Reaching Up

Today I've pulled a piece of ZIA out of my play journal to share.  As life has gathered its complications over the past few years, my stress level has risen and I began to lose close contact with my innate optimism.  This made me sad to think about; dear friends once christened me "Mistress of Rainbows" for my relentless optimism.  Sometimes life gets tough.  There is always someone who has it tougher.  Life can get complicated.  There is always someone whose life is infinitely more complex.  Life gets crazy.... you get the idea.  And yet, our own experiences are valid.  Their impact on us is real.  The emotional toll is authentic.  Even while acknowledging that "life could be worse", I think it's also important to realize that the smaller challenges we may be facing are equally deserving of notice, and overcoming them is equally reason for celebration.  Every small act of creation I commit (yes, these words are deliberately chosen) is a tiny symbol of my revolt against the ugly, the hard, the harmful, the unkind, the negative.  My placing pen to paper, bead to thread, metal to form, is my personal revolution, my declaration that life is meant to be good, that we have the power within ourselves to make it so.  The sketch I share today is an early work; unshaded, simple in design, limited in tangles, and yet it remains a piece of work that I am profoundly pleased with in some visceral way.  At first I though to call it "Reaching Out", but then I had another look and realized that what my hand is REALLY doing is reaching UP - up towards the Creator, up towards opportunity, up towards the sun....  Can you see this or does it show something else to you?  Is your response the same or different?

Happy Wednesday!