On Joy at the Edges

Edges #16” 12”x12” Oil on canvas September 2021

Despair is a difficult position. Besides an untenable accommodation to misery, it requires considering what we hope for: an end to: war? Saving beautiful species? Saving ourselves? A next date or a meal? How much can we grieve the mistakes of the Industrial revolution paradigm or the ubiquitous patriarchal system or routine, casual cruelties? As much as we grieve our environmental crises and parallel injustice, we must also apply ourselves to repair, to accountability (for example over ecocide ), to conservation (even as we see hope reduced to mere wisps) and simple observation. Is it truly such an existential struggle? Sisyphus with the rocks (no accident that I call this blog, “Pushing Rocks”)? The Dalai Lama reminds us of the power of the small, ‘even a mosquito can have an effect’. Arguably, despair presumes a large scope and scale of agency. It assumes the power of an out-size ego and a willful ignorance of how nature adapts to crisis. In nature, adaptation occurs in the liminal interstices between systems: the ecotones, generally in very small increments of accommodation. If the system fails to sustain equilibrium, as is our case now, collateral damage is inevitable. So while I am actively doing everything I can think it is in my power to do towards repair and conservation, I also meditate on activity at the edges, for example the incrementally rising sea beyond my studio windows. And as I do so, I can’t help but be swept away by joy in the dispassionate beauty of every detail of nature’s work, even as I struggle to embrace humility and limitation.