Quote I love as a timely reminder of what we could do with this moment as creators…

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”  – Toni Morrison

I have loved rediscovering the brutally honest and beautifully timeless 2005 commencement speech ‘This is Water’ by David Foster Wallace…

“The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship….“

“….the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving….” 

“…the really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Read or listen in it’s entirety here

One reason I particularly love this speech is the use of story-telling…we as humans are constantly telling stories, it is how we make sense of the world.
Given what is happening around us now, take some time to ask yourself…What stories you are telling yourself about this present moment?

How will you share your story of this time in the future?

What do you want to remember and what is there an opportunity to let go of?

and One More Thing

New Moon in Aries – 24 March 09.28 GMT

Just a reminder that astrologically we are in a New Year, we have moved into Aries season and have just been blessed with a New Moon in Aries…the fiery, action-taking, first out the blocks vitality of the Ram.

I know…the pandemic…the struggles…the difficulties.

AND

There is new energy to work with at this time.

While the world settles into this new temporary normal of “lockdown” there has been a shift to surrender in the collective.

For some this has meant an opening of the floodgates of all the emotion that has not been felt because they have been trapped in their trauma response up until now…for others it has meant a recalibration out from the emotional well and a pivot towards taking more affirmative action in some direction.

Both are right. Both require undeniable amounts of courage which Aries is here to support us with in bucketloads.