Several weeks ago I had my first Tarot reading. I didn't ask a specific question, I just wanted to hear what the cards had to tell me. One idea that came up was that there was something I used to love that I shut out of my life and it was the thing I needed to get my life-endeavor on track. I knew the endeavor was art, but I had no idea what the missing thing was until I was walking home from the bus-stop at dusk. The moon was tangibly a poem and I realized that I had shut poetry out of my life. I still use poems in my art but I don't seek them out, write them, or get excited about the fact that my art is made from a poem.
The whole reason I went back to school to study art was because I had a very intense desire to illustrate poems with the words incorporated into the picture. But as I've discussed in previous posts I became self-conscious about that drive for various reasons. The reading informed me that my reasons were only hindering me and have no bearing. I can see that clearly now. It's hard to be a poet to decide that what you want to say about life should take up space in other people's lives. It's hard to be an artist for the same reason. But modesty and repression are two totally different things. Now I understand more fully how there is room for everyone to create and to share, there are no qualifications to be met. If we do what we love, it is worth sharing and it does not matter the size of the audience.
It's an odd reacquaintance so far, but already I feel more like I am paddling my boat instead of being tossed about by the waves and wind.
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