Category: 2020

Art is.

Erika Ginnis

Art is terrifying. Words are easier, although still scary sometimes. Poems more so than prose. Yet both of them still come out more fully formed, and so come equipped with a thicker skin, or I do when I make them. My intellect stands guard in some way, gives me a little distance. Just enough to breath.

Art, visual especially, and music as well as I think about this, are different for me; maybe different forms are different for each person. The cliche’ of putting your soul out there unprotected for other people to view and judge, is very real. It’s why, I now realize, that I haven’t been doing as much of it or sharing anything I had done, until very recently.

This started to change when I had to confront my own mortality this year. When I had to make decisions about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Questions I never thought the whole world would be asking itself a month or two later.

When I was growing up I was always a visual artist, I embraced it, was confident in what I did to some degree. It was part of my identity. I was less secure in music at the time, and spent more years refining those skills in college and after.

When I got older I still did visual art but it was more to accompany my other projects. I did things that didn’t focus on the art, I used it to frame and hold my other works. I’d add it to my book here and there or put it on a webpage in a graphic or an ad, on a video; use it as part of a class, always as an addendum to another project. I think I felt that unless I had the medium I was used to, I couldn’t really do it. So I’d doodle or add a flourish here and there, or I’d save it to a file somewhere. Now I know why.

Doing my art as it’s own end, it’s own creation, is terrifying. Well perhaps not the doing of it, but the showing of it, feels like being vulnerable in a way I have spent a lifetime avoiding. It’s like there is no separation, it’s not intellectual, it’s not teaching or explaining something, it’s not being “useful” in a “must go to work” societal way, it’s this raw expression, just a part of me that exists for no other reason than to exist. By showing it, even in a casual way, invites the possibility that no one will like it at all. Or that they will.

It’s about being seen somehow. I’ve always known this to be true on some level, but it was visceral today. When someone said they liked something, it was so surprising, and so joyous, I felt like tinker-bell coming back to life when someone clapped.

I can’t make art for approval it’s not why I do it, I do art because I love to do it and because, as I’ve learned, I have to do it to survive, like breathing. Even so, at the same time it’s amazing how vulnerable it makes me feel to share it, wondering if anyone will see me, confirm in some way that I’m real, even if, or especially if, I’m not trying to please them. Yep Art is freaking terrifying.

And that’s OK.

Erika Ginnis

April 3, 2020

Tree of Life Meditation by Erika Ginnis. Recorded at Center for Spiritual Living East Hawaii March 22, 2020

Erika Ginnis

Aloha All,

Hope you are safe and well and surfing the energy of the great waves of change.

Here is a short 6 minute Tree of Life meditation from a couple weeks ago, to help during these challenging times of incredible expansion even in the midst of our personal isolation.

Thank you Adam Lightplay​ for recording this and sending it to me, and for upgrading the sound from that Sunday.

Blessings and Aloha,
Erika

Guided Meditation for Soothing and Releasing Stress

Erika Ginnis

Aloha… With all that is happening in the world, it seemed like a good idea to create this 18 minute guided meditation. It gently leads you through techniques to help your body feel safe and release stress and increase well-being as you experience life. It increases spiritual and energetic awareness; helps to keep you in balance.(most likely will be cross-posted)
(previously only available on the CD Essential Mysteries Meditations)

Meditation and Music
written and performed by
Erika Ginnis

Paradigm shift through viral solitude. March 2020

Erika Ginnis

So it occurred to me this evening that along with the healing that is happening on planet Earth with so many humans taking a virus imposed “time out”. That there is another potential gift from all of this.

Backstory is that I had a powerful experience recently. Since the end of December due to some health challenges and surgeries that kept me at home, off work, and essentially self isolating as a result, I found myself outside of the “rat race” and fully experienced for the first time in years that even if that race was for a good cause it was still not my race to run. Getting a rest from it all reset my energy entirely.

The experience changed me on a fundamental level and through that it became very clear to me what I needed to do; meaning leave the job I had been saying I’d leave for the last two years, and go back and give energy to what I truly love. The experience also gave me enough of my own energy back to be able to finally act on that information and give notice, even though it included doing it in the continued face of uncertainty.

Having said all that it occurred to me that there is a possibility that some (many?) of the people who are having to stay at home for an extended period of time may also be gifted with distance from some particular way of existing, perhaps be redirected to art & music & games & writing & reading & spirituality, or whatever else might truly call to them.

In so doing it’s possible an entire section of the population could choose differently when the time comes to leave their homes and re-enter the outside world. That choice could change the face of society in a positive way.

Could be a good thing in the long run.

-Erika

Gaming in real time. Life in March 2020 in the age of corona.

Erika Ginnis

I find myself thinking of this lately, as life just keeps escalating. Not sure who can relate to what I’m thinking, but here goes. (You know me I’m the Analogy Queen ).

You know when you’re playing a game, more specifically a video game or some variant… and you’re getting ready to change to the next level? What happens?

Right!

Things get progressively harder and more intense and then … You run into what is known as the “boss”, the big bad gatekeeper of the end of that level. It’s the way these games work. You have to find a way to battle or subdue or in some way defeat or get past the boss in order to make it out of that level into the next higher one.

I have often had to save and retry a bunch of times to get past some particular nasty “big bads”. I’ve gone online to find out how other people have succeeded. I’ve looked for different ways to approach or timing to use, or find out where it’s vulnerable. I eventually find a way through even if it seems like I never will, even if it feels like this level is wayyy too hard and there’s no way through.

The way is built into the game. It’s there somewhere.

Anyway, through the battle(s) the experience points gained help you to increase your character’s abilities, level up and sometimes allow you to have new spells and helpers (what you get depends on the kind of character you are playing of course).

Remember what the other thing is that happens? Yes! Once you defeat the boss, what’s left behind are coins and armor and trinkets and magical items. Often beyond the level of your character, but that will give you advantages and even more fun, as you move on into the next levels of the game.

You can always tell you are at the end of one level and the threshold of the next level by the appearance of a big bad scary powerful something…dragon, massive spider, Orc king, Sorcerer, Virus.

Remember…Next level, on the other side, just saying.

Don’t give up.

Aloha and blessings,

Erika