Mixed Media – Sur la Sorgue Sunday Market

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Loss and Perspective

Loss puts a magnifying glass on the concept of time. A sweet, kind, joyfully positive friend of mine died last month. Grief and good memories shared with a community of people who loved her has been a salve on my bereaved heart. Making art and planning new paintings helps enormously too. She would like that part; planning and being excited for all things related to Potential.

What Do We Say?

Knowing what to say to a family suffering a loss is challenging.  Feelings get tangled in social skill hiccups, bereavement diplomacy, and the delicate balance of expressing your grief in a way that doesn’t demand attention above their grief. This outline of appropriate responses to grief, helps with do’s and don’ts of what to say to the person mourning. Many of the cliche’ phrases I’ve heard at memorial services are wincingly inappropriate. But, how would we know what to say, unless experts in the field explain what works best in such sad circumstances? I hope you aren’t experiencing any losses, but if you are, perhaps the tips in the article will give you more assuredness for supporting a grieving family.

Crafting Each Day, One at a Time

Losing someone to an awful disease is a lesson in helplessness. It can also serve as a shot of awareness that we should focus on what we CAN control in life. I’m pondering this a lot these days. I get to sit here and type this post to you, but my friend will never type, or hug, or laugh, or sail again. There’s enormous potential for appreciation for our health, abilities, connections and choices after someone you love passes away. I’m doing my best to focus on sharpened gratitude for these living-larger categories of awareness.  What do you focus on when mourning grays your sunny days?

Thanks for visiting, and I’ll see you in the next post –

Belinda

Art Quote

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.  And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it.  It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching, and makes us more alive than the others.

~Martha Graham

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