This is such a needed and profound reflection on where many caring and engaged people find themselves.
I have a bit of all of them, I guess.
I deal with what I feel in my art practice, which is my spiritual practice. I draw animals who endangered and ones that are not - well not yet. In doing so I allow my grief to be transformed into art. It's not about avoiding. It's about s deeper kind of connection ot the WIldbeing whose photo reference I am working with. The grief doesn't go away. I don't pretend that drawing will save them. What it does in honour that they have existence and existed in my lifetime.
This is a time to live that I never thought 'in the imagaination of my heart' that I would be living. I know that those in power - plotical, economic, even some in spiritual power - are greedy, self-serving, deluded. All the money, all the prestige will mean nothing when the bees have all died from pestiside poisoning, when all the food we eat is contaminated with the gods know what, when the water is too foul to drink and the air is unbreatheable. I weep for what I see and continue to learn about the climate (whether from the act of humans or the cycles of nature), mega farms, clear cutting of habitats. But I neither ignore the grief nor wallow in it.
Still, this is when I am living an in my understanding, it is a time I chose to be here, for whatever reason. I look in wonder at the smallest flower and the teeniest insect with knees so tiny you can barely see them and rejoice that I have shared a plent with such a creature, as much as with Polar Bears or giant Redwoods. It is that gratitude that keeps me from dissolving in despair. It allows me to still look, and see and feel and connect in wonder and delight.
This is such a needed and profound reflection on where many caring and engaged people find themselves.
I have a bit of all of them, I guess.
I deal with what I feel in my art practice, which is my spiritual practice. I draw animals who endangered and ones that are not - well not yet. In doing so I allow my grief to be transformed into art. It's not about avoiding. It's about s deeper kind of connection ot the WIldbeing whose photo reference I am working with. The grief doesn't go away. I don't pretend that drawing will save them. What it does in honour that they have existence and existed in my lifetime.
This is a time to live that I never thought 'in the imagaination of my heart' that I would be living. I know that those in power - plotical, economic, even some in spiritual power - are greedy, self-serving, deluded. All the money, all the prestige will mean nothing when the bees have all died from pestiside poisoning, when all the food we eat is contaminated with the gods know what, when the water is too foul to drink and the air is unbreatheable. I weep for what I see and continue to learn about the climate (whether from the act of humans or the cycles of nature), mega farms, clear cutting of habitats. But I neither ignore the grief nor wallow in it.
Still, this is when I am living an in my understanding, it is a time I chose to be here, for whatever reason. I look in wonder at the smallest flower and the teeniest insect with knees so tiny you can barely see them and rejoice that I have shared a plent with such a creature, as much as with Polar Bears or giant Redwoods. It is that gratitude that keeps me from dissolving in despair. It allows me to still look, and see and feel and connect in wonder and delight.
So nicely stated and shared. Thanks for your kind words and I am so glad this offered an opportunity and invitation for some reflection.