Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Human-Made Imitates Nature

 

Leaf placed for dramatic affect ;)


Yesterday’s nature moment: 

Bleak is Beautiful.


 

Monday, November 23, 2020

Same Coin

 When I first spotted this scene, it made me sad.


Nobody?

I wasn't quite sure what the name tag said without looking quite a bit closer.

Face down, in the dirt and leaves, on a hidden path. Nobody.

Then, I looked up. Noticed the majestic sunrise through the trees easily more than double my age, and flipped the coin.

I think feeling like 'nobody' can be both sad and perspective-building. I won't go so far as to say 'positive' or 'happy,' but 'perspective-building' feels like the right way to say it.

It's that 'I am small' feeling. When everything around you feels overwhelming and the small becomes the big and your troubles feel like the center of the universe, it's understandable, because your standpoint is the only one you really look at from out your own body. That said, there are times the reminder that in the grand scheme, you are quite small, can be really helpful. It can make your own troubles seem more manageable and create a launchpad for empathy and action.

Perhaps 'nobody' isn't exactly the right way to say it. Regardless, finding this name tag the way I did feels no less poetic.


Zooming out provides that flipped coin picture: the one in which you are a small but significant part of the larger.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Emotionality is a Super-Power

And with great power comes great responsibility.


(image by Wendy Gerdeman)


The early bits of the sunrise this morning were . . . it's hard to put into words. The sky spilled out a selection of it's best Crayola Crayon colors, tossing royal purples and rusted oranges and flamingo pinks and jewel blues together into a beautiful soup that only the sky can make. As I leave my phone at home on my morning walks - this helps me with the 'in-the-moment-ness' I strive for on these jaunts - I did not get a picture. Here, it'll have to exist in the imagination.

It was so gorgeous that tears welled up in my eyes as I paused near Como Lake and took it all in.

I often joke that it doesn't take me much to cry. I won't go so far as to say that "I wear my heart on my sleeve," because if I did that, I'd likely be in a puddle on the floor by mid-afternoon each day. I also wouldn't say I'm an empath, though I do feel the emotions of others quite strongly. I DO think that a conscious cultivation of the ability to feel has been a central and ongoing aspect of my learning, un-learning and re-learning of 'how to be an artist.'

Typing 'how to be an artist' almost feels preposterous, as there is certainly not one way. That said, I DO think there are tools and concepts that can benefit almost anyone in almost any form with almost any aesthetic, and I would file direct access to emotionality in there with those tools and concepts. This includes ones own emotionality, as well as recognizing and appreciating the emotionality of others. Despite false dichotomous rhetoric of 'emotions v. logic' that seems to float around from and within various instigations and places in the world, the concept of 'emotional intelligence' has managed to gain ground and become recognized as a legitimate way that humans become more themselves, learn to relate to one another and navigate their world/s.

I have come across this false dichotomy of 'emotions v. logic' several times around this election season, often from folks who lean toward what we've taken to calling more 'conservative views,' suggesting that 'emotions' should not get in the way of your 'logic' when choosing who you'll vote for and how you'll navigate the current issues surrounding us. I find this idea to be so short-sighted. When has it ever been useful to reduce any human down to just one aspect of their personhood? While I DO believe 'emotions' and 'logic' are quite complex 'aspects,' as it were, to focus on just one of these, not the other, and potentially nothing else about their human experience feels reductionist in potentially harmful ways.

On the flip, this here human who tends toward what we've taken to calling more 'liberal' perspectives does not embrace 'emotions instead of logic,' she embraces 'emotions informed by logic.' 'Logic informed by emotions.' 'Logic + Emotions + Empathy + Knowledge + + +.' That 'Knowledge' word also feels quite important here. To believe that the logic you create yourself can stand without knowledge and other aspects of your human experience - including considering the human experiences of others - to buoy it can be just as harmful as basing your beliefs and actions upon emotions alone.

The more life experience I cultivate, the more I'm coming to believe that reductionism is easy. That making something seem simpler than it really is feels like a human tendency. A quoted concept often attributed to Albert Einstein (wow, I'm so basic right now) is that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." What a brilliant insight. Yes, we are wooed by the 'easy.' 'Simple' is not always 'easy,' and I think 'emotions v. logic' is 'easy.' Simple yet complex is the concept that we humans are more than one of these things at once. ‘Yes and.’ We are our logic, and our emotions, and our empathy, and our knowledge, and SO many other things, all at once. Among our human challenges is learning how to balance all of this. Dare I say, I doubt that anyone ever masters this, but that it's something we continue to strive toward in life, in all it's iterations and for all of it's span. I tend to see this as inspiring, one among the human mysteries that each one of us never quite solves for ourselves, but helps to keep us curious as we move through it all.

Back to the 'emotionality' in this soup of thoughts. Needless to say considering all of the above, I am proud of how my career choice, the way I spend a lot of my time, my CALLING, whatever you want to CALL it, has developed within me a keen sense of emotionality. It's one among many of my super-powers that helps me make great (and sometimes mediocre and that's just how it is) art, that helps me feel my smallness and also my largesse, that helps me know the impact of the world upon me and me upon it. That said, this super-power is not the exclusive territory of artists, of course. It's there for anyone who chooses to walk within it, to feel it's power.

And with great power comes great responsibility.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Spines of Trees

 


Skeleton laid bare.

There is a beautiful vulnerability to trees without their leaves. They shed their fur, their outer, seemingly-protective layer to actually make themselves stronger for the Winter.

One of nature’s examples of vulnerability as strength.

I marvel at the openness of this particular tree. The way I can see the breath between it’s ribs (you are the wine between my ribs?!).

A reminder.

Visualize.

Find that breath in between your own ribs.

Share whatever amount of your own in-betweens you can muster.

Monday, November 2, 2020

What Do You Reflect Back?

 


. . . she asks herself.

She's the only one who can fully hold her to that question.