Last night, the solstice moon, fat-bellied and waxy-white, hung over the frozen Rockies.

 

 

Winter here in the mountains feels like living in a Christmas card come to life. It is a time for snowy adventures, followed by a retreat to hearth and home. The wood cracking in the fireplace, the gold hue of candle light, the deep snowy silence, and, in the frosty mornings, the deer picking their way past our house, their pointy hooves crunching along icy trails.

 

 

Our Christmas lights, blinking and bright, do their best against the hibernating dark, but winter’s freezing cold slows everything down.

“Pay attention,” Winter whispers, her chilly breath on our necks…a shivery reminder of the future that awaits us all. “Slow down,” she says, “light a candle against the night, and remember – that always – deep in the dark, lies the hope of spring.”

 

 

Everything waits, tamped down in the cold earth.  Yet somehow, from what appears to be nothing, every single thing miraculously springs forth.

Our lives are proof of that same process. With every gesture, every word, every mark and every note, we create something brand new in the world, something that previously had never existed.

Perhaps, like in theatre, we enter from stage left to interact with the world through a conversation or a nod, or by icing a cookie or going for a walk. Whatever we do, we bring forth something never before interpreted in that particular way.

We are, with no joke intended, the stars of our show. Everything we do, say and feel –  all of it –  matters tremendously, whether witnessed by an audience of thousands or watched only by the invisible “I” that observes “me”.

We are all performance artists.

 

 

Sometimes life has been compared to a book. Each chapter, whether a cliffhanger or a tear jerker, is built from paragraphs made up of the routine minutiae or the exceptional event, each sentence an account of what we’re doing with our time here on earth.

Or perhaps we can view our lives like a musical score. Maybe the crashing cymbals are a loud metaphor for a horrible and ugly argument. Let’s hope it’s followed by the lilting flute reminding us of a kiss on the beach. Underneath it all we hear the brooding low bass notes of the cello, a dark echo reminding us of that terrible moment when our best friend died.

Maybe we are best thought of as a canvas, each bright dab of paint, a new friendship. Or maybe that sunny splash of yellow denotes the time we walked, almost floating, down a trail in an alpine meadow of flowers. But wait, there, in the corner of the piece is also the deep indigo smudge of depression while those crimson marks cut into the canvas are jagged reminders of panic and anxiety.

 

 

Whatever metaphor we use: book, musical score or canvas, there is no doubt that we are both the artist and the resultant creation.

We’ve all heard someone say they’re ‘just not creative’.  I beg to argue. Every day, each of us is granted the grace and miracle of waking to a new day whereupon, with each thought, gesture and action, we fabricate our lives. We are manifestations of the biggest creative process of all.

Each minute we construct a life by how we respond to inconvenience or disaster, how we decorate, clutter or clean where we live, whether we sing in a choir, in the shower, or on a stage, whether we paint a picture or paint our nails…every moment, of every day, we bring into existence what had not existed prior to our actions.

Each act matters.

How we treat others, and, most importantly, ourselves, becomes our life.  Which, of course, brings us to that endless internal conversation…is the voice we hear in our heads compassionate or cruel?  Would you talk to your best friend in that tone?

Kindness and love starts with ourselves and radiates outward. We create a masterpiece of our lives through love and intention. Together we can help bring forth a more beautiful world.

Thank you, my friends, for participating in this particular act of creation.

 

 

Merry Christmas From Our Home to Yours