Pressure

Our world feels under pressure in multiple arenas - climate, politics, economics, public health - and responses divide us through culture wars, actual wars, poverty, fundamentalism, nationalism, detachment from human hearts. Too much pressure surely breaks the fragile bowl of community but just enough could make us rise up and champion sustainable forms of use and beauty.

I try to slow down, count small graces, mend cracks, become aware when my human clay is soft or brittle. Begin again, a wise teacher said after he destroyed the first round of class journals and gave us empty pages. I remember this three decades after the event. He went off script and I learned something. Do better. Keep going. Don’t get too attached or take myself too seriously. Care about my work, my words, my expression, my life - care even when I don’t see results.