it occurs to me that life is ultimately about choosing between different varieties of pain - like flavors of ice cream. at the end of the sweetness there is shit in the bottom of the cone. which flavor of shit are you willing to stomach, for which kind of sweetness?
Read Morelove what you can't control, because what you love — you can't control. isn't that the nature of love (and loss, and life, and the ephemerality and chaos embedded in all things?) that we are transitory way-finders in this life, and all forms of control are just an illusion. places, people, passions — they each have a life and death of their own; a fluid relationship which changes with its seasons. no city or person can remain the same, no matter how hard you love it.
Read Morebirth is death is birth. the more I walk down this path of life, the more I think about death as not a thing that happens to us — a fixed event on a linear narrative arc — X character is born, lives, and dies — but as a process that moves through us, through me — an infinite number of times before the body actually dies. (and then, who knows?) it is a process of seeing death as not the interruption to life, but as the mechanism through which life can move; through which life is possible. I only need to look outside to the forest to see proof of this fact: that things die everyday. and things are born from the same soil. the sun and the moon, and the ocean tides — are but rhythms of our own comings and goings. the process of death blurs into the process of birth. and as soon as I feel like I'm experiencing an emotional death, the dark density of that shroud seems to transform, almost overnight, in a blink of the eye, into something sheer and light. the soul, like the moon — is now, and always new again.
Read MoreI turn thirty this year. looking back at the last ten years, I can see clearly how the process of growing up, growing older, growing wiser, growing deeper into myself and into my own skin — can be distilled down to the practice of embracing my own extremities of darkness. of welcoming it as a friend, rather than trying to push it away as an enemy. because the more you build fortresses against yourself, the greater and more insidious the enemy becomes — it finds cracks and holes to seep through while you sleep. I could never compartmentalize myself or my anxieties the way I wanted to. I could never control it, I could never contain the chaos, never silence my needs, nor suppress my obsessions. instead, my life has always existed between storms, and through storms. and it's taken me a long time, but finally I'm at a place of gradual acceptance, and surrender. now, when the darkness descends upon my mind like a choking fog, I only need to small-smile at myself, and say, ah, yes. hello darkness, my old friend. I wonder how long you'll visit me this time.
Read Morethis thing they call love is a lot of work — pleasure and pain, effort and ease, day in, day out — all balled up into one. love begins as a seed of the feeling, then you must water the feeling. the feeling is made tangible in the world through work: of showing up, of being present, of nurturing, of giving part of oneself to something else. or someone else. you cannot love a passion (art, dance, a cause, an idealogy) without the labor, nor can you love another person without the daily giving. and what is the point of laboring — without love?
the things I create here are all labors of love.
and love is a thing I create with my hands.
Read Moresome minimalist instructions for life — for my past and future self to remember and recite back to me, when I need it most. it could also be: swallow the sweetness, savor the bitter. because bitterness, too, can be truly appreciated as a portal for wounds and its transformation. what is light without dark? nothing. and that, for me, is the whole point of making art — to be still and present with yourself enough to feel the feelings, no matter how overwhelming they are, and to witness them, and yourself — as you are. in making art, we move emotions and experiences through us — and into its own form, into something that can be held, released, shared.
Read Morerecently, perhaps because it’s the transition weeks between winter and spring — I can feel the pieces of my life falling into place, like tetonic plates, forming and reforming the continents of my world. so, I’ve decided this: art is for dark, and love is for light.
both, of course, must be capable of holding light and dark. but my intention is to give my darkness to my art — so that I can give my light to love. this counter opposition is necessary for me to feel free.
for the longest time, I’ve struggled with expecting too much of men — that they should be able to hold my darkness, my emotional turmoil, my mercurical, stormy weather.
Read Moreharnessing the energy of creative flow
Read Moreshe learned how to see
Read Morethe antidote for dark places
Read Moreis to lose oneself in the here-nowness of the present moment
Read Morenote to self #152
Read Moretrusting in the resonance of wants / needs / highest good
Read More
to consume is to often objectify what is being consumed.to see life and creative energy with a quality of ongoingness is how I can allow full, unrestricted flow
Read Morewhy do what feels good is only compass you need to navigate the wilderness of being alive
Read More