Friday, November 11, 2011

Renewed Vision for Walking in Love

When my second child was born I experienced a postpartum depression. It is only after I came out of the depression that I noticed just what had happened. The Walking in Love Installation was the creative child of many people. Dozens. But in fact it was a child that came to me at it's inception. This creative child came to me and asked if I would nurture it.
The magnitude, at least for me personally, of this project was beyond what I could have expected to foster so rapidly. I suspect larger forces at work. I have carefully kept many of my own personal opinions of this work tucked away. In truth I have felt myself to be a servant to something larger that has been at work all along. Once the Walking In Love Installation went to the 2011 Sacred Threads show in Herndon, Virginia, and then came home again I felt a little bereft. I was also exhausted and needed to attend to the six months of work that my ranch demanded when I committed myself to bring Walking In Love to life. I have said on this blog that there are other venues interested in this project. It is true. What has not been true is my own ability to step forward to gestate another creative child. Not right away.
But now, after five months,  I begin to wake once again. To recover. To find the deepest meaning behind the origin of this project from the very start. My wonderful friend, Neil Harvey, has said that he sees the softest, sweetest, deepest and truest meaning of this project to be found in the way in which artists are invited to participate. To work on a piece of art while holding a feeling of love is at once quite simplistic and at the same time the hardest demand. It is so deep that the effects have surprised us. I've found that holding to an intention of love while creating becomes something radically transformative. I felt it and many who were part of creating this work of art felt it too. Those who walked through the finished piece felt it and they knew none of us. How we bring ourselves to our lives, to our art, is felt. It matters.
My ongoing work will be to help to teach people to create from this place of love. I have learned many different lessons these past years and in this project. While I am by no means perfect in my ability, I desire to help others into their deepest creative heart, to bring into their art and lives the way to work from love, to create from love. The Walking In Love project invites you to enter the creating of your art this way. If you wish to learn more, stayed tuned.