Dying is Easy is a series that acknowledges death, the motions of grief, and the initiation to womanhood. This documentation shows the ceremony of transition through nature, color, and movement across the United States. 

During a solo, seven-day cross-country trip, I performed and photographed myself across eight states, three national parks, and two state parks. This is my first self-portrait serious shot in color. Wearing monochromatic outfits, my focus was to hone in on various energy centers within the body, known as Chakras.

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This series received its name through multiple encounters with near-death experiences. From a bear sniffing outside my tent, hiking where mountain lions and bobcats ran wild, camping in Sequoia during a lightning storm, watching a lightning storm follow me from California to Maryland, driving up and down the largest mountain with no railing, falling asleep behind the wheel, walking in 100 degrees weather, driving off-road to a very remote part of Kansas, not knowing where I was going to stay in some states, to a loosely outlined planned I wrote in pencil at 2 am the morning before embarking on this adventure...

 

...one thing I learned, dying is easy and I had too much to live for. This work is my proof of the messy, emotional, and loving transition from my life in Los Angeles to new life in Maryland. From single Ciarra to Matriarch Ciarra, this adventure revealed to me that my sisters and my mother were really counting on me. I could no longer move recklessly as I had done through my twenties. I was a guardian now. It took multiple dodges of death to fully realize this.