0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
For a long time,

0:00:02.000,0:00:05.000
there was me, and my body.

0:00:06.000,0:00:09.000
Me was composed of stories,

0:00:09.000,0:00:11.000
of cravings, of strivings,

0:00:11.000,0:00:13.000
of desires of the future.

0:00:13.000,0:00:15.000
Me was trying

0:00:15.000,0:00:18.000
not to be an outcome of my violent past,

0:00:18.000,0:00:20.000
but the separation that had already occurred

0:00:20.000,0:00:22.000
between me and my body

0:00:22.000,0:00:25.000
was a pretty significant outcome.

0:00:25.000,0:00:28.000
Me was always trying to become something, somebody.

0:00:28.000,0:00:31.000
Me only existed in the trying.

0:00:31.000,0:00:34.000
My body was often in the way.

0:00:34.000,0:00:36.000
Me was a floating head.

0:00:36.000,0:00:39.000
For years, I actually only wore hats.

0:00:39.000,0:00:41.000
It was a way of keeping my head attached.

0:00:41.000,0:00:44.000
It was a way of locating myself.

0:00:44.000,0:00:46.000
I worried that [if] I took my hat off

0:00:46.000,0:00:48.000
I wouldn't be here anymore.

0:00:48.000,0:00:51.000
I actually had a therapist who once said to me,

0:00:51.000,0:00:53.000
"Eve, you've been coming here for two years,

0:00:53.000,0:00:56.000
and, to be honest, it never occurred to me that you had a body."

0:00:56.000,0:00:58.000
All this time I lived in the city

0:00:58.000,0:01:00.000
because, to be honest,

0:01:00.000,0:01:02.000
I was afraid of trees.

0:01:02.000,0:01:04.000
I never had babies

0:01:04.000,0:01:06.000
because heads cannot give birth.

0:01:06.000,0:01:09.000
Babies actually don't come out of your mouth.

0:01:09.000,0:01:12.000
As I had no reference point for my body,

0:01:12.000,0:01:15.000
I began to ask other women about their bodies --

0:01:15.000,0:01:17.000
in particular, their vaginas,

0:01:17.000,0:01:19.000
because I thought vaginas were kind of important.

0:01:19.000,0:01:21.000
This led to me writing "The Vagina Monologues,"

0:01:21.000,0:01:24.000
which led to me obsessively and incessantly

0:01:24.000,0:01:27.000
talking about vaginas everywhere I could.

0:01:27.000,0:01:30.000
I did this in front of many strangers.

0:01:30.000,0:01:32.000
One night on stage,

0:01:32.000,0:01:35.000
I actually entered my vagina.

0:01:35.000,0:01:38.000
It was an ecstatic experience.

0:01:38.000,0:01:41.000
It scared me, it energized me,

0:01:41.000,0:01:44.000
and then I became a driven person,

0:01:44.000,0:01:46.000
a driven vagina.

0:01:46.000,0:01:49.000
I began to see my body like a thing,

0:01:49.000,0:01:51.000
a thing that could move fast,

0:01:51.000,0:01:53.000
like a thing that could accomplish other things,

0:01:53.000,0:01:56.000
many things, all at once.

0:01:56.000,0:01:59.000
I began to see my body like an iPad or a car.

0:01:59.000,0:02:01.000
I would drive it and demand things from it.

0:02:01.000,0:02:04.000
It had no limits. It was invincible.

0:02:04.000,0:02:07.000
It was to be conquered and mastered like the Earth herself.

0:02:07.000,0:02:09.000
I didn't heed it;

0:02:09.000,0:02:11.000
no, I organized it and I directed it.

0:02:11.000,0:02:13.000
I didn't have patience for my body;

0:02:13.000,0:02:15.000
I snapped it into shape.

0:02:15.000,0:02:17.000
I was greedy.

0:02:17.000,0:02:19.000
I took more than my body had to offer.

0:02:19.000,0:02:22.000
If I was tired, I drank more espressos.

0:02:22.000,0:02:25.000
If I was afraid, I went to more dangerous places.

0:02:25.000,0:02:28.000
Oh sure, sure, I had moments of appreciation of my body,

0:02:28.000,0:02:30.000
the way an abusive parent

0:02:30.000,0:02:32.000
can sometimes have a moment of kindness.

