on creating with a broken heart
how do we find the motivation to create when it hurts to be in the world?
The day after I sent the monthly creativity forecast—I pulled the 3 of Swords for our creativity card of the month—the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade leak happened.
Then on May 14th, a racist hate crime was committed in Buffalo, NY: a white supremacist shooter killed 10 people and hurt three others in a supermarket.
And yesterday: yet another elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
And those terrible things are just the ones currently at the top of the list of all the other awful, turbulent, violent, and oppressive things happening throughout the world
every. single. day.
At this exact moment, I don’t know what to say, what to do, or how to proceed. And I don’t know why I would want to, why any of us would want to.
Making and creating beautiful things feels…well, in this moment, to me, it feels trite. It feels unimportant. Selfish. Insignificant.
Since March, I’ve been working on a draft of a book about magic and creativity, and in the last couple weeks, I just haven’t been able to touch it. It hurts too much to believe creating something beautiful is worth the time and energy when so much around me feels broken and irredeemable.
Despite what I feel, I hope it isn’t true.
Part of why it hurts so much is I see what the world could be—and I can see so clearly that it doesn’t need to be this way. Not even close.
Yet we seem to keep choosing destruction over creation, again and again and again.
It hurts. So much.
When I recorded the monthly forecast, I focused mostly on our internal landscape: our own self-judgment and self-criticism. But as the month has unfolded, I’ve been (repeatedly) reminded that these forces come from outside of us, too.
The beautiful world we live in is hurting. So many of us are under attack and in mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical pain.
Today I feel like: what is the point?
Sometimes writing feels really futile, especially with so many atrocious and horrific things happening in the world. Creating anything right now feels like a privilege (which it is) and it even feels, at the most awful moments, disrespectful.
How are we supposed to create when the world keeps breaking our hearts?
When the world is not a safe place for all human beings? When our freedom, liberation, body autonomy, harmony, peace, and co-existence are under attack?
Should we create at all?
Even asking the question feels woefully self-indulgent.
People have lost their lives, and I’m wondering how to continue working on my art?
Ick.
Ick, and.
It’s always “and.”
Awful, enraging, terrible, frightening, unconscionable things happen every single day. Things that make me (and you, I imagine) feel utterly powerless, maybe even hopeless.
Where does our art fit into it? Or does it?
I pulled the 3 of Swords again this morning. Sometimes I feel really stupid, sitting in my comfy bed, sipping my coffee next to a lit candle, with a cool morning breeze and bird song slipping in through my open window. It feels too unbearably mundane, too painfully cozy.
What right do I have to sit in my bed and pull tarot cards and journal like any other morning, when last night at least 19 sets of parents had to face their children’s empty beds?
I don’t have any profound words to offer. None of this is okay. When people say “this isn’t who we are”…it’s a knife through my heart. Because it is who we are.
It’s who we’ve always been, and who we’ll continue to be, over and over, until we decide enough is enough.
Again: this is who we are.
But it doesn’t have to be.
We can change.
Maybe our art is a part of that. Maybe our art reveals the flaws, maybe it creates portals to other ways of being, new ways of relating and communing. Maybe our creations illuminate new ways forward. Maybe we can create supportive systems that aren’t inherently abusive.
Maybe.
Maybe.
But also: if your heart is broken, if you’re hurting, you are under no obligation to do anything but feel it. Be with the pain. Rant, rage, revolt. Scream if you have to. Cry when you need to.
There is no need to plaster on a smile and sit at your art desk.
You don’t have to fake it. You don’t have to “power through.”
Maybe your art is how you get it out. Maybe you can’t create anything at all right now.
There is no right way to cope. So much of what we’re carrying, we were never meant to.
Tend to your heart. Whatever that looks like, whatever that feels like, however that manifests.
It is more than okay to take a break. It is more than okay to channel your grief and your rage however necessary.
We are not machines.
You are not a machine.
You are not a machine.
This is not an uplifting message, I know. But I’m not feeling very uplifted or inspired at the moment, and I suspect you aren’t either.
All the same: take care of your heart, as best you can.
I love you.
Resources for Hope in Troubled Times
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
“A Very Cellular Song” by The Incredible String Band
drink as much water as possible
visit natural bodies of water (rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans, puddles)
enjoy unstructured snuggle time with loved ones
if you have no one to snuggle, snuggle yourself
take long hot showers
forgive yourself for not having the mental energy or motivation to create right now. release shame. you are struggling because you have a deeply empathetic and kind heart. you are allowed to rest, retreat, pause, cry, scream, rage, sleep, lounge.
In future monthly forecast issues, I will also answer subscriber questions on creativity, magic, tarot, and more! Submit your questions at the link below.
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