always tender, always changing
creating for the medicine of it
“May you keep nothing to yourself
May you keep everything a secret
May your practice be ever changing”-Marlee Grace
I must admit, I’ve been feeling a bit lost for the past few years. I feel like a garden covered with weeds. And in an attempt to bloom into someone “impressive,” I’ve accidentally over planted and became so overwhelmed that I've found myself overgrown. Rather than tending to this metaphorical garden, I have accumulated an abundance of flowers only to let them wilt and wither away.
You see, I used to be excited about my multifaceted interests. I was proud of my willingness to jump into whatever I wanted to do. To explore something because it moved me—I became enchanted by a flower so I made a flower essence; I felt a swirl of words in my head so I wrote poetry; I wanted to create a platform for artists and musicians so a friend and I created a magazine. I did these things for the sake of doing them. And things only got tainted when I felt like what I was doing had to have purpose. It had to be a part of my identity. I found I was looking for external validation. The call to answer to someone. Who? I still don’t know.
In a world of building an Instagram identity, I started to feel like a dilettante. I was drowning in a sea of “who am I’s?” When all I wanted was to be myself. To feel like myself. Whoever that may be. I was boxing my mutable nature into a fixed interest. And rather than sticking to one thing, I jumped from one idea to another, constantly trying on different titles as if a shallow declaration would help me better understand what was missing. It took visiting the ocean and watching the tide pull in and out to realize that what I was missing was the beauty of the ebb and flow. Like the sea, my practice is ever changing.
For the sake of one last declaration: I am quitting the need for validation. As Marlee Grace has so candidly stated, “May we fuck off and not take ourselves so seriously as a spell for presence.” And so, I am heeding their advice. I’m casting my own spell to lean into the art of just existing. I am retiring from meaning making and instead giving myself permission to have many interests, to allow myself to be struck by the muse, whoever she may be, and see where it takes me. To embrace the unknown. To allow it to change. And to ultimately be okay with that.
May we dance with the muse for the sake of dancing. For the sake of perspective. For the sake of just being.
May we always be tender. May we always be changing.
Keep evolving ♡
-Autumn
Pepita Sandwich’s comics, always. Especially this one:
Compassionate Realness, an Instagram account created by my dear friend, Janel Lucia, who is documenting her journey through cancer.
My other dear friend has a book out this week! Check out Cat Willett’s first book, The Queen of Wands: The Story of Pamela Coleman Smith, the Artist Behind the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. A must read for anyone who is into tarot, art history or graphic novels. You can buy it here!
It took me ~5 years but I finally read Bluets by Maggie Nelson. Such a wonderful read. I was left in awe and walked away with formatting inspiration for a personal writing project I’m working on. Highly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet!
This beautiful print by Rani Ban:
Ok, are we in an alternate universe wherein you and I have two separate minds and hearts but do, in fact, share one journal? Creating for the medicine of it, gleaning insight from the ocean, existing as a multi-passionate being, plants and poetry and magic and Marlee Grace... so grateful to feel connection through your words, so beautifully written.
"I feel like a garden covered with weeds. And in an attempt to bloom into someone “impressive,” I’ve accidentally over planted and became so overwhelmed that I've found myself overgrown."
Beautifully written🌹