Creative healing

The sixth day of Kwanzaa
This one is especially near to my heart: the principle of Kuumba, creativity! The only way to build a vibrant community is through the creative devotion of the people within it.

Just as the arts can help revive a dying neighborhood, so can the application of creative energy build positive bridges of hope, where before there were only walls of separation. Our whole country desperately needs this kind of creative healing.

What better, more hopeful task can we set ourselves upon than that, this New Year's Eve?

IMAGES: Many thanks to Jeffrey St. Clair via LinkedIn's SlideShare, for the nicely designed symbol image and "seven principles" slide, to the Pinterest board of Students at the Center Hub for the Mae C. Jemison quote, and to SororitySugar's Tumblr (tagged Gamma-Sigma-Sigma) via Pinterest, for the Mitch Albom quote.

Bonus Artdog Quote: Stronger at the End

How did 2015 treat you? Was it a good year? A fantastic, amazing, awesome year? A bad year? The Year From Hell? Or maybe just "Meh"?

If you live long enough, you'll have some of all of the above. And no matter what kind of a year you've had this year, I hope you can agree with this thought:

Maybe you're not so sure about that, or perhaps you can accept it only by acknowledging the idea that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But consider this:

You're still here. You've survived. Perhaps you've even thrived, but in any case, you know more now than you did last year at this time. You have a few more tools in your workshop, a few more tricks up your sleeve.

If you're ending this year on a "down" note, I'm sorry--and believe me, I've had a stretch I look back upon now, and call "los Anos de los Muertos," the "Years of the Dead," when I lost my small business, then lost another career, and six of the dearest souls in my life departed this world, one right after another. Bad years SUCK. 

The fallow field is lying in wait, growing more fertile, even when it seems barren.

But even if your creative "field" is fallow and you're not sure you'll ever make any kind of art again, remember that there's a season for everything. Like a pruned-back plant, I came out of those "Years of the Dead" with renewed vigor. It took a while, but my creative life is more rich and exciting now than it ever has been in my life. It can be that way for you, too. 

So, on this New Year's Eve I hope you are well, happy, and prospering. But even if you're not, I pray that you are wiser. Stronger. Still standing. Learning, and growing.

Tonight we hit the RESET button. Best wishes for an awesome New Year!

IMAGES: Many thanks to QuotesGram, for the quotation graphic, and to Me Ra Koh The Photo Mom for the gorgeous photo of a fallow field, and also for a wonderful essay (same URL) on the value of rest for an artist.