As mentioned last week, this month I’m thinking about shifts in perspective.
This weekend I experienced a shift regarding this newsletter.
I noticed that I had started to put a lot of pressure on myself to produce artwork every single week…
And don’t get me wrong - I love my art practice. It’s grounding and centering and a necessity for my life.
However, when I start focusing on production, rather than the process, this self-imposed “pressure” can become a slippery slope.
It’s wild how easy it can be to take something that is enjoyable and soul-nourishing, and turn it into something that looms and demands and determines my worth.
Such is recovery from a lifelong “production = value” mindset.
Anyway…
This past weekend, I spent an entire day with a friend - talking and laughing, playing with watercolors and sidewalk chalk, and dancing (which I haven’t done in a long time).
It was like a cooling balm on a burning rash of go-go-go over-productivity.
It was a much-needed shift.
(And it inspired this week’s share.)
I hope you’re able to find some time for enjoyment this week.
This poem first appeared in Alchemy and Miracles Anthology (published by Gilbert Hall Press” under the title “To a Garden in Taos in July.”
The poem this week is: The Shift (Plus Flowers)
The minutes drip down my back like worries hitchhiking on storm clouds - following me from states away, intent on making a show, committed to getting my thoughts just a little bit wet. So I go to the garden, where every step a grasshopper reveals another flower: tumbling pink blossoms promise peas, inedible, while an infinite green loop blurs the corners. Unripe apples fall at my feet, a dull timpani below, above the eucalyptus loudly count their silver coins, storing their credits in an empty greenhouse. And what about the sun-drenched tulips? Papery heads as big as teacups, black eyes staring at the sun bestowing a lifetime of blessings on all passersby who stop for just a moment. The green teaches you how to soften and the color, how to feel. The wind stirs and I finally still.
This is so right on!! Such a subtle trap is the "production = value" mantra. Love the reminder.