Harvesting the Art of Peace

Happy Full Moon!

As we reach the half-way mark of autumn, I, too, am entering a season where I drop my leaves and focus on my roots. As such, this is the last harvest of this season, so there won’t be any new songs for a while.

Since August, I’ve been in an active growth phase that’s been focused on carrying me through a big-old-scary-birthday. Now, I’m happy to report that I’ve officially made it into a new phase, with many new and exciting opportunities blooming on the horizon.

To a large extent, I’ve got my art to thank for it. Making art with the aim of loving our nature transforms me every time: It grows my confidence in myself, and in life. It gives me compassion for all the breaks and declines. It helps me feel connected, which gives me purpose and endurance. It helps me have patience. It inspires me to celebrate, and to share, all that I’ve been given.

Then, as confidence, love, strength and gratitude grow within me, my life changes profoundly. Suddenly, I’m able to let go where I couldn’t before, and I’m finding opportunities where I’d only found closed doors.

I’d say that it’s magic, but it’s actually quite understandable: At any given time, we can only focus on the fraction of the world that’s most relevant to us, while our periphery is generally filled-in by our own brains1 2. In fact, scientists have found that up to 80% of what we experience comes from the brain regions associated with memory (not the regions that are connected to the physiological perceptions, such as sight)3. This means a few important things:

1. What we focus on is never the full picture.

2. A large percentage of what we might call objective reality is actually created within us.

3. How we remember the past has a direct impact on how we see the present.

That being said, how we see the present impacts how we respond to it, and how we respond to it plays a big part in what we create with our lives.

With all that in mind, how we perceive the world is essential to making peace; if our memories are full of painful and heartbreaking experiences, it’s likely that pain and heartbreak will continue to fill our perception and focus. So how do we break the cycle?

Though there are many different approaches that seek to address this question, for me, making art of our nature has been the most effective.

Art is a practice of focus and a craft of perception in which we consciously choose our subject, and actively shape our views of it. Then, with the aim of creating a life of peace, choosing nature as the subject has been massively effective for me. This is because the principles of evolution and ecosystems are ultimately positive: Life (as a whole) always finds a way (even after massive extinctions); it is infinitely resilient and connected.

When it comes down to it, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted: to sustain and create through life’s challenges with the love, joy and peace that come from knowing that I’m not alone in it.

As such, applying the principals of our nature to how I perceive my own life (and memories) has reshaped me, and continues to make me, with peace.

That being said, these profound transformations require digestion. Like any sustenance that I consume, the gifts of my art take time to integrate and to be used.

This is why I create in seasons; I make art, and then I pause to integrate the transformation. Once it’s all stabilized in my system, I go back to my creations in an endlessly positive process of personal evolution.

As such, I’m more committed than ever to share my love for our nature, and the creative practice that anchors it. I hope that sharing my reflections has served you, too, as we all move through some pretty big challenges.

Even so, like the trees who lose their leaves, but still offer a solid source of shelter, while I’m dormant, you can still access all the love songs, stories, and notes to our nature:

Love Songs to Our Nature (archive)

Love Notes to Our Nature (archive)

Meanwhile, I’ll still be working hard- it’ll just be underground. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in dormancy, but I will check-in periodically. In the future, I hope that during my time underground, this platform will be filled with songs and stories from our community. But, there’s some foundations that I need to work on before that can start happening (which is why I’m getting to it! I’m so excited to be together in this!).

Until then, here’s a couple highlights from the last harvest of this season: