Art

These pictures were taken in Ucluelet/Tofino BC. I was two and a half years into a wild and exhausting trauma vortex, and my initiation into grief. The beauty helped shift me from a feeling of helplessness to powerlessness. I could feel my life force again. I began to feel a sense of agency amidst the uncontrollable, and felt joy again for the first time in years. The joy came from the relationship I was having with the natural world and all it was reflecting back to me. The beauty was healing, yet I could feel my heartbreak in it. I was surrounded by resiliency and fragility; by the harsh and the miraculous. I could feel parts of me dying in the decomposing and dead, and new parts emerging in the newly sprouting. The entire experience was a reminder of the power of presence in the face of the unknown. The music is called “The Ocean” and it’s by Linnea Olsson. It’s so much more sombre than what this trip was, but that experience sits in a time that has been filled with sorrow. The music speaks to how I’ve felt over the last 5 years. I love the juxtaposition of the two – sorrow and joy – and all the life they hold between them. At one part you can hear whale songs. I’ve heard whale songs called songs of the soul and that’s what this feels like.