on the quickness of spring
i can feel the quickness of spring arriving. just in the past few days the afternoon winds began here and that more than anything is the indicator of the changing seasons. and this morning in the few minutes of quiet between the children leaving and the workday beginning i sit here surrounded by tasks staring at the clouds and letting the light pool around the orange ranunculus.
there is a lot right now.
and if i am not careful the combination of the wind and the news and my own incessant thoughts will keep me from being anywhere or doing anything and yet in a certain way this is what i want to write about.
the things we do, and i mean the ways we move in the world, with an emphasis on the ordinary ones offer a place of inhabitance. some kind of way of practicing. some kind of way of being with each other.
these ordinary ways let us be in and with a togetherness that is happening, that is real, that does support living.
and for me it requires imagination, practice, and a capacity building to hold the vastness of paradox.
i have been deep in the exploration of why i think it is so important to live creatively, to live as an artist, and this is why. in the wellness version of what it means to hold paradox, to build capacity, to have imagination all of these acts are self referential. each of them comes back to this kind of commodification of experience that aims to optimize.
this troubles me because it is a closed loop rather than a network that supports life. life is living whether we engage with imagination and creativity or not. but living with the possibility of imagination and creativity as lived practice lets us be new in the experience of living it.
this newness is a kind of presence that keeps us curious, thoughtful, undone enough that we can play with the experience.
this kind of playing actually requires a dedication to continue becuase it is not easy. right now in this moment of the world clearly there is much urgency. in many ways we are on the brink of the unimaginable…what will the future hold? and how will we be in it? i am not sure…
but what i do know is that the skill of imagining and creativity will be at the center of it.
this is why the timing feels important to practice together, to find the new and old ways we do this together alone.
a few upcoming offerings:
Becoming Aliveness: Collective Plant Sit, March 20 10 am PDT
Join me online for a way to connect with plants. Feel into the poetics, make relationship with where you live.
Let’s do some dyeing together on the beautiful Mendocino Coast in June!