PATIENCE LOVES TRUE – 12X12 – acrylic on board
It is another day. Another day in which to live and breathe and have our being! I love those words. Do you ever just fall in love with a word? Everyone is different. Our favorite words can say so much about us. One of my favorites is forsythia. I LOVE the way forsythia rolls off my tongue! (I have no idea what this means about me). Another word I love is LOVE. It has its own impact as a sound. But, more so because of its meaning. Agape love: unconditional, redemptive, perfect…our Creator’s love for us. Phileo love: friendship, trust, affection. Storge love: familial love, natural affection. Eros love: a giving of our spiritual and physical selves. Trusting, faithfulness, affirming, supporting, open. Love only shared with another specific person. This love empowers us in a way, by its exclusivity. It is our own. At its best, it builds us up and focuses our creative energy. When it is darkened with selfishness or deceitfulness, it can be destructive…painful.
Words are important. They have meaning. Words have the power to create or to tear down. An artistic life chooses words with this in mind. Ask yourself what you are creating as you use words. Are you creating a world you want to live in? This is also worth giving thought to. I have become focused on using my voice for creativity, not for tearing anything down. It is my goal to wrap those I love in tender words… in words that encourage.
Words For It (a poem by Julia Cameron)
I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead.
I would wrap words on your wrists.
“There, there,” my words would say–
Or something better.
I would murmur,
“Hush” and “Shh, shhh, it’s all right.”
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and soothe and cool
Where fever blisters and burns,
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.