0:02:32.000,0:02:34.000
My father was really kind to me

0:02:34.000,0:02:36.000
on my 16th birthday, for example.

0:02:36.000,0:02:38.000
I heard people murmur from time to time

0:02:38.000,0:02:40.000
that I should love my body,

0:02:40.000,0:02:42.000
so I learned how to do this.

0:02:42.000,0:02:45.000
I was a vegetarian, I was sober, I didn't smoke.

0:02:45.000,0:02:47.000
But all that was just a more sophisticated way

0:02:47.000,0:02:49.000
to manipulate my body --

0:02:49.000,0:02:51.000
a further disassociation,

0:02:51.000,0:02:55.000
like planting a vegetable field on a freeway.

0:02:56.000,0:02:59.000
As a result of me talking so much about my vagina,

0:02:59.000,0:03:02.000
many women started to tell me about theirs --

0:03:02.000,0:03:04.000
their stories about their bodies.

0:03:04.000,0:03:07.000
Actually, these stories compelled me around the world,

0:03:07.000,0:03:09.000
and I've been to over 60 countries.

0:03:09.000,0:03:11.000
I heard thousands of stories,

0:03:11.000,0:03:13.000
and I have to tell you, there was always this moment

0:03:13.000,0:03:15.000
where the women shared with me

0:03:15.000,0:03:19.000
that particular moment when she separated from her body --

0:03:19.000,0:03:21.000
when she left home.

0:03:21.000,0:03:25.000
I heard about women being molested in their beds,

0:03:25.000,0:03:27.000
flogged in their burqas,

0:03:27.000,0:03:29.000
left for dead in parking lots,

0:03:29.000,0:03:31.000
acid burned in their kitchens.

0:03:31.000,0:03:34.000
Some women became quiet and disappeared.

0:03:34.000,0:03:37.000
Other women became mad, driven machines like me.

0:03:38.000,0:03:40.000
In the middle of my traveling,

0:03:40.000,0:03:42.000
I turned 40 and I began to hate my body,

0:03:42.000,0:03:44.000
which was actually progress,

0:03:44.000,0:03:47.000
because at least my body existed enough to hate it.

0:03:47.000,0:03:50.000
Well my stomach -- it was my stomach I hated.

0:03:50.000,0:03:53.000
It was proof that I had not measured up,

0:03:53.000,0:03:56.000
that I was old and not fabulous and not perfect

0:03:56.000,0:04:00.000
or able to fit into the predetermined corporate image in shape.

0:04:00.000,0:04:03.000
My stomach was proof that I had failed,

0:04:03.000,0:04:06.000
that it had failed me, that it was broken.

0:04:06.000,0:04:09.000
My life became about getting rid of it and obsessing about getting rid of it.

0:04:09.000,0:04:11.000
In fact, it became so extreme

0:04:11.000,0:04:13.000
I wrote a play about it.

0:04:13.000,0:04:15.000
But the more I talked about it,

0:04:15.000,0:04:18.000
the more objectified and fragmented my body became.

0:04:18.000,0:04:21.000
It became entertainment; it became a new kind of commodity,

0:04:21.000,0:04:24.000
something I was selling.

0:04:24.000,0:04:26.000
Then I went somewhere else.

0:04:26.000,0:04:28.000
I went outside

0:04:28.000,0:04:30.000
what I thought I knew.

0:04:30.000,0:04:34.000
I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

0:04:34.000,0:04:36.000
And I heard stories

0:04:36.000,0:04:38.000
that shattered all the other stories.

0:04:38.000,0:04:40.000
I heard stories

0:04:40.000,0:04:42.000
that got inside my body.

0:04:42.000,0:04:44.000
I heard about a little girl

0:04:44.000,0:04:46.000
who couldn't stop peeing on herself

0:04:46.000,0:04:48.000
because so many grown soldiers

0:04:48.000,0:04:51.000
had shoved themselves inside her.

0:04:51.000,0:04:53.000
I heard an 80-year-old woman

0:04:53.000,0:04:56.000
whose legs were broken and pulled out of her sockets

0:04:56.000,0:04:58.000
and twisted up on her head

0:04:58.000,0:05:00.000
as the soldiers raped her like that.

