The Artists Around Me

“Creativity takes courage–courage to explore one’s deepest self and to let in the depths of the world’s struggles and joys, torments and agony. Rilke puts it this way: ‘Works of art always spring from those who have faced the danger, gone to the very end of an experience, to the point beyond which no human being can go. The further one dares to go, the more decent, the more personal, the more unique a life becomes…This sort of derangement, which is peculiar to us, must go into our work.” The artist, he dares tell us, faces derangement itself. Artists need encouragement, the building up of courage, the community can lend us. The artist in each of us needs and deserves attention in order to build up the heart.” 

When I read this I thought of all my very creative friends. Their struggles. Their stories. Their ability to pour the past…drop by drop…work by word…stitch by stitch into their writing, their baking, their sewing, their art work, their photography, their singing. Each one, unique, and able to stir the heart of another by telling a story with their art.

I am honored by their courage. I am grateful to be counted among those who count me. I am satisfied that the Divine will continue to create, build, and inspire through the miraculous hands of those who have lived a life. Those who have a story to tell and must speak it…else the rocks will cry out.