Hey wonderful

Instagram does not have a great reputation as an educational tool, but I have found it to be an excellent source of counter culture information.

The trick is to look away from the glam mainstream, and out towards the sketchy margins.   There is a whole other ecosystem out there, perhaps unimaginable from the airbrushed celebrity-heavy popular perspective.

Blak, Black, Indigenous, Queer, Disabled, Neurodivergent, Feminist and other revolutionary views are all available for your viewing pleasure.   Highly recommended to take some social media detours, from the voyeuristic comfort of your own phone.

If you’re not already following her, check out @adriennemareebrown who posts marvellous meme collections, revolutionary poetry, calls to both prayer and action.

Their channel is endlessly creative and delightful.  Gently challenging, consistently encouraging.  Plus she’s written a couple of fabulous books to fuel growth and change.   Emergent Strategy invites you to begin where you are – a philosophy very much in line with my own.   Pleasure Activism strongly suggests an orgasm before and after every chapter.

This week, from all the messages that came through on social, this one appeared twice in quick succession and really hit home for me (though I’ve lost the source)

The opposite of depression is not happiness, but expression.

I love this concise wisdom, with its clear invitation to stop chasing a cure that feels remote from what you have access to right now.

The message that depression is about flatness, lack of contrast and sensation.

The reminder not to be trying to swap one plain state for a greener looking one.   That is only more work.

The invitation to sense into the movements, sounds, words, actions, images, objects that you long to release into the world.    The stuff that is weighing you down.

Oof.  LOL.  Feeling decluttering guilt.  And that certainly could be a real part of the process.  Which might be a great place to start.  Or perhaps that’s overwhelming (it is for me!)   Instead, expression might be ideas that long to see the light of day in the form of objects (tangible or intangible) you want to create.

The truth is that nobody else can know exactly what you need to express, to release, to stop carrying in your mind, your heart, your home.

But what you could ask others to do is lighten your load, distribute the burden.  You could ask trusted others to listen, to give you more space or time to clear or create, to assist you however you need.

It is possible to achieve things with friends, with company, that are way too hard alone.

Start small and build space and capacity over time.

Another way of looking at this message is through my favourite lens of invisibility.

The opposite of invisibility is not visibility, but slowing down and showing up.

Like the flatness of depression, invisibility often stems from constancy and tight constraint.

But the solution is not necessarily visibility per se, simply becoming bigger, louder, more disruptive, the maintenance of which may also start to feel like work pretty quickly.

Again, the invitation is to become more sensitive to where you are invisible – what you are avoiding.- and wondering how to show up differently, more rewardingly.

Creative expression is a realm of life that has fallen right off the agenda for many of us.  Who has time?

Creatures of habit, excellence and efficiency, we tend to stick to doing the things we’re already good at, to the exclusion of almost everything else.  We move through our world fast and smoothly, taking care of responsibilities with skill and speed.   Literally rendering ourselves and our work barely perceptible to the untrained eye.

Where we are not showing up is in slowness, incompetence, disarray.

Which means we are missing out on the depths of sensitivity, growth and complexity.

Not to mention connection, collaboration and companionship.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more about my teachers and practices, and inviting you to venture off the familar paths of your sensible, well structured life to get at least some light relief and perhaps a different perspective in the process.

Right now, I’m curious to hear your thoughts about what stops you joining a dance crew, an art class or a writing retreat.   Or why you do make time for those creative outlets.

Please hit comment or connect (at the bottom of the page) and let me know.