0:05:00.000,0:05:02.000
There are thousands of these stories,

0:05:02.000,0:05:05.000
and many of the women had holes in their bodies --

0:05:05.000,0:05:07.000
holes, fistula --

0:05:07.000,0:05:10.000
that were the violation of war --

0:05:10.000,0:05:13.000
holes in the fabric of their souls.

0:05:13.000,0:05:16.000
These stories saturated my cells and nerves,

0:05:16.000,0:05:18.000
and to be honest,

0:05:18.000,0:05:20.000
I stopped sleeping for three years.

0:05:20.000,0:05:23.000
All the stories began to bleed together.

0:05:23.000,0:05:25.000
The raping of the Earth,

0:05:25.000,0:05:27.000
the pillaging of minerals,

0:05:27.000,0:05:29.000
the destruction of vaginas --

0:05:29.000,0:05:32.000
none of these were separate anymore

0:05:32.000,0:05:34.000
from each other or me.

0:05:34.000,0:05:37.000
Militias were raping six-month-old babies

0:05:37.000,0:05:39.000
so that countries far away

0:05:39.000,0:05:41.000
could get access to gold and coltan

0:05:41.000,0:05:44.000
for their iPhones and computers.

0:05:44.000,0:05:47.000
My body had not only become a driven machine,

0:05:47.000,0:05:49.000
but it was responsible now

0:05:49.000,0:05:51.000
for destroying other women's bodies

0:05:51.000,0:05:53.000
in its mad quest to make more machines

0:05:53.000,0:05:57.000
to support the speed and efficiency of my machine.

0:05:57.000,0:05:59.000
Then I got cancer --

0:05:59.000,0:06:01.000
or I found out I had cancer.

0:06:01.000,0:06:03.000
It arrived like a speeding bird

0:06:03.000,0:06:06.000
smashing into a windowpane.

0:06:06.000,0:06:08.000
Suddenly, I had a body,

0:06:08.000,0:06:10.000
a body that was pricked

0:06:10.000,0:06:12.000
and poked and punctured,

0:06:12.000,0:06:15.000
a body that was cut wide open,

0:06:15.000,0:06:17.000
a body that had organs removed

0:06:17.000,0:06:20.000
and transported and rearranged and reconstructed,

0:06:20.000,0:06:22.000
a body that was scanned

0:06:22.000,0:06:24.000
and had tubes shoved down it,

0:06:24.000,0:06:27.000
a body that was burning from chemicals.

0:06:27.000,0:06:29.000
Cancer exploded

0:06:29.000,0:06:32.000
the wall of my disconnection.

0:06:32.000,0:06:35.000
I suddenly understood that the crisis in my body

0:06:35.000,0:06:37.000
was the crisis in the world,

0:06:37.000,0:06:39.000
and it wasn't happening later,

0:06:39.000,0:06:41.000
it was happening now.

0:06:41.000,0:06:44.000
Suddenly, my cancer was a cancer that was everywhere,

0:06:44.000,0:06:47.000
the cancer of cruelty, the cancer of greed,

0:06:47.000,0:06:49.000
the cancer that gets inside people

0:06:49.000,0:06:53.000
who live down the streets from chemical plants -- and they're usually poor --

0:06:53.000,0:06:55.000
the cancer inside the coal miner's lungs,

0:06:55.000,0:06:58.000
the cancer of stress for not achieving enough,

0:06:58.000,0:07:00.000
the cancer of buried trauma,

0:07:00.000,0:07:03.000
the cancer in caged chickens and polluted fish,

0:07:03.000,0:07:06.000
the cancer in women's uteruses from being raped,

0:07:06.000,0:07:09.000
the cancer that is everywhere from our carelessness.

0:07:09.000,0:07:12.000
In his new and visionary book,

0:07:12.000,0:07:14.000
"New Self, New World,"

0:07:14.000,0:07:16.000
the writer Philip Shepherd says,

0:07:16.000,0:07:19.000
"If you are divided from your body,

0:07:19.000,0:07:22.000
you are also divided from the body of the world,

0:07:22.000,0:07:24.000
which then appears to be other than you

0:07:24.000,0:07:26.000
or separate from you,

0:07:26.000,0:07:28.000
rather than the living continuum

0:07:28.000,0:07:30.000
to which you belong."

0:07:30.000,0:07:32.000
Before cancer,

0:07:32.000,0:07:34.000
the world was something other.

