It is November 1st. A day of
honoring our beloved dead, and also the green light, for better or worse, to everything holiday. Eggnog is in the grocery stores, holiday decorations abound, oh and in the US an election is just days away. It is an interesting mix. Remembering who has come before, holiday sparkle showing up everywhere, and a looming choice between the chance for healing and progress, and fascism.
There
has never been a doubt who will get my vote for president (Harris/Waltz all the way!) but politics are also local and when bad things happen I want to be able to trust my local community leaders and policies. So this weekend I'm going over my ballot, researching the local and state elections and issues- making my list and checking it twice I could say. All this to say that if you are in the US, please vote!
I am also
taking lots of breaks for beauty, rest, dreaming, and plain old zoning out. These times are thick and heavy with challenges to the heart and what matters. Feeding our spirits and tending our souls is not optional. It is what will carry us forwards regardless of election outcomes.
In times of struggle and worry about the future, art gives us space to feel into the larger and often unarticulated or unable to be articulated
truths of being human. Things words can't, or if they can, do it differently. This is true anytime, but this medicine is so very needed in times like these.
So how about a bit art? Alan and I went on Art Trails (Sonoma County's open studio weekends) this past Sunday and it renewed me.
She says she does these jump rope drawings when she needs for feel happy. Couldn't we all use a bit of this playful joy? Scroll down her Instagram for more.
I loved getting to know Suzanne Edminster of Saltworks Studio. We talked about alchemy, painting what you moves you verses what is more commercial, and the necessity of expressing the longing of your
soul.
Jenny Abramson was was so generous with her process. We talked photography and editing apps, the evolution of the image, grief, and doing your art
because your soul will die without it.
