Red Thread Letter #883
The Power of Summoning Change
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Dear One,
Do you have these
moments in your life
when you wake up
and you know
something needs to change
even if you don’t know
what it is?
The power of summoning change
can begin in beauty or discontent
You just know something
has got to give, but what?
Your body is aching for it
Your heart is calling to it
Your mind is searching it out
But your words won’t
shape themselves around it
Around the thing
you cannot name
that needs to change,
there is mystery
You search everywhere
work, time, health, love
Then you go deeper
soul, story, craving, being
Then you go higher
Spirit, Cosmos, Destiny, Hope
Yes, it is all of it
and none of it
You want to howl
but you don’t want
to scare anybody
and if you start now
you might not stop
and you have to show up
today and so wailing
is not on the menu
But inside
there is a howling going on
and you know it
and I know it
Can you hear it hum,
without even making a sound?
I can
Maybe, like me,
you are searching
for a place with no name
Perhaps it is a feeling we seek?
A feeling of being on the right path
when we already know
there is no wrong path
A hope to feel truly supported
when we know we are supported
So why do we feel so desperate?
So often?
Is it because we know
something is truly amiss
and we continue to act
as it is going to be okay?
Will it? I don’t know.
We know it is not just us
Something has gone wrong
in the ways of the world
We fear we may never
have peace,
and that is enough
to initiate a deep longing for
something to change
For many of us
the state of the world
feels more personal
than it ever has before
Their pain is our pain
Something needs to change
You listen into the silence inside
You listen into the chaos outside
You listen into the songs all around
You drop your inquiry like it’s hot:
What needs to change?
How can I be a part of this change?
The great unrest of those
who choose to be aware
stirs the bones in the earth
Asking the question
is an acknowledgment of readiness
An awareness of a shift in the process
You are making yourself available
to what arises next
You have called to change
and change will answer
Maybe not today
Maybe not the way you want it to
Yet let us never underestimate
the power
of summoning change
~ Shiloh Sophia
Sarah, I wrote this for us. I listened into the spaces and typed each word. I don’t just hear my own voice, this isn’t just me – this is something else, a kind of quantum listening. Of how I feel and how I hear you feel and how many of us feel. I listen to the collective voice and have for many years, but lately, I haven’t wanted to. Today I listened in.
And if you are feeling awesome, share the cheer :) There are so many good changes happening. I feel all throughout the day I am celebrating and honoring goodness and then weeping with sorrow. What a paradox of both/and at this time. Any by something is wrong I do mean, food, earth, air, water, fire, gunfire, injustice, housing, inflation, extinction, business as usual capitalism, like that. Yet still, I must create. I must encourage creation.
I am writing from Musette Atelier before we open the shop for the day. I have just finished a 4-day retreat for Prisma students which was glorious and so good to be together after not being together for a few years. SO GOOD and yet bittersweet too when it was over. To just be together, to have a water blessing, to drink fresh-squeezed orange juice, to hug, to paint with natural pigments, to feast – to cry, to dance – all of it – so human and good.
Today I feel I am the color purple-blue and magenta. So sad and so happy all at once. Have you had this too?
I feel elated about what is happening at Harvard, counting that as a huge win in so many ways. I feel devastated about what is happening in my ancestral land of Ukraine. I feel elated about being an artist and sharing Intentional Creativity. I feel pressure that I have to keep performing to make ends meet in a good way.
Both/and is where I am – what about you? How are you experiencing these days? The vacillation between emotions and news and ideas?
What do you think of this wild painting? I love it – I wish you could see it up close – it is thick like frosting. Today I am sharing my recent painting which was a conscious pattern interrupt – an asking for a change in my work – something different – I think I achieved that lol!? I have always done a lot of abstract work but usually, it ends up with a face haha, or a bird. But I am leaving this one. At first, it said it had a name – Death of an Icon, but that is just so – I don’t even know. Almost an internal subconscious title that is about me and my work and how I have been working.
I decided to call it Emergence, and it is part of the show opening on May 1 at Musette Atelier in Sonoma. You can attend in person or virtually. All the details are here.
I know what has to change is my attitude – and usually, I am really good at that, but lately, I have just been letting myself feel just how I feel – without rushing myself to some better conclusion. For me, authentic change requests authentic emotion expressed and honored – and in my case, painted.
Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, I too am thinking of you. I am summoning change today.
with love,
