Celebrating Earth Month With Art

I’ve been struggling to find the words to share what these watercolor paintings mean to me.

Mostly because these simple works of art represent my relationship with the land and her gifts to us.

And that’s a really hard relationship to explain within the confines of a blog post. But, then I remembered, I’ve already read the words I need and they were not written by me.

Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote a book called “Braiding Sweetgrass”. It is one I return to often.

In it she tells her ancestors’ story of how the world began with Skywoman who

“came here with … the slimmest of instructions to

use your gifts and dreams for good.

As we consider these instructions, it is also good to recall that, when Skywoman arrived here, she did not come alone.

She was pregnant.

Knowing her grandchildren would inherit the world she left behind, she did not work for flourishing in her time only.

It was through her actions of reciprocity, the give and take with the land, that the original immigrant became Indigenous.

For all of us, becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

These words represent how I feel, how I walk through life, how I filter most of my decisions, and exactly what inspired these paintings.

Every action I take at this point in my life is working towards the legacy I will leave my children, their children, and the world at large.

I (we) must care for this land as if our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren, depend on it.

They do.

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