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| Becoming Generative LiDoña Wagner Gelli print 2019 |
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| Purpose LiDoña Wagner Gelli print 2019 |
Purpose: Address Economic Inequality
By devoting time and energy to creating innovative solutions to economic inequality one can have a life of purpose. While economic inequality is at the root of violence and mass incarceration here at home, it is also is a major cause of international migrations that are exacerbated by climate change. Here at home, 1% of the population controls more wealth than all the rest of us. Globally, consumption in the northern hemisphere is 32 times that in the southern hemisphere. While people in North America and Western Europe have turned a blind eye to this imbalance for decades, starved and exploited populations in the south now understand that the global economic system is stacked against them. New national and global economic policies are critical.
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| Generativity LiDoña Wagner Gelli print collage 2019 |
Generativity: Invest in Education & Infrastructure
The evolution of Homo sapiens occurred through investing in, caring for, and developing its off spring. Thus, our ancestors developed education that would prepare the next generation for the future and created public goods such as libraries, infrastructure, research in agriculture and health, and civic spaces for dialogue. Today we see this beginning to happen locally where people are taking employment and climate issues seriously. Two women in Utah were able to bring wind power into the state’s electrical grid. (Note: On a daily basis, family cats kill over 200 times more birds than wind farms do.) Solar farms in Georgia are being coupled with regenerative agriculture to bring new jobs and sustainable farming to its outlying areas.
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| Relationships LiDoña Wagner Gelli print 2019 |
Relationships: Overcome Polarization
In Jared Diamond’s Upheaval, Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, he uses a model from crisis therapy to present historical examples of how seven nations addressed crises. Most chilling for me was Chile at the time of the US/Cuban missile crisis. The shift from a democracy into a dictatorship happened largely due to political polarization. In the United States today, we need to develop relationships that transcend age, geography, religion, and political boundaries in order to restore our identity as a democracy with freedom and liberty for all.
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| Face to Face Contacts LiDoña Wagner Gelli print 2019 |
Face to Face Contacts: Invigorate Democratic Participation
Youth from Parkland have taken their concern about school safety into the field, making face to face contacts that have opened fresh impetus for gun safety. Whether or not Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, she is doing our country a service by conducting a grassroots campaign that engages people in face to face conversations about what is needed for the future of local communities and the nation as a whole.
How are you engaging in face to face contacts? Do you take public transportation and greet the bus or tram driver? Do you engage in conversation with your grocery checkout person or thank those who deliver your packages and mail? Civility is a learned skill.
How are you engaging in face to face contacts? Do you take public transportation and greet the bus or tram driver? Do you engage in conversation with your grocery checkout person or thank those who deliver your packages and mail? Civility is a learned skill.
Regardless of your age, you can begin living a long life now by declaring a purpose, investing in future generations, developing cross-bias relationships, and being open and responsive to face to face contacts.
5 comments:
Thanks for the reflections and the artwork. As I read through them, all of the issues are huge and overwhelming yet crucially important. I found myself especially pausing on "relationships." In a first response, I thought this is something where creative action can actually be taken, e.g., turning my back on activities that most obviously contribute to polarization. But this is very passive and I feel myself as stymied in this regard as the others when it comes to pro-active strategies. This, of course, is the struggle of "becoming a generative people"...and all the more reason to engage in the question. Once again, I appreciate your post.
I echo Terry’s appreciation for your reflections and artwork. I enjoyed gelli plates and have a couple I’ve not used in more than a couple years; thanks for awakening and reminding me of that creative practice...
Cheers~
Gell seams to agree with you.
Or seems.
Thank you for sharing your re-direction and re-awakening process! Sometimes in the middle of "absense," it makes sense to focus on small things while being open to whatever happens. You do that! And you show us how to walk ourselves out of a valley of darkness into a new light.
Like Terry, I found myself thinking and feeling so much as I read through your topics this month. You've done a good job of summarizing dramatic changes going on around us and within us. I kind of kept count of my own practices these days as I read through each topic: yes, I do this. No, I don't do that. Yes, I see the relationships between the big issues and my daily practice. No, I don't know what to do next on that one.
The biggest issue that remained with me after a few weeks of meditating on your insights is negativity. Not yours. Mine. I find that I must spend so much of my precious time and energy on maintaining a peaceful, centered stance in the midst of all the negativity that swirls around the world these days. All of my self-care practices, learned over a lifetime of diligent practices, can't keep up with the negativity that comes from every direction. Everything from the latest tRump crazy idea about how to demean yet another group of people to the snapping parent in line in front of me at the grocery store can snap my calm. Anger is never far away. No amount of meditation or generative practice seems to help me ease through each day. I know that much of my anger comes from the politics of the US and the world. I have considered withdrawing from my activism because that is what sets me off in the deepest forms, but I can't bring myself to stop fighting for the democracy and "justice for all" that I thought we were living for.
So I am considering putting my anger in the middle of my creative practice, instead of fighting to keep it out. What do you think? Following your example, I have removed some things from my studio, and opened up new space to see what happens.
Like Honore, maybe I need to pull that gelli plate out again!
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