Holding Pattern

Greetings all,

I am still here.  I hope you are persisting against the odds in these very challenging times.  I find myself looking back a lot lately.  Summer nostalgia is usually at its strongest after the midpoint, but this year it seems even stronger.

I find myself thinking of people who are no longer in my life.  Some of them have died, some of them I have parted ways with.  It's funny that I am missing the people lately that I parted with on poor terms.  It's not that I want them back in my life, just that the times when we did get along were good and the smell of the season makes me long for those simpler times.  I'm not so far removed from those times to remember that I wanted to escape those moments into a different future.  The trap of memory is that we can picture things either better than they were or worse than they ever were.  The truth is that each time in our life is a mix of good and bad.  The same holds true for relationships.

For many years, I hung onto anger for the people who had hurt me even long after they were gone from my life.  At first, I did this as a way to not be fooled into letting them back into my life.  The anger was a shield to keep their energies at bay.  Empathy can be an Achilles heel, and I found that anger was a good way for me to declare and enforce boundaries.  I still think it has its uses, but not for the longterm.  Holding the pattern of anger or hatred for years is exhausting.  I'll be honest with you guys I have hated a bunch of people.  I did this because it made it easier to stay angry with them and push them away.  I needed to keep them away because they abused and hurt me, repeatedly.  Now, I am wanting to open my heart again to new possibilities, to new hopes and dreams.  I don't think I can do that until I lay that old anger and hatred aside.  I want to, but I am also afraid that without it I won't have that shield for those people who would hurt me again if given the chance.  (Yes they would do that, which is why I banished them from my life).  I have started saying to myself, " I don't hate them, I just don't trust them."  That alone is a huge step for me.  

Why am I telling you this?  Well it came out of a conversation I was having with a friend online about  how to hold someone accountable, but not have to carry the emotional weight of the hurt they caused.  I'd like to honor the good that came from those relationships, but I also don't want any of those fuckers back in my life.  I'm certain that most of you have experienced something like this.  I also know that like me many of you are starving for social interaction.  Maybe you are thinking of reaching out to that old toxic person from your past just so that you have someone else  to talk about the good old days.  I just have one thing to say to you , "DON'T DO IT!" Don't repeat my mistake of allowing people who don't treat you right back into your circle just so you can avoid the pain of being alone. If you're that lonely, talk to me.  Seriously I am as stir crazy as the next person, you'd be doing me a favor.  

So how about you?  How are you navigating relationships in these strange days?  Are you reminiscing more?  Are you looking at the past through colored lenses?  Inventorying our past is useful as long as we are being truthful about it, and not emphasizing either the good or the bad over the other.  Are you holding onto old hurts so that you can hold onto your boundaries?  Maybe it is time to set those feelings aside while keeping your boundaries.   Maybe it is time that we love ourselves enough so that we don't need to hold onto hurt in order to take care of ourselves.  Maybe when we're done loving ourselves, we can share that love with those who will honor us.

Peace and Blessings,

Thomas Mooneagle

In Dark Places

Greetings all,

I hope you are healthy and safe.  We are in the midst of dark days.  There are likely darker ones ahead. So of course I am working with light in the studio.

I've been fascinated with playing with light for a long time.  I did a self initiation ceremony fifteen years ago for which I ordered fifty glow sticks of various colors.  I hung them in a circle in a small forested area near my home.  Part of the ceremony was to light them up as I entered right after the sun went down.  It was one of the most magical nights of my life.  The beauty of that multicolored phosphor light has stayed with me.  Years ago I bought a ceramics book at a convention.  In one of the chapters there was a photo of a clay lantern.  It had a lovely ovoid shape and very fine curvilinear cut outs to allow the light through.  I immediately wanted to make one.  I had tried on numerous occasions to make something that vaguely embodied what I had envisioned.  I have repeatedly failed in that attempt, until now.

I haven't yet fired this piece or the others in the series, but I am finally hitting the aesthetic I pictured. I started having more success when I changed a few things: the tool I was using to carve them, when in their drying cycle I carved them, and bringing them outside on my deck to carve in natural light.  (Made the process more enjoyable than doing it in the dark basement studio).  As I bring these ideas into physical being I find moments of joy and peace even in the pandemonium that we have shaking our world.  I don't think it is an accident that right now I am working on creating forms that only show their true beauty in the darkness.

I try not to look ahead too much because the future is smoke and while things could change to bring about a more just and healthy world they could also go the opposite way at this juncture.  I say that not to frighten you, but to emphasize just how important this moment in time is.  Many people are re-examining their relationships in their life, not just to other people, but to their work, their time, and their values. We have people in the streets demanding concrete changes to how our society runs.  We have people re-imagining the world.  At the same time, we have systems of power structures working overtime to maintain control of the narrative, and to offer us false choices.  We can refuse those choices and demand our own.  I am for the most part sheltering in place, sharing what I can, and creating.  I want to bring more beauty and wonder into the world.  So I create with my hands and heart.

Why am I telling you this? Right now it seems that my ability to create in the visual arts is finally coming to maturity.  I don't think it is an accident that it is happening now.  What ability or talent is bursting forth from you in this moment of crisis? As the structures of our narrative have fallen away what deep need in you is finally being expressed?  I know many people are cooking for the very first time, or baking, or sewing, or getting outside daily, or really giving their loved ones time.  There is something special inside of you that yearns to be birthed into the world, and oddly enough it may be exactly what the world needs.  If not the actual product itself, the energy that is generated from your act of creation.  Maybe it is joy that comes from it.  Maybe it is peace.  Maybe it is stillness or even love.

Not all of you have had the time, but many of you have.  Are you courting the aliveness within you? Are you reconnecting with the essentials of your own nature?  Are you recreating your personal world, or are you just waiting for a return to normal?  The world needs all of you right now.  The parts of you that have been pushed into the closet of abandoned dreams and wishes need to be brought out.  So go, venture into the darkness, and if you need a bit of light, take a lantern with you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle