All of It

Ah, the world.

Ah, the artistic energy, and empathic energy of you.

Sometimes, there are simply no words.

Sometimes, we feel guilty for creating when there’s so much devastation. We feel the weight and often cannot create.

Should we find joy? Or is that disrespectful?

Should we be singing and forget for a moment? Or is that our privilege showing?

As artists, we do have great responsibility.

We have responsibility to the world, yes; but we also have responsibility to the people and places closest to us, including ourselves.

As I watch and support those artists who are part of my sphere, I see the unending questions of humanity and artistry as they balance those questions with their fatigue, their wonder, their confusion and their clarity.

The complexity of the artist. All of it. This is the realization of all of it.

We can grieve and find creative power.

We can seethe and find gentle calm.

We can sob and still reach through and touch someone else.

I have decided that “truth” needs to be a verb now.

We can truth. In any state of emotional energy, we can truth.

We are safe in the vulnerability of our complexity. If we claim that safety, we can truth. We are truth. We can be truth.

Magic always happens in the in between.

We can be a part of that magic as we lean in, and as we lean back.

In all the complexities we can be present in many and all the directions. All of it.

When called upon, we can lean into it.

When needed, we can lean back.

Recovery, vulnerability, stillness, grief, questioning, all are part of who we are as artists and human beings.

Feeling too much is part of it too.

Yet, we are the ones tasked and asked for those moments of grace for others; to create those moments of magic with others that are not mundane, or painful. We create those moments of nurturing, of hope, of reprieve, of space, for others with others. We make space for others to breathe with us.

And then, we need to find that same magic, same gentleness, same nurturing, for ourselves.

All of it.

It can all happen in the same blink of an eye, and in the same breath.

We wonder why we are so tired. There are so many reasons. Perhaps allowing ourselves permission to grant ourselves the grace we often grant others is a good start.

All those complexities can live simultaneously.

Staying present and knowing how and when and where you lean, may be what we each need now to find our anchor and our shore.

I promise, I will do the same.

with fondness & fierceness,