We are community

We are Stepping Stones
We are Community

If you are feeling sad, scared, angry,
dispirited, devastated, disgusted,
please know you are not alone.

‘We are Stepping Stones.
We are Community.’

Who knew the little picture I painted yesterday,
alongside two art therapist pals, would resonate today?

You take one step at a time.
The stones are in the water.
You take one step at a time.
The water separates, connects, flows, nourishes.
You take one step at a time.
Each stone has space around it, yet is close to others.
You take one step at at a time.
You do not fall in the water.
You do not drown.

Who knows what is beyond this picture?
You take one step at a time.
For the moment, you are not alone.

Thank you for reading this, Art and Soul Space friend.

It was an aftermath expression from the recent Australian election weekend.

I share it with you with the intention of inspiring connection, hope, creativity, community.

In the words of a speaker on a post-election

Australian Conservation Foundation video,

‘Take time to grieve, reflect and connect….

Connect with your community, rest and recharge.

We’re really going to need you.

We need to look after each other so that we can be dangerous together’.

Here’s a link to a post-election article from the wise Stephanie Dowrick

Feel free to voice your responses.

with love, art and soul
from Sally

aka Keep Your Feet on the Ground and Your Brush on the Page

*thank you to last fortnight’s 3 poets

Last week, politicians stirred up a nasty brew of disruption and destabilisation in the nation’s central cauldron.

I was blessed with downtime. I kept my ear to the radio, my feet on the ground and my brush on the page. Still besotted with my near-new ‘Brilliants’, I self-soothed in the pleasantly safe, contained space of a small Art Journal. I followed the brush, the play and flow of watercolour. I did not plan my pictures. I stayed open.

I had a cuppa and chanced upon a Hugh Mackay article about compassion as a form of love. Compassion. Possibly a missing ingredient from the approaches and actions of the country’s main destabilisers. He says,

‘It is normal for humans to show compassion towards each other, because, in the end, we are each other.’

Hugh Mackay is not the first or the only person to express such a sentiment. Poets, philosophers, religious guides have said the same thing countlessly. However, his words spoke to my bruised brush, my ailing spirit. His words spoke to my dismay that those who dehumanise and brutalise innocent asylum seekers are those who ruthlessly engineer to rule a country.

‘Although we like to think of ourselves as independent, we are more like islands in the sea – separate on the surface but connected to each other deep down.’