Life/Death/Life


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I’ve been reading Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and mulling over the notion of Life/Death/Life cycles as I tend to my little seedlings. If you’ve read this book, you’ll probably already know what I’m going on about - if not, let me explain.

I planted these seeds, watered them, kept them warm till they sprouted - and then, today, thinned them out. I took scissors and snipped and clipped until only the strongest among them remained. Maybe it seems cruel, maybe it seems harsh - but now the ones left standing have a better chance of survival - and the snipped sprouts will go into my compost, to become food and fuel yet again. Life allows for death allows for life and I am watching it all unfold.

I love this. I love living and breathing and existing in cycles - in the garden, in my art, in my very being - so seeing things from this viewpoint has been a treat. All this to say, I love this book.

I actually purchased it three years ago but only got about forty pages in before I set it aside. I think I just wasn’t ready for it then, but now it’s practically singing. I can only read a few pages at a time, between all I’m trying to juggle at the moment AND because of the sheer volume of thoughts each story seems to dredge up, but I’ve been feeling so awake on the days I get to sink into the words a little.

Yesterday, I tagged along with my mom on a trip to south Denver in order to pick up a few things from IKEA. I’m pretty sure the last time I was at that particular store was the August Eric and I got our first apartment.

The apartment itself turned out to be a real stinker - literally. It was in an old house, with three other units, and the only basement access was just inside our back door. One day the plumber came by to check out a mysterious smell emanating from the depths only to discover….that the sewer had majorly backed up and there was, ahem, lots of treasure floating around down there. The sound of that poor man saying, “oh GOD” still haunts my dreams.

Now, ok - I can see this happening once. Maybe. But it happened AGAIN shortly after and we made the not-so-hard decision to get the heck out.

The IKEA goodies we got for that space, though, are largely still with us. They’ve traveled the many miles to California and back again, old friends in all the places we’ve called home together. I have major respect for the durability of those flat-pack wonders.

ANYHOW - as we meandered between all the stylish little spaces in the store, we talked in the way that I can only ever talk with my mom. She just gets me. The most intense few minutes were spent standing together in front of a display of cutting boards. People were milling and flowing around us but we might as well have been all alone. It was only after we walked on that I realized how bizarre we must have looked- having what appeared to be the most in-depth and emotional discussion about $15 cutting boards that has ever taken place. That gave us both a good laugh.

But in all seriousness, I did come away from the day with three big, intuitive truths that I must write down and frame and hang upon my wall for the next leg of my journey.

The first is that social media eats me alive from the inside out. I believe that the system is built upon comparison - that is, making people feel bad about what they don’t have and then turning around and making them THINK they feel better because they have more than someone else. Rinse, repeat, it all feeds endlessly on itself. For me, I find that whether I’m getting good feedback or no feedback (I’ve been exceptionally lucky to have never really dealt with downright BAD feedback), every minute I spend there makes me a little sicker, a little more anxious. The real trick of the whole thing is that it all makes me so sick, I forget that I can leave at any time.

It was a bad decision, born of fear, the day I allowed myself to put my soul up for sale in those little squares - and it’s time to re-think my purpose in the Instagram realm. Moving forwards, I think that this means that sharing there must truly be SHARING - that is, little gifts of thought and beauty that don’t cost a thing. Tiny heart-treasures just waiting to be spotted by anyone who will take the time to look. Sharing not selling, sharing not selling - this will be my mantra.

Secondly, I need to reclaim myself as an artist. Not a businesswoman, not a saleswoman, not a metalsmith or jewelry maker - an ARTIST. I’m not sure where I lost hold of her, where our connection got to be just the barest touches of outstretched fingers. I can’t say where I left the self who would forget to eat (which is my favorite thing in this life) because I was so deep in the creative flow.

I’ve got a hunch it was when I switched my major from mechanical engineering to metalsmithing and began to push myself so others wouldn’t think me foolish for following my heart. It was when I graduated from art school and told myself I had to get serious and when I got a job for another maker and internalized her soul-sapping process for turning handwork into money. And I can’t overlook when I started obsessively keeping track of how much time I spent on each piece, ultimately training myself to think about art in regards to the the time it takes to create as opposed to the amount of joy it brings me in the making.

It’s not that I’ve been unhappy in my art practice - but I’ve remembered, again, how it was once… and that remembering has made me rabid to get back. From the outside, I’m sure none of this shows - but it’s something that’s been gnawing at me for years like some caged thing trying to get out. How do I recreate the mental making space that once existed so effortlessly? I think it has something to do with looking inwards instead of outwards (AKA, refer back to Truth number one…). 

The third Truth has a lot to do with one of the passages that has most stuck with from my reading these past few days. Estés wrote about the art of wild women being like a roadmap for others to follow on their own wild journeys. In this line of thinking, there’s a lot of good charting I’ve put out into the world so far - but there’ve also been some serious roadblocks I’ve included, too. 

Like simplifying ideas so they’ll be easier to sell. Like letting creative sparks fizzle out because they are not in my “expected” medium. Like remaining aloof to the hurt I feel so I can push on through another day.

The roads I have laid have also been mostly straight. I’ve sent them through pretty country to mask the fact that their aim is speed and efficiency - but how much do we miss when we bypass the wild and circuitous route that’s been calling? I have been gifted with an incredibly safe and steady life - it’s time to start exploring the backroads.

I keep thinking, keep saying that I don’t know what all of this MEANS yet, or what this new life of mine will look like, but I’m finally realizing that I know what it FEELS like and I’ve been feeling the tug all along. So if I have to go forward blind, on hands and knees until I get where I’m going, then that’s what I’ll do. And maybe, just maybe, I can also leave a little trail of light in this particular darkness -  a trail that might someday lead the way for someone or something even greater than I can, in this moment, imagine. And wouldn’t that be something?


The first law of thermodynamics says that energy in a system cannot be lost or destroyed - it just changes forms. I didn’t understand that, really, when I sat in a classroom nearly ten years ago, but I get it now. I feel it now. This is the idea that brings us full circle (because, isn’t that always the way?). I had to live that life, the one from yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, so that it could die today and be reborn tomorrow. This is the beginning of another ending which will spark a beginning and I’m here, in it, feeling the revolutions.

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Hayley JosephsComment