The Long Journey to Ithaka

Everything I do at Moon & Milk is very organic. My jewelry is intuitively designed, I don’t sketch anything, mostly because I’m terrible at drawing. I’m also not much of a planner, which is a very bad business practice. But if I were to plan, I don’t think I’d be here releasing the most perfect story collection Moon & Milk has ever put out.

I was supposed to do Ithaka last summer. I was sitting on a bench talking to my friend visiting from California. We were chatting, and right across from me, on an old German building, it said ITHAKA. I usually don’t Google things I don’t understand, but this time, for some reason, I Googled Ithaka. And boom. My heart started beating fast as I read the poem by C.P. Cavafy. I was immediately in love.

Unfortunately, when I got home, I sat there at my desk completely out of ideas, not enough fire to spark anything provocative. Instead, later that year, I made Phoenix Uprising after the U.S. elections. I was devastated. I couldn’t believe this man had won again. It was the first election that made me cry, because I knew what was about to come. I knew we were going to need an uprising...

The political is personal. And although I had tried not to bring politics into my creative work, not discussing the political climate goes against my nature. I’m an extremely political person. I’m an empath. And I’ve always felt strongly about injustice for as long as I can remember. In college, I participated in protests like The 99%, and of course, I attended the Women’s March in L.A., where 1 million women showed up.

That night, while I watched every state turn red, one by one, I knew we were in trouble. And as a Mexican-American beading artist and daughter of undocumented immigrants, I knew I would have to dig deep and be brave for my family.

Ithaka is so special because it’s about the return to the self. It’s about the journey of becoming who you really are. And I feel that the activist in me has been waiting a little too long to come out. I come from a warrior lineage, Otomi, to be exact, and my great-grandfather was a rebel who helped overthrow Mexico’s dictator, Porfirio Díaz. I’ve got warrior blood in my veins, and it would be a disservice to my family not to fight for them during this treacherous time.

I know my earrings won’t fix the system.
But they can start a revolution.

I hope that when you wear them, they’ll speak when your trembling voice cracks.
I hope that the Ithaka Collection helps you recognize the power of your light,
the way it helped me.

With love,
Alejandra G.

Below is the poem that found me on a bench in Munich, the one that stirred something in me, and I only realized what it meant a summer after.

Ithaka

By Constantine P. Cavafy (translated by Edmund Keeley)

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.