Art is the experience.

It’s a safe space to wander, a language spoken through imagery, an inner peering, a life-blood surging of voice and vision. There is work that it’s doing, a sharing of what’s felt, seen and heard. A purging of chaos in the creating, a shift in weight of the holding, a letting go, a healing. There is time spent, countless hours and heavy sighs, moments of revisiting past lives and beings who embody love, a tripping of the space-time continuum, a filtering through the limbs and out onto the surface. There are marks twisted in motion, layers of soft building, speculative imaginings, mind warping and therapeutic deliverance. There is the finding of mysterious runes, peculiar and ambiguous, simple yet complex, found in the everyday.

There are words of notetaking and working through, spontaneous streams of consciousness, subconscious reflections – some oddly constructed, all thoughtfully molded and shaped. There is an attention to the beauty in the strange and raw, the small and humble, the enormous and incomprehensible. There are curious configurations, a composing of nonlinear recollections, authentic story, metaphor. There is wonder and awe, bewilderment and pause to sort and reconfigure, observe from afar, notice in detail, connect and be present, learn and grow. There is a reflecting of self and an examining of what that means, a recalibrating. A pushing through to discover, evaluate, acknowledge, accept, forgive, love.

There is shadow work and enlightened discernment. There is doubt at times, a feeling that this may be the end of all creative endeavors ever to come forth from this body. There is exhaustion but there are new heights reached, a lifted singing, a magnetic pull to the unknown, the remembrance of soul and heart and the lack of division of self and other. A felt expression from a place that is abundant, boundless in possibility and scope. There is a rewiring of neural pathways, trips to other dimensions, bravery in the expansive moments, adversity, a draw to the abandonment of what was once feared, the powerful lure to engage in the unknown. A connection to all.

This is a reminder to keep going, an acknowledgement that there is beauty in the everyday, in what seems simple and what feels difficult, in hope and humanity, everything all around, an acknowledgement that to learn to filter these depths takes care, work and time, growth. To forego all of this is to miss the point entirely. To attempt to get to some sort of finish without having experienced is a hapless, lifeless pursuit. The experience is where the life and love is. Art is the experience. It’s where the expression of growth and story and the magic in life’s nuances and complexities come forth to have a chance at breathing its energy into the atmosphere, to be transferred anew to those who are attentive, who have felt what it means to live. There is absolutely nothing that can ever take the place of that.

To all who put forth the effort, who push through and create what comes from being brave, attentive and immersed, for actively taking part in the journey: I’m grateful you’re here. Thank you for making time to feel what’s experienced, and for acknowledging, respecting and truly seeing that in the other wonderful humans who do too. You inspire me and keep me motivated. Let’s always keep that energy activated.