0:07:34.000,0:07:37.000
It was as if I was living in a stagnant pool

0:07:37.000,0:07:39.000
and cancer dynamited the boulder

0:07:39.000,0:07:42.000
that was separating me from the larger sea.

0:07:42.000,0:07:45.000
Now I am swimming in it.

0:07:45.000,0:07:47.000
Now I lay down in the grass

0:07:47.000,0:07:49.000
and I rub my body in it,

0:07:49.000,0:07:52.000
and I love the mud on my legs and feet.

0:07:52.000,0:07:55.000
Now I make a daily pilgrimage

0:07:55.000,0:07:58.000
to visit a particular weeping willow by the Seine,

0:07:58.000,0:08:00.000
and I hunger for the green fields

0:08:00.000,0:08:02.000
in the bush outside Bukavu.

0:08:02.000,0:08:04.000
And when it rains hard rain,

0:08:04.000,0:08:07.000
I scream and I run in circles.

0:08:07.000,0:08:11.000
I know that everything is connected,

0:08:11.000,0:08:14.000
and the scar that runs the length of my torso

0:08:14.000,0:08:16.000
is the markings of the earthquake.

0:08:16.000,0:08:20.000
And I am there with the three million in the streets of Port-au-Prince.

0:08:20.000,0:08:22.000
And the fire that burned in me

0:08:22.000,0:08:25.000
on day three through six of chemo

0:08:25.000,0:08:27.000
is the fire that is burning

0:08:27.000,0:08:29.000
in the forests of the world.

0:08:29.000,0:08:31.000
I know that the abscess

0:08:31.000,0:08:34.000
that grew around my wound after the operation,

0:08:34.000,0:08:36.000
the 16 ounces of puss,

0:08:36.000,0:08:39.000
is the contaminated Gulf of Mexico,

0:08:39.000,0:08:42.000
and there were oil-drenched pelicans inside me

0:08:42.000,0:08:44.000
and dead floating fish.

0:08:44.000,0:08:47.000
And the catheters they shoved into me without proper medication

0:08:47.000,0:08:49.000
made me scream out

0:08:49.000,0:08:53.000
the way the Earth cries out from the drilling.

0:08:53.000,0:08:55.000
In my second chemo,

0:08:55.000,0:08:57.000
my mother got very sick

0:08:57.000,0:08:59.000
and I went to see her.

0:08:59.000,0:09:01.000
And in the name of connectedness,

0:09:01.000,0:09:04.000
the only thing she wanted before she died

0:09:04.000,0:09:06.000
was to be brought home

0:09:06.000,0:09:09.000
by her beloved Gulf of Mexico.

0:09:09.000,0:09:11.000
So we brought her home,

0:09:11.000,0:09:13.000
and I prayed that the oil wouldn't wash up on her beach

0:09:13.000,0:09:15.000
before she died.

0:09:15.000,0:09:17.000
And gratefully, it didn't.

0:09:17.000,0:09:20.000
And she died quietly in her favorite place.

0:09:20.000,0:09:22.000
And a few weeks later, I was in New Orleans,

0:09:22.000,0:09:24.000
and this beautiful, spiritual friend

0:09:24.000,0:09:26.000
told me she wanted to do a healing for me.

0:09:26.000,0:09:28.000
And I was honored.

0:09:28.000,0:09:30.000
And I went to her house, and it was morning,

0:09:30.000,0:09:33.000
and the morning New Orleans sun was filtering through the curtains.

0:09:33.000,0:09:35.000
And my friend was preparing this big bowl,

0:09:35.000,0:09:37.000
and I said, "What is it?"

0:09:37.000,0:09:39.000
And she said, "It's for you.

0:09:39.000,0:09:42.000
The flowers make it beautiful,

0:09:42.000,0:09:44.000
and the honey makes it sweet."

0:09:44.000,0:09:46.000
And I said, "But what's the water part?"

0:09:46.000,0:09:48.000
And in the name of connectedness,

0:09:48.000,0:09:51.000
she said, "Oh, it's the Gulf of Mexico."

0:09:51.000,0:09:53.000
And I said, "Of course it is."

0:09:53.000,0:09:55.000
And the other women arrived and they sat in a circle,

0:09:55.000,0:09:58.000
and Michaela bathed my head with the sacred water.

