war in ukraine, anti-trans bills: making art to reground in peace & love
Day 24: Stack
Being centered & grounded in peace through art is something I continue to practice.
The news unfolding is overwhelming to my system & spirit and it is an active, conscious decision to practice non-reactivity. I notice my automatic response to want to repost, donate money, consume more information, and instead I ask myself to pause.
I notice the feelings that come up as I scroll -- fear, doom, shame, helplessness, rage, sadness, guilt, despair, fury, frustration. And I try my best to actually feel these emotions instead of what I do most of the time which is avoid, minimize, numb, dismiss, suppress, criticize, & control my feelings.
I found A'aron out on the front porch this morning praying for peace. I'm so grateful for this partner in life because I don't know a single soul more dedicated to peace than this one. And I so admire the way orienting towards peace always grounds her. We joked this weekend when we were playing around with pronouns that A'aron is just a "peace being."
Maybe it's naive to think this way, but I don't think there'd be war if every individual knew what brought them peace. And I don’t think there’d be war if we, as individuals, collectively oriented towards peace & connection on a daily basis through even our tiniest of actions.
So today I reoriented my day around the #1 thing I know brings me peace, which, to no surprise, is cutting up small pieces of paper and re-assembling them together. This piece began as something fun & quirky and quickly transformed into something meditative & life-affirming. These are all leftover scraps from my collages this month that never made it to the final project. The only intention I set is that all scraps needed to be connected, touching, building off of & supporting one another.
For me, this doesn't mean disengaging and it doesn't mean I won't contribute to the mutual aid funds eventually. It means feeling the things I need to feel, finding my center, getting grounded in my peace, and allowing all my actions, contributions, & gifts to flow from that place.
May we all find the things that return us to ourselves and ultimately to each other ❤️
#februllage2022
#februllage