For once, the atmosphere is just right. Cozy on the couch with a cat pinning me down, computer well lit. Have some smooth blues playing from a YouTube compilation in the back. And finally, I’m just tired enough to pull on that gentle thread of flow state. A moment of peace I’m grateful to slip between the cracks of a busy week.

Yet what a drag this week has been. That storm was quite a doozy. It seems to be a week where I’m stuck creating in one output method. So you can’t hear me sing through the screen… yet. Still, it was a week of digging myself out from snow and other accumulating tasks.

Even reading has been a slog. Recently I reread a book from my old favorite series, Redwall. The story of Lord Brocktree is rich and riveting. Yet reading felt too precious, like I didn’t deserve it. Why should I bother with reading with things to do, other things to worry about?

Honestly, it just feels like “earning the right” to relax has become a problem. You know what that reread showed me? That sometimes in the darkest of times, when we are busiest, frustrated, hungry and world-weary are the exact times we need art most. Those hares would not march to and from Salmanstradon without their march songs and artisanal souffles. The shrews were too proud of their wrestling matches, moles of their claws and dances.

There is an entire scene where a literal army, though an odd hodgepodge of squirrels, moles, hares, shrews and otters engage in a ground rattling dance party before a long stretch of battles. And I do mean thunderous. Legs kicking here and there, mad spirals, jigs and flying tails. Estaticism in motion!

Which has been the point of art, the entire time, my friends. All art is meant to be a break, a moment to regain our humanity when it feels so depleted. It connects us back together, weaving webs of memory through decades old books, learned dance moves from family, from songs from generations past.

Art is what connects us back into the Source. Don’t let the mechanations and manipulations of others steal that pivotal peace of your humanity. Take the time to disconnect from the mad matrix of networks and remember where you stored that seed of joy.

I know I need to return to page and pick up where I left off. Pretty sure I left a seed of a draft behind again, but my thoughts will catch up soon.

Take care.