When we make art, we aren’t destroying. We are uniting, rather than dividing.
When we create, we find and build connections between things, instead of separation. We knit pieces of the world together.
We hold up the beauty, magic and magnificence of the world, so that we all can awaken from the trance of not enough, of materialism and conflict, and remember what really matters.
When we make art, we forget consumption, lust for power, envy, pettiness, the feeling of not enough.
When we create, we play. We become lighter of heart. We remember joy, wonder, love. We don’t take ourselves so seriously. Or we may even lose our small selves completely in the act of creation.
We touch the numinous. We awaken our hearts, souls, spirits, our best selves. And we awaken this in others, just by being creative, and also by sharing our art.
We work out our troubles on the page, stage, canvas, clay, musical instrument. We release what is pent inside that is causing storms and dis-ease, waiting to explode if not given some healthy outlet.
Value-holders and Vision-keepers
The arts uphold values of love, connection, wisdom, wonder, beauty, truth. They validate, strengthen and remind us of our deep need for these things, our preference for these things which we too easily forget in the busyness and disconnection of our daily lives.
Your photographs and weavings, your collages and beadwork, your songs and dances help make a world of beauty, sweetness, deep heart, a world of revelation and vulnerability.
You give voice to something needing to be said, however hard it may be. And you do it artfully, so that something deep within can awaken in us.
Artists are the vision-keepers, the wayshowers, the conscience of a culture. That is why they have been oppressed, imprisoned, shut down and killed by oppressors throughout time.
Because we have tremendous power as artists.
The power to create. The power to love. To tell the truth, to care. And to be silly too, playful, irreverent.
To speak in sacred language. For, what else is symbol, color, music and metaphor but a kind of holy speech?
So make art. Make time for your art. Now. Make a little time if that is all you have. It will heal you. It will heal our world. One creative act at a time.
