So, if you hang out on Facebook you may have seen me post this picture earlier this week. And it’s back for a big reason!
All the work that’s going on next door is driving me crazy. And helping me learn!
As I write these words on Sunday, it is quiet outside.
There is no banging and thumping. No horns. No booms.
The ground is not shaking. The dishes are not rattling in my cupboard.
Forty-eight hours ago, these things were not true. In fact, the opposite of all these things was true.
And I was a wreck.
In the land of neuro-linguistic programming, where we spend a whole lot of time talking about how human brains do what they do, I am a primary kinesthetic processor which translates into emotions and bodily movement/sensations being the first way I receive information.
My very strong backup pattern is auditory-digital which means sounds and words.
The photo is my attempt to both understand the visual input and invite those of you who are visual processors into this space.
Here’s why this matters…
If sitting in my favorite chair with my tea and weighted blanket, in my house, while people try to make the world better for my neighborhood, can bring me very close to full-blown anxiety attacks, what must Israel be like? What must the Middle East be like? What must Ukraine be like?
What must it be like for the children? For those too young to have language for trying to understand?
And how in the literal bloody hell do we stop raising our dear Littles in a world full of “leaders” shouting about why we need to hate all the people who aren’t us???
It has never worked. And it never will.
In fact, one of the things I’m working on, as I’m able, is research for something called a Land Acknowledgement. Homework, if you will, for the path toward being counted among the Guardians of the vision and practices known as Intentional Creativity®
And part of that is learning the tribal names and stories of the people who lived where we live now, before they were killed or re-located, that white folks might claim the land.
And, I’m painting. Tree of Consciousness. Here’s a sneak peek…
Nope! Probably doesn’t make much sense to you yet. For me, though, it is my deep knowing about where those people who lived before me lived and loved.
Admittedly, this is not what Audubon would have painted.
Instead, it’s both neurological self-soothing in the midst of the chaos, and perspective stretching on history and news and the deep, deep danger of those who don’t get it. And don’t want to.
It feels enormously huge and terrifying to me. So I am making dots. Peace dots. In this case, as the sky.
And remembering a very cool thing I just learned!
[Word junky moment, ahead…]
I saw a post on Facebook last night. I don’t remember the details and I don’t know who gets credit for this. And, still, I need to share the heart of it with you!
It was a word-y sort of post. Think dictionary. About two words. Anesthesia. And Aesthetic. (How could I not have known this???) This isn’t exactly what the post said. It’s what I found on my digital squeegie hunt.
Anesthetic leads to numbness. On the other hand, an aesthetic awareness is a door to wonderment.
I’m going with art and wonderment over the kind of numbness that makes nationalism appealing.
And holding on to Fierce Compassion! Even though the ground will shake again tomorrow…
ps… why do Peace dots help? They are whole brain/being Intentions!
pps… questions??? Leave a comment or email me at suesvoice@gmail.com
