make something tender enough to make you cry. Sometimes I want to make something fierce enough to make you want to burn the whole damn system down and start asking better questions.

Sometimes I just want to make something beautiful because beauty is fucking important, too.

I'm fascinated by mythology, symbolism, sacred geometry, dreams, consciousness, folklore, ancient cultures, and the ways humans have tried to describe the mysteries of existence.

Give me a white wolf beneath an enormous moon, a dragon winding through an enchanted forest, strange symbols that look like they belong to a language nobody remembers, and a world where the roots of the trees reach toward the stars.

I'm already mentally designing the album cover.

But I also want to understand the stories behind the symbols. What did people actually believe? What do we know? What have we lost? What have we misunderstood? What are we making up because we want something to be true?

I love wonder. I also love a good question mark.

I'm not interested in pretending every interesting theory is a proven fact just because it fits a story I like. I want to explore, investigate, imagine, and stay open to changing my mind when I learn something new.

The world is strange enough without us having to fake the magic.

And this website is where a lot of those explorations will live.

My spirituality is a little wild, and it doesn't fit neatly inside a box.

I have a complicated relationship with religion, inherited beliefs, and the stories we're taught to accept without question.

I've spent a lot of time reconsidering what I was taught, looking at history from different angles, asking who gets to tell the story, and wondering what gets lost when one worldview is treated as the only legitimate way to understand existence.

I grew up with Mormonism, and my relationship with religion has changed significantly over time. I'm interested in the ways religious institutions, cultural power, politics, and storytelling influence how people understand themselves and the world.

I'm especially interested in the difference between a spiritual teaching and the systems that build themselves around it. The difference between compassion and control. Between genuine connection and being told what you're allowed to believe, question, or become.

I feel drawn to Christ as a model of radical love, compassion, courage, and resistance to hypocrisy. I'm fascinated by ancient goddesses, lunar mythology, dragons, wolves, ancestral stories, sacred geometry, and humanity's many attempts to understand consciousness and the mysteries of existence.

I feel a profound connection to Mother Earth. I think about the natural world as something we belong to, not something we're separate from. I think spirituality should mean something in the way we actually live, not just in what we say we believe.

How do we treat people? How do we respond to suffering? How do we care for children, animals, land, water, and one another? What do our choices reveal about our values when nobody is watching?

Those questions matter to me.

I use mythology, metaphor, ritual, music, and imagination to explore meaning. Some things I experience as spiritual truths. Other things are questions, possibilities, symbols, or stories I'm still investigating.

I'm not here to tell you I've figured out the secrets of the universe. I haven't. And if someone tells you they have every single answer, I'd encourage you to ask a few more questions.

I'm also not here to replace one rigid belief system with another.

I want room for wonder and discernment. Reverence and skepticism. Intuition and evidence. The mystical and the material. I want to be able to say, This means something profound to me, while still being honest about what I know, what I suspect, and what I don't know yet.

You don't have to believe everything I believe. You don't even have to use the same spiritual language I do.

But if you're curious about the big questions, if you've ever felt drawn to something ancient and mysterious, or if you've ever looked at the world and thought, There has to be another way to understand all of this, you might feel at home here.

Just bring your discernment with you. Mine is coming along for the ride, too.

Then I became a mother, and everything got even more real.

Becoming a mother has been one of the most profound transformations of my life.

And holy shit, what a transformation it is.

Motherhood has changed my relationship with my body, my history, my sense of time, my fears, my hopes, and the kind of world I want to help create.

It can be sacred and exhausting, tender and terrifying, beautiful and completely disorienting. It can make you feel more connected to life than ever before while simultaneously leaving you wondering if you've brushed your teeth today.

It's a lot.

My daughter has made the future feel less abstract. The world isn't just some giant complicated thing happening out there anymore. It's the world she's going to grow up in.

I think about the children who will inherit this planet. I think about clean water, healthy soil, safe communities, meaningful relationships, and whether they'll be allowed to grow into themselves without being taught to fear everything that makes them different.

I think about the stories we tell children about power, gender, nature, conflict, love, and belonging.

I think about what it would mean to raise children who understand that they're part of the living world, not separate from it. That compassion isn't weakness. That accountability matters. That being different isn't something to be ashamed of. That we can be powerful without being cruel.

And I think about the kind of example I want to set.

Not a perfect mother. Not a woman who has everything figured out. Not someone who never makes mistakes.

A mother who keeps learning. Who apologizes when she gets it wrong. Who takes responsibility for her choices. Who lets her daughter see that being human is complicated, and that we can keep growing without hating ourselves for not being finished yet.

I want her to witness people who care enough to imagine something better and then actually try to build it.

Even if it takes a long time. Even if we get things wrong along the way. Even if all we can do on a particular day is take one small step.

Because I don't want to spend my life talking about the world I wish existed while never trying to create even a tiny piece of it.

Which brings me to the dream that has been living in my head for years.

The dream I'm trying to bring to life: Keperani Sanctuary.

