"Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."  ~Adrienne Rich

My industry: the entertainment; show business; ART industry, is going through a crisis right now. Art always has an existential crisis - that's its purpose after all - but this crisis is more of power play between the players of the ART in this said industry: the writers and the actors. What ART do we have without those key players!? What stories do you see? What people do you live vicariously through? The studio execs are not the artists here. They are the audience at times, and the gate keepers at other times but they are NOT the artists, and therefore any power they have, is a man-made fabrication of TRUE VALUE. The value is in the courageous act of artistry.
Power to the people, in this case - the artists.

BELIEVE 
(verb)

*Accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of.

Belief systems are how we cope. Are how we are taught. Are how we bond with others. Belief systems are intertwined with the ability us humans have in telling stories. For good, bad, and all the vast middle in between... what do we believe in is another root of our identity. I now am facing a crossroads in a belief: shall I go with the side of logic, of probability and statistical likelihood? O shall I go with the anomaly, the miracle, the 'off the beaten path' road? In life, my answer is simple: I am an off road kinda gal. But in my mind, miracles are so easily concealed with logic that they are, well, hard to believe.
I don't know what tomorrow brings, and if miracles do happen.
But maybe today - I BELIEVE. 

Dear Fearful artist,

What are you actually afraid of?!
Losing control? Being rejected? Disappointing others or yourself? 
Are these growing pains you're feeling? Are they childhood traumas awakening? 
What is it that keeps you up at night, wondering how to do THE WORK?
Or are you wondering why is it that you can't NOT do the work?

The artist's life is sometimes a weight to carry. A burden. A toll. A charge deep inside you. A fire that won't let go. You feel it with every breath you take. You try to calm it down. You say "Enough inspiration for one day. Leave me be. Let me live a NORMAL life for a change. A quiet, simple, disappearing life. A life that doesn't need to live forever. A life that doesn't need to be purposeful, to have meaning, to share the dream that is in my frail and mortal human eye." What is a normal life like? I wonder. And that wondering takes me on the artist's spin yet again.
'You are what you are' say people wiser than I. Yes, I am what I am and my eyes and how I see the world is  a never ending dream while I am awake. Life's biggest gift is poetry, music, dance. The languages that live beyond logic. That spiral in a different sphere. How to inhabit inhibitions is the conundrum of the social artist. How to live alone together, or together alone. How to make friends with the artist within. The artist that wants desperately to hide, and desperately to be seen. 
Oh, artist's life. You break me piece by piece, and you fill my heart with humanity with every word, and every story , and every frame, and every feeling captured in the camera's eye. 

I can say 'don't be afraid', but you will be afraid. 
Dreaming out loud is a scary act. Is a sacred act. Is a terrible act and a wonderful act. 
It's both selfish and both extremely generous.  It demands courage from every fiber of your being, and yet if there is no fear - there is no humanity. 

So be afraid, dear fearful artist. 
Make fire with your fear. Let it keep you warm. You will need to be warm to embrace your audience. 

Love,

Yet Another Fearful Artist.

There is a place
Where parents raise their children
With no borders
Where things are run
With no corruption
Where life as you know it 
Is not some status on a Tiktok Feed
A place where
To SHARE with others 
The heavy toll of Life
Is not a dirty word
A place where 
Hugs don't need to be posted 
On a street 
Because they are a thing of nature 
They are a thing of Life
Where wombs are beds 
And beds are as comforting as a womb
And kitchens are in the wilderness
And forests and seas
Where jobs are not needed 
But rather they are wanted 
And art is simply the language of nature.
That place is not here 
Nor is it by you
There at your home reading this
This place is in the mind 
Of the DREAMER.