Having Waned, 2018, graphite on paper
The Dark Moon
Here are some resources to explore further in considering change and the dark, star-filled night of our studio practices. Remember, as America Ferrera says, “Our discomfort and our grappling is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that we’re living at the edge of our imaginations.”
Naming
Work and the Life of the Spirit, edited by Douglas Thorpe
Taking the time to focus.
Forgetting—and remembering
Is change actually emergence?
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures by Antonio R. Damasio
Time
The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks, see “The Creative Self” (and this review on Brain Pickings)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The stars as a picture of time.
Attention
Upstream, Selected Essays by Mary Oliver, see “Staying Alive”
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (or really anything she has written, For the Time Being made me swoon, as did an essay on her experience of an eclipse)
Essence
Mapping The Intelligence of Artistic Work, An Explorative Guide to Making, Thinking and Writing by Anne West
The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling by James Hillman
Waxing
My Story as Told by Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, Reflections, Bird-Watchings, Fish-Stalkings, Visions, Songs and Prayers Refracting Light, From Living Rivers, in the Age of the Industrial Dark by David James Duncan, see “A Prayer for the Salmon’s Second Coming: Cold War Relics”
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp
What is important and what is urgent?