I've dreamed about creating a place that feels different from the world that hurt so many of us for a long time.

A place where people can breathe.

A place where women, mothers, children, families, elders, and people who have spent too much of their lives feeling like outsiders can experience more connection, care, and belonging.

A place where the Earth isn't just the property beneath our feet, but a living system we're responsible for caring for.

That dream is becoming Keperani Sanctuary.

The vision is a regenerative, land-based community rooted in relationship with Mother Earth, mutual aid, creativity, healing, and shared responsibility.

I dream about food forests, gardens, earthen architecture, ecological restoration, community meals, spaces for music and movement, full moon gatherings, creative workshops, and people sharing knowledge and practical skills across generations.

I want to explore what happens when we stop treating community care as a cute idea and start building it into the way we live.

What would it look like if healing weren't reserved for people who can afford an expensive retreat? If people had more opportunities to rest, learn, create, grow food, reconnect with nature, and receive support without feeling like they had to earn their right to exist?

What if we built spaces around cooperation instead of constant competition? What if the goal wasn't to extract as much as possible from the land, but to help it become healthier, more abundant, and more alive?

What if we made room for people who don't fit the mold?

I don't have all the answers. I'm not going to pretend I have a fully functioning regenerative sanctuary hidden behind a pretty logo.

Right now, this is a dream in progress. A real piece of land, a huge vision, a long list of things to learn, and a whole lot of work ahead.

There are practical realities to navigate: resources, planning, infrastructure, ecological stewardship, building, collaboration, and all the boring-but-important details that come with turning a beautiful idea into an actual place.

Apparently, you can't just manifest a food forest and have it magically water itself.

Rude, honestly.

But I'm committed to learning. To starting where I am. To asking for help, sharing what I know, and being honest about the process rather than pretending I have it all figured out.

This website will be one place where I share that journey: the plans, the research, the progress, the setbacks, the muddy boots, the weeds, the unexpected lessons, the people who show up, and the little victories that make a big dream feel possible.

I want people to see how a vision becomes reality. Not just the beautiful finished photos, but the messy middle.

Because I believe we need more people willing to begin imperfectly, learn together, and keep going.

Keperani Sanctuary is a long-term dream, but it's also a question I want to spend my life exploring:

What could we create if we started organizing our lives around caring for one another and the living Earth, instead of treating both as expendable?

I want to find out.

And if you're someone who has a similar dream, a skill to share, a project you're building, or simply a desire to help create a world that feels more connected and less cruel, I hope our paths cross.

I don't believe we need to wait until we have everything figured out to start doing things differently.

Sometimes you just have to get your boots dirty and begin.

I give a shit about what happens to this world.

I'm passionate about justice, accountability, believing survivors, protecting children, reducing harm, and challenging systems that allow exploitation and suffering to continue.

I care about the people whose stories get dismissed because they're inconvenient. I care about the children who aren't protected. I care about the people who are expected to stay quiet so everyone else can remain comfortable.

I care about war, genocide, ecocide, abuse, exploitation, and the ways human beings can become frighteningly comfortable looking away from suffering.

I don't think turning a blind eye is always neutral. Sometimes looking away is a choice, too.

And I think we have to be willing to examine the choices we make, the systems we participate in, the stories we accept, and the ways our everyday lives affect other people, animals, and ecosystems.

That doesn't mean every problem has an easy answer. It doesn't mean everyone has equal power, equal resources, or equal responsibility. And it definitely doesn't mean one person can fix everything by being sufficiently enlightened on the internet.

God knows the internet has enough of that already.

But I don't want helplessness to become an excuse for abandoning our agency.

I want to keep asking what we can do with what we have. How we can organize, create, share resources, build relationships, challenge harmful norms, and make choices that move us toward the world we want.

Sometimes that means speaking up when it's uncomfortable.

Sometimes it means listening instead of immediately defending ourselves.

Sometimes it means changing a habit, learning a skill, helping a neighbor, supporting a survivor, planting a tree, or admitting we were wrong.

Sometimes it means making art that gives someone else the courage to speak.

Sometimes it means taking a step back, realizing we don't know enough yet, and doing the work to learn.

I don't expect perfection from myself or anyone else. I do care about honesty, accountability, and whether we're willing to keep trying.

I want to create things that make people think, feel, question, connect, and act. Not because I think I have some magical authority over other people's lives, but because I know how powerful it can be when something finally puts words to a feeling you've carried for years.

I want to be part of a world where we take care of one another, protect what is vulnerable, restore what has been damaged, and stop pretending that cruelty is simply the price of doing business.

Maybe that sounds idealistic.

Good. I think we need a little more audacity in what we're willing to imagine.

So, what the hell is this website actually about?

A little bit of everything that makes me who I am.

Of Starlight And Soil is my creative home on the internet.

It's where I'll share poetry, essays, personal reflections, music, videos, spiritual explorations, research rabbit holes, and the occasional thought that starts with okay, hear me out...

