Get Self Indulgent with Forgiveness

(2 min read)

If you’re playing tug-of-war with your grudges, regrets, or clingy expectations, I just want to offer up some gentleness as you Let Go.

(picture the moment a necklace breaks
sending pearls rolling in
s l o w m o t i o n )

Maybe you can give yourself a permission slip to take a clingy expectation or a blame you’ve been holding on to out of your hands.

You do realize that forgiveness can be beautifully self-indulgent too, right?

It can do wonders for our complexion.
(Bitterness dims the countenance.)

Forgiveness does not mean that what you are forgiving is okay to be the thing it is or do the thing it does. Forgiveness doesn’t have to be about the other.

When I forgive this realm, I’m not giving it permission to continue to harm us.

When I forgive this realm, I’m putting my blame game on the pyre of empires then wrapping myself up with who I belong to; the wind, the sea, the trees, my art, the fox, the crow, and the people of love.

I’m feeling creative, humming with inspiration inside of this belonging and not just creating for remedy’s sake.

Art does push boundaries and challenges status quos. It can be wonderfully explosive for social justice. It can also be an homage to our flora and fauna kin, whimsy, myth stories. Art making can be spell casting and prayer.

Art making can be respite.

I’m inspired right now by things that are alive and kind, like the porcupine on my walk yesterday. And I’m inspired right now by the tenderness in grief after devastating loss. For I have just lost a dear loved one and am feeling very tender.

My art making is giving me so much curiosity for living things right now.

After many years of heavy death work, my death work wants to find buoyancy by playing with life and creation. I’m seeing this winter coming and a lot of quietness to be with art inside of it.

I’m also hoping for some fireside chats with other makers this winter.
If you feel the same… you might be intrigued to learn about a special artist’s nest I’m building to hold us through the Dead of Winter.

Recently, I got a little selfish with forgiveness, letting a lot go, cutting the knots of blame loose, and this widened my capacity for wonder.

Wonder inspired! Go for it, let the old stale grudges go. Let the clingy tired expectations that just aren’t gonna come about go. Let the blame game fizzle out. You deserve this self-indulgence. Let your joy dimensions increase!

So, what happens when we sit with other artists through the winter and nerd out on death art themes? Let’s find out together… Enter Dead of Winter.