winter solstice

These are difficult times.

Being a human right now on this planet isn’t easy.

Even though this is traditionally a time when I reflect on my year and do a lot of planning for the new year, I’m not feeling like making any big declarations right now.

The past few month, the past few years, have been rough terrain and I’m exhausted.

I sometimes find myself daydreaming about Tracy and I moving out into the woods somewhere, living in a little cabin off the grid, never to be seen or heard from again.

One a day recently when I felt particularly lost, the sweet gentle voices of guidance that speak in my heart kept telling me to take a salt bath. Just take a bath, get in the water, lots of salt, hot water, just get in there. And finally, I did.

I took a salt bath and listened to a Ram Dass lecture.

Here’s the thing about me and Ram Dass - when I listen to him, I mean the instant I hear his voice, I tap into his energy and I feel his energy in me. I move into this different space - it’s this space of knowing, of being immersed in perfect divine love, of remembering who and what we really are. Listening to Ram Dass is like prayer or meditation. It’s like flying.

There are other people like this for me, teachers and poets and priests, but there’s something about Ram Dass. Something I don’t know how to explain but something for which I am so deeply grateful because it saves me every time.

So I floated there in the water and listened to his voice and felt myself smiling and heard myself softly laughing, hooked into oneness.

I realized that even facing this uncertain future that we are all facing, I wasn’t lost.

Because my heart is anchored in love and my soul remembers.

I may be murky about a lot of things but one thing about which I’m clear is this - I want whatever I share here to have value for you. I want to express myself, but want that expression to matter in some way to you.

My work, and indeed my life, is small, but I believe we each have a responsibility to one another, and while an artist makes art primarily for themselves - because they are compelled to do so - I don’t want to make art alone in my room. I want what I do, whatever that is to contribute in some way, no matter how small, to the well of goodness.

I hear a lot of people preaching the gospel of the individual - manifest riches! Don't get political! Rise above the fray!

But we are the fray. We are humanity. We are bound to one another.

There is a lot of talk right now about ascension. And much of that talk is centered around disengaging from physical reality. But how can that be ascension? The only way we could ascend, as individuals or a collective, is to do so together with love and compassion, by rooting ourselves into the only thing we know for sure is real - these physical bodies, this physical world, our relationship to one another.

We must love and honor the self. We must take care of ourselves, but we must also take care of one another.

We have free will, and as we traverse these time of great transition, we are making choices every day about which direction we are going to go. Our survival depends on caring about the well-being of the collective.

I don’t know how to thrive under the current conditions, but I know that no matter how I hold this life up to the light and turn it around so that I can see all the sides, I am brought back over and over to this question:

How do I live my life so that I contribute in some way to the easing rather than the expansion of suffering?

How do I create peace for myself and others?

I can only operate the space ship I happen to be driving. This body, this personality, this soul that is me.

I can only be an activist in the way that I can be an activist.

I believe we are each born with the gifts and these are not necessarily things that we are good at but things that we are drawn to. These gifts are our natural inclinations, even obsessions. When asking ourselves, what can I do? The answer lies in these gifts - these traits - that which comes to us easily because it is who we are.

I write and make art.

That is my natural inclination.

Perhaps the right path for me is the path I’m already on, the path I’ve always been on.

When I want to engage with the eternal, I meditate and light candles and take salt baths and walk in the woods, but mostly, I write and make art. That’s my heart’s language. That’s what I have to offer.

It is small, my contribution. So small. But it is what I have been equipped with.

I hope that when you walk with me in this work, you feel how much you are loved. I hope you feel the freedom that love brings. I hope you see how beautiful you are. I hope you find the strength to be yourself in this world.

That is what I wish for my work to do - to hold that energy for you - it is all a prayer for you, for us, for everyone.

I am deeply grateful for you - for you have read my words this year, purchased paintings, sent me messages of encouragement, received energy.

I want you to know that I see you. I see how heavy these times are. I see you weighing your decisions and moving through this. I see your need for rest and I see that even in difficult times, even in the midst of tragedy, the human heart cries out for laughter and joy and finds itself there.

I hope you find some peace this season.

I hope the holidays are gentle for you.

I hope you have a Ram Dass - a person or book or method or system that picks you up wherever you are and places you down easily into the truth of cosmic love. I hope you hear the voice that speaks to your inner most self and bolsters you when times are rough and celebrates with you when times are miraculous.

A week or so ago, Tracy and I were walking the dogs. It was dark out and the sky was clear. I was looking at the stars as we walked because they were so bright and seemed to be configured differently than I’d ever noticed before, and I saw a meteor.

It was a flash across the sky. It was not the sort of shooting star with a long tail. It looked more like a flame.

It shot me full of wonder. And hope.

What a magical world this.

Today is the Winter Solstice and it seems a good time for each of us, regardless of all that makes us different, or perhaps in the acknowledgment of all that makes us different, to feel ourselves as earthlings, to feel ourselves as a part of this earth and her movements and cycles, to feel the earth herself breathing into the bottoms of our feet, lighting our crown chakra with stars.

Let’s burn our most beautiful candles today and burn the most fragrant incense.

Let’s breathe together in the waning of this year as the new year begins to glimmer on the horizon.

While I did not get to the canvas as much as I would have liked this year, I spent a lot of time on the page. I started sharing spiritual memoir, and I worked in my art journal. When I felt stuck, stopped, depressed, anxious - I opened up my journal and moved color and lines around until I felt lighter.

When I didn’t know what to do, I put on a red dress or some pink hair and flowed energy prayers.

These are the things I will continue to do.

Thank you for your presence.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for moving through this difficult times and offering your unique gifts.

Thank you for your witness.