12 x 12 print of original watercolor by Gabrielle Louise

When you paint something, you fall in love with it. Or maybe, when you fall in love with something, you paint it. Today it was poppies. My favorite flower. You wait all year for their rich ruby glow, their paper thin transparent petals, their crooked furry stems. And they might only flower for two weeks, maybe a month at best! Google will even tell you, it’s a “painfully short blooming period.”) But that doesn’t save you from stopping dead in your tracks when you pass and feeling paralyzed by their arresting beauty. Oh, no… You just soak it up while you can, and then ready your patience. Because that’s how it is to love.

Print of an original watercolor by Gabrielle Louise

My relationship with the news is an arms length relationship at best. I don’t like to stay in the dark, however, I like to check it on my own terms, and I’ll often go days without.

On Wed, Feb 23rd I was in one of these stretches. But I was feeling heavy. Unexplainably heavy.

I tried to make sense of it by blaming all the usual culprits. I dressed the sorrow with my usual stories - the broken in blue jean grief of career anxiety and the sweatshirt insecurities of never feeling lovable. But that wasn’t quite it. So I tried on the threadbare coat of relationship anxiety, but my partner sweetly consoled me and asked me what I needed. Nothing was making sense. What was this feeling?!

The nearest I could get to it was a sense of powerlessness. Grief and powerlessness.

I put on a guided meditation. My chest felt so tense you could probably have bounced on it like a trampoline. My body felt like it had been hit by a train. At 9:45 I started sobbing uncontrollably. Unconsolably. I turned off the meditation and just let it move through me. It’s been some time since I’ve wailed like that, and it lasted for hours. If I had been in the house with me I would have kindly asked myself to leave. Sleep was intermittent.

In the morning something compelled me to check the news and there it was - my sorrow, suddenly named. Who knows if this was a coincidence, or if there is an energetic current that runs through humanity at all times.

I have no idea.

But my heart is with Ukraine these last four days non-stop. I did the only thing I know how to do with these feelings - tried to spin them into love and care with the currency of my attention. I meditated on peace while I created this. It's based on a photograph credited to Oleg Totskyi.

I’ve never been to Kyiv, so I googled images to get a sense for it. I was inspired by the beauty of St Andrew’s Church, perched above the city, struck by the sunlight.

I’ll be donating 50% of sales from this print to the Ukraine Crisis Relief fund.