0:09:58.000,0:10:01.000
And she sang -- I mean her whole body sang.

0:10:01.000,0:10:03.000
And the other women sang

0:10:03.000,0:10:05.000
and they prayed for me and my mother.

0:10:05.000,0:10:08.000
And as the warm Gulf washed over my naked head,

0:10:08.000,0:10:10.000
I realized that it held

0:10:10.000,0:10:13.000
the best and the worst of us.

0:10:13.000,0:10:15.000
It was the greed and recklessness

0:10:15.000,0:10:18.000
that led to the drilling explosion.

0:10:18.000,0:10:20.000
It was all the lies that got told

0:10:20.000,0:10:22.000
before and after.

0:10:22.000,0:10:24.000
It was the honey in the water that made it sweet,

0:10:24.000,0:10:27.000
it was the oil that made it sick.

0:10:27.000,0:10:29.000
It was my head that was bald --

0:10:29.000,0:10:31.000
and comfortable now without a hat.

0:10:31.000,0:10:33.000
It was my whole self

0:10:33.000,0:10:35.000
melting into Michaela's lap.

0:10:35.000,0:10:38.000
It was the tears that were indistinguishable from the Gulf

0:10:38.000,0:10:40.000
that were falling down my cheek.

0:10:40.000,0:10:45.000
It was finally being in my body.

0:10:45.000,0:10:47.000
It was the sorrow

0:10:47.000,0:10:49.000
that's taken so long.

0:10:49.000,0:10:51.000
It was finding my place

0:10:51.000,0:10:53.000
and the huge responsibility

0:10:53.000,0:10:55.000
that comes with connection.

0:10:55.000,0:10:58.000
It was the continuing devastating war in the Congo

0:10:58.000,0:11:00.000
and the indifference of the world.

0:11:00.000,0:11:02.000
It was the Congolese women

0:11:02.000,0:11:04.000
who are now rising up.

0:11:04.000,0:11:06.000
It was my mother leaving,

0:11:06.000,0:11:08.000
just at the moment

0:11:08.000,0:11:10.000
that I was being born.

0:11:10.000,0:11:12.000
It was the realization

0:11:12.000,0:11:14.000
that I had come very close to dying --

0:11:14.000,0:11:17.000
in the same way that the Earth, our mother,

0:11:17.000,0:11:20.000
is barely holding on,

0:11:20.000,0:11:24.000
in the same way that 75 percent of the planet

0:11:24.000,0:11:27.000
are hardly scraping by,

0:11:27.000,0:11:29.000
in the same way

0:11:29.000,0:11:32.000
that there is a recipe for survival.

0:11:32.000,0:11:34.000
What I learned

0:11:34.000,0:11:37.000
is it has to do with attention and resources

0:11:37.000,0:11:39.000
that everybody deserves.

0:11:39.000,0:11:41.000
It was advocating friends

0:11:41.000,0:11:43.000
and a doting sister.

0:11:43.000,0:11:45.000
It was wise doctors and advanced medicine

0:11:45.000,0:11:48.000
and surgeons who knew what to do with their hands.

0:11:48.000,0:11:52.000
It was underpaid and really loving nurses.

0:11:52.000,0:11:55.000
It was magic healers and aromatic oils.

0:11:55.000,0:11:57.000
It was people who came with spells and rituals.

0:11:57.000,0:12:00.000
It was having a vision of the future

0:12:00.000,0:12:02.000
and something to fight for,

0:12:02.000,0:12:05.000
because I know this struggle isn't my own.

0:12:05.000,0:12:07.000
It was a million prayers.

0:12:07.000,0:12:09.000
It was a thousand hallelujahs

0:12:09.000,0:12:11.000
and a million oms.

0:12:11.000,0:12:13.000
It was a lot of anger,

0:12:13.000,0:12:15.000
insane humor,

0:12:15.000,0:12:17.000
a lot of attention, outrage.

0:12:17.000,0:12:20.000
It was energy, love and joy.

0:12:20.000,0:12:22.000
It was all these things.

0:12:22.000,0:12:24.000
It was all these things.

0:12:24.000,0:12:26.000
It was all these things

0:12:26.000,0:12:29.000
in the water, in the world, in my body.

0:12:29.000,0:12:37.000
(Applause)