Artists and all creative people need now more than ever to keep producing work. We as creatives are usually very empathetic and feel things very deeply, so it is an especially hard time for us, and a lot of us feel paralyzed. We need to start breaking out of that now.
Our first few creations might not be pretty. They might be raw. But we need to make them. We are lucky. We have an outlet for our anger, fear and disappointment that doesn't hurt anybody.
We need to start creating and doing what we do best. Our country needs us. No politician will be able to start the healing process. That's on us. What changes the world? Love. Art. Music. Dance. Written word. Poetry. Action.
We need to come from a place of compassion. We need to listen to our brothers and sisters and learn from them. We need to use our voices and our art to speak our truth.
“To bring about real change, our efforts must be collective and harmonious, based on love and respect for ourselves and each other, our ancestors and future generations. If anger at injustice is what we use as the source of our energy, we may do something harmful, something we will later regret. According to Buddhism, compassion is the only source of energy that is useful and safe. That is why love must always go together with understanding. Understanding and insight show us how to act.”
We have known for sometime that our country is broken because there is a lack of love. It's hard to show compassion to people who hate, but they need to heal from their negative ways of thinking. It's hard to show compassion to people that are doing so much to hurt people we care about. It's hard to be compassionate to those who put profit before our beautiful earth that we need to protect. Some of us, myself included, aren't there yet. But through the gifts of our creative practice we need to work towards compassion. We as artists have the ability to influence the collective consciousness in a positive way. We need to pay attention to the energy we are releasing. We need to tell the truth in our art and in our words and speak up. Even though it doesn't seem that way we can make a difference.