The Light of Feral

AS A CHILD, I struggled with early childhood education, specifically reading. Creating art was my saving grace. Colors and pictures simply made more sense to my brain than letters and words. At 14, I became an aunt for the first time. During this period of my life I spent countless hours with Kayla, playing pretend, performing puppet shows, building forts and assuring her that magic is real and peace is possible. This opportunity kept me tethered to my childlike imagination at a point in time when I may have otherwise grown out of it. This is when I first felt the deep knowing that I would someday write a children’s book to enable me to fully overcome my childhood adversity and to gift future generations with my playful spirit. Though this feeling was true I was not actively working on making it my reality until that one fateful night...

“This opportunity kept me tethered to my childlike imagination”

The story of "Feral Warrior & the Golden Sticks" emerged as a stream of consciousness amidst my Darkest Night. Late one evening nearly ten years ago I was in my apartment alone in a state of deep suffering, feeling all the unfathomable symptoms of a severe ulcerative colitis flare up. In that moment I was at a crossroads, get to the hospital ASAP or give myself five more minutes to see if I could self soothe with my most trusted ally, my sketch book. As I opened the book and put pen to paper I anticipated I would start drawing but instead I felt a force move through me. A stream of words began flowing out of my hand and onto the paper nearly uncontrollably. One rhyming line after the next, the story went on and on as I lost track of time and pain. As quickly as the energy came it went. I put the pen down and immediately fell asleep. When I woke my sketch book was still next to me in bed and I thought perhaps it was all a dream, but there it was, clear as black ink on white paper “Feral Warrior & The Golden Sticks”. I read over the words line by line again and again in awe, for this was the most mystical experience I had ever had.

“A stream of words began flowing out of my hand and onto the paper nearly uncontrollably.”

Since that night Feral has been alive inside me, giving me faith and helping me to shine my light extra bright. On and off for the past ten years, amongst many other creative projects I have been revisiting Feral. This year has been year that I have truly dedicated endless hours to refining the narrative, crafting the illustrations and preparing for print. This project took far more time and hard work then I ever would have imagined. I got the final push to complete Feral about a month ago when her biggest fan and my favorite human had a major health scare. Though my father is well today he had a heart attack about a month ago and in a fearful moment I thought to myself “he can’t go, I didn’t finish Feral”. From that day on it has been full tilt to get Feral to print. My Dad has been hounding me for ten years “get that damn book out into the world already, people need it”.

“Well Papa, HERE SHE IS!”

And here is your chance to be one of the very first people on this planet to experience the Light of Feral. Pre-order your Limited First Edition copy of “FERAL WARRIOR & THE GOLDEN STICKS” today!

Here’s to overcoming adversity.
Here’s to making our dreams our reality.
Here’s is to my nieces.
Here’s to the unseen creative force.
Here’s to my Papa’s beating heart.
Here’s to the light in every living being. 

May the power of peace prevail,
Melissa “Mesa” Matarese

To TEAM FERAL, the incredible humans that helped make this first edition possible: Maureen Ferguson, Zeile August Dougher, Hillary Pierce, Nicholas Damato and of course the entire Matarese Family.

THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU.
THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU.
THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU.