Heaven on Earth: Shadow Work
New Orleans, Louisiana
Heaven on Earth: Shadow Work celebrates the messy and often ugly parts of sex work, acknowledging the divinity that is the rightful inheritance of erotic workers. The final calendar will be sold to benefit Heaven on Earth, a supportive spiritual network for sex workers and survivors.
In choosing to honor our inner divinity through the gender neutral title of Goddexx, the project team acknowledges that spiritual power (as well as earthly existence) goes beyond the gender binary. This project seeks to honor the legacies of Goddexxes that many sex workers today embody (consciously or not), such as Pomba Gira, Lilith, Astarte, Ishtar, Innana, Lilith, Oya, Oshun, Isis (Auset), Persephone, Aphrodite, Kali Ma, and so many others.
Goddexxes don’t just bring Heaven To Earth, they also bring Earth To Heaven. The Heaven on Earth: Shadow Work project team produced a radical calendar that celebrates the underworld Goddexxes who many sex workers are inspired by and often invoke in their work and lives.
Heaven on Earth: Shadow Work is equal parts creative endeavor and joyful celebration of sex worker power. Honoring our collective need for community and self care, the project team invited sex workers to gather, relax, revel, and channel their own divinity for a special day of photoshoots and peer connection.
The photoshoot was hosted in a container that prioritized the comfort, nourishment, and consent of sex workers and survivors of sexual violence. The culmination of this day is a beautiful calendar featuring performers, organizers, and community members representing their chosen deities.
The calendar itself highlights radical, revolutionary sex worker history and Goddexx magick, and is a way for participants and viewers alike to stay connected and anchored in daily acknowledgement of the powerful creator in us all.
Amira Barakat Al-Baladi
Project Coordinator
Amira is an artist, writer, lover and dreamer. She is a portal to recognizing one’s own inherent worth and dignity. She founded the Heaven On Earth community as a supportive spiritual healing space for sex workers, sexual assault survivors and our allies. Amira developed her spiritual gifts while working in the adult industry and now supports others in doing the same. Honoring her nomadic lineage, she has traveled and lived all over occupied Turtle Island before rooting down in New Orleans. Always controversial and always willing to unapologetically state her truth, she opens up space for so many more Arab baddies, Muslim hoes and unconventional healers to do the same. @hoesarehealers on Instagram and Twitter.
Natalia Padilla
Stripper, Brujx, Artist, Two-Spirit; I am an indigenous single momma to two wonderful souls and a fur baby. I am a survivor of domestic violence, sexual trauma, and the pain of losing a baby from being stillborn. My mission is to help you re-claim your power as I’ve done for myself countless times before. I’ve been on my self-healing journey since 2011 after being hospitalized from a nervous breakdown and subsequently being diagnosed with PTSD, depression, panic, and anxiety. However, through my work with holistic practitioners, counsellors, spiritualists, and my own Energy Healing practice over the last decade, I was able to discontinue medications, address the trauma and begin the healing process. @moonlighthealingnj on Instagram.
Angel (La Muxer Diosa)
Angel is a multimedia artist, yoga guide, energy healer, sensual Domme and professional tease. Angel is a guide to empowering one’s self through movement and meditation. Currently settled in the Bay Area, California, she is a traveler having journeyed all over the US, she plans on continuing to explore and grow community along the way. You may also know her for her films with Crashpadseries as La Muxer Diosa where she utilizes sex magic towards the protection of queer people and reparations for BIPOC. She is a force to be reckoned with. @brujxs_crochet on Instagram.