30"x40" acrylic on canvas, 2018
 
There are times when all comes together. And with wisdom we discern that all inevitably comes apart again. Impermanence is a time-honored and valuable contemplation. Pema Chödrön writes in her book When Things Fall Apart, “Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” While this piece was on the wall in my studio, there was so much change on the horizon, personally and professionally. Everything was in shift. And I was invited in the midst of that season to join my mentor to sing with him at a kirtan in NYC. While I painted I prepared for the event, learning the harmonies to his uplifting track, “Shift,” sensing that all would be well, whatever comes, as a parent, a partner, as a vulnerable and authentic woman in this crazy unwelcoming world. For a moment the colors were brighter, a rainbow of red, blue and yellow, sage green and dusty purple, held by neutral grays and just enough cream… The canvas contained my joy, my sense of possibility as one dark chapter closed and commitments were renewed, solutions to challenges were found, and I began to use my voice. This painting became the image on my business card and the homepage for my first website. I used to mark it as “not-for-sale” because it holds such a special place in my heart and portfolio, and yet the joy of that time is etched in memory. These years later, what was celebrated shifted: my husband left our home; my mentor left his body… Dear Durga Das David Newman remains present through his music, his lyrics reassuring our spirits and holding fast to a belief in all that is good, “I feel a shift from fear to love, the dream that we’ve dreamed of. A shift from suffering to joy in a world we won’t destroy. A shift in perspective in the collective shift in consciousness, a shift in direction and in perception. Do you feel like this? I feel a shift.” David and I graduated from the same small college, whose motto was, “For the common good.” This mantra is woven into the fabric of who I have become, has motivated the meaningful work that I pursue, has inspired the belief that if we are only okay if all of us are. Mark Nepo writes, “To listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what you hear.” May we all continue to make space in the room of the heart, to welcome the unraveling, remain open, and to commit to the wellbeing of all through our individual and communal shifts.