Creating Beauty in a Broken World -

“Resurrection” ©Amy Livingstone, Sacred Art Studio

“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.” -Terry Tempest Williams

From my January Newsletter:

This from Williams’ 2008 powerful and heart-opening book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She details her journey from Ravenna, Italy, to the American SW, and to Rwanda where she helps build a genocide memorial with the survivors of the war. She follows the thread of a calling to follow one wild word–mosaic. She writes: “Mosaic celebrates brokenness and the beauty of being brought together.”

I was reminded of her book again after finishing the painting shown here, “Resurrection.” Although most would associate the word or concept with the resurrection of Christ, I am using the word in context with the necessary and emerging return of the ancient paradigm associated with our indigenous ancestors and the Divine Feminine of the Goddess tradition, prior to the rise of patriarchy. Although I would also suggest that Christ is likewise an embodiment of the feminine with his original message of inclusivity and love for the neighbor and stranger.

Holy mother earth with the ‘seed of life’ nestled in the heart of the web of life is cracking and we desperately need the return of the divine feminine even more so given the recent rhetoric coming forward during the GOP presidential campaign against women, people of color, those of the Islamic tradition, and the earth herself. Fear breeding more separation. And yet, I know also that there are so many of us, you and me, making a difference every day in our world through our creativity and in our communities. Shining your light bright as I wrote about in last month’s newsletter!

From Amazon: “In her compassionate meditation on how nature and humans both collide and connect, Williams affirms a reverence for all life, and constructs a narrative of hopeful acts, taking that which is broken and creating something whole.”

Butterflies = transformation. Life. Death. Beauty. Preciousness of life. Bowie. Rickman. Frey. Levine. Icons and teachers. So breathing into the complexities of life and in my heart, and piecing together a mosaic of beauty in a broken world.

As always, I welcome your thoughts.

A blessed and wildly creative new year to you,

Amy