It's where I'll document the evolving vision for Keperani Sanctuary, share updates from the land, invite people to gatherings, and explore what regenerative living and mutual aid can look like in practice.

It may grow to include podcast conversations, interviews, collaborations, resources, and other projects as I figure out what I want to make next.

Some posts will be intimate. Some will be educational. Some will be political. Some will be mystical. Some will be messy, funny, angry, hopeful, or still being figured out while I'm writing them.

I want room for all of it.

I don't want to split myself into a dozen different versions because one audience might not understand another part of me.

The woman writing poetry about the moon is also the woman who wants to learn how to restore soil.

The person questioning religious narratives is also the person who finds meaning in ancient mythology.

The artist making music about transformation is also the mother thinking about the world her daughter will inherit.

The woman dreaming about community is also the woman who knows that community requires practical work, difficult conversations, and people actually showing up.

These parts of me inform one another. They're not competing identities. They're all part of the same human being trying to understand the world and make something meaningful out of being here.

So, yes, you might come here for a poem and end up reading about ecological restoration.

You might arrive because of a song and stay for a conversation about spirituality, trauma, justice, or why we've built a society that makes so many people feel disconnected from themselves and each other.

You might find a moonlit dragon one day and a very unglamorous update about clearing weeds the next.

Welcome to the chaos. There's a method in here somewhere.

Probably.

A little invitation to the beautifully weird.

Maybe you're an artist, a writer, a musician, a mother, a dreamer, a gardener, a researcher, a mystic, a skeptic, a survivor, or a person who's spent a lot of time wondering why the world is the way it is.

Maybe you're rebuilding your life.

Maybe you're questioning things you were once told never to question.

Maybe you're fascinated by ancient mythology and regenerative agriculture in equal measure.

Maybe you want to feel more connected to your community, your body, the natural world, or the parts of yourself you learned to hide.

Maybe your brain is also a crowded library during a thunderstorm.

Maybe you feel like you were handed a rulebook for life that doesn't make much fucking sense, and you're trying to figure out what you actually believe.

If any of that sounds familiar, hi. You might be in the right place.

You don't have to arrive with a finished philosophy, a perfect healing journey, or a five-year plan.

Bring your curiosity. Bring your questions. Bring your creativity. Bring your willingness to learn and your capacity to care.

Bring your skepticism, too. I respect a good question.

You don't have to agree with everything I write. You don't have to share my spiritual beliefs or see the world exactly as I do. I'd rather have an honest conversation with someone who disagrees respectfully than build an echo chamber where nobody ever thinks for themselves.

I hope this space inspires you to make something, question something, plant something, protect someone, learn something, or imagine something that wasn't there before.

I hope it reminds you that you don't have to be perfectly healed, perfectly organized, perfectly spiritual, or perfectly anything to participate in making the world a little better.

We're all figuring shit out as we go.

Some of us are just doing it with more moon imagery.

Why starlight and soil?

Because I don't want to choose between the mystical and the tangible.

I want the stars and the roots. The imagination and the action. The dream and the work. The sacred and the ordinary. The questions and the willingness to keep looking.

I want to remember that we are part of this universe, not separate from it. That we're connected to the soil, the water, the trees, the animals, and one another in ways we often forget when we're busy trying to survive a world that asks so much of us.

I want to create things that make people feel something, think differently, question inherited stories, and remember their own capacity to imagine.

I want to help build spaces where care becomes practice, creativity becomes connection, and visions of a different world have somewhere to take root.

I want to make music that moves something inside people. Write words that help someone feel less alone. Ask questions that open doors. Build something tangible that gives people a place to gather, grow, rest, learn, and reconnect.

I want to keep learning how to live in a way that aligns more closely with what I say I believe.

And I want to do all of that without pretending I'm above the messiness of being human.

I'm not here because I've transcended my trauma, figured out the universe, or become some perfectly enlightened forest witch who floats around dispensing wisdom while never losing her shit.

I'm here because I'm human.

Because I care. Because I have questions that won't leave me alone. Because I have things to make, a daughter I'm raising, a world I want to help change, and a dream I'm stubborn enough to keep pursuing.

Because even when this world breaks my heart, I still believe there's something worth creating together.

Maybe I won't see every part of that dream come to life. Maybe some of my ideas will change as I learn. Maybe I'll get things wrong, have to start over, and discover that the path looks nothing like the one I imagined.

That's okay.

I'd rather spend my life trying to create something meaningful than spend it waiting until I'm no longer afraid, no longer messy, or no longer figuring things out.

So, welcome.

Welcome to the poetry, the music, the moonlit questions, the dragons, the dirt under my fingernails, the strange theories, the hard conversations, the half-formed ideas, the evolving dreams, and the very human work of becoming.

Welcome to my little corner of the universe.

I'm Ari. This is Of Starlight And Soil.

Let's make some beautiful, meaningful, occasionally weird-ass shit.

And maybe, while we're at it, let's grow something worth passing on. 💛✨