Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I often feel most alive in the transitional days of October, November and early December. This year it has been particularly poignant to appreciate the season’s beauty during weeks consumed by the darkness of horrific terror and the brutality of retaliatory war halfway around the world in Israel/ Palestine. Amidst the roiling complexities, the deep sense of vulnerability, and the wrenching awareness of unimaginable suffering that have gripped my heart and mind as a Jewish woman since October 7, I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to focus on my art.

The mixed-media work below, “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, started out as a meditation on bicycle wheels and became a ruptured mandala–an expression of longing for the cycle of violence to end, and a prayer evoking the spirit of the Shechinah, the Divine Feminine, as a source of wisdom and healing. I dedicate it to the memory of Vivian Silver, a remarkable peacemaker in her seventies who was murdered by Hamas in the kibbutz Be’eri massacre of October 7.  A founder of Women Wage Peace, Vivian emigrated from Canada to Israel in 1974 in order to dedicate her life to working for a two-state solution and an equitable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. You can read more about her life and indomitable spirit here.    

I thought of Vivian Silver when I recently revisited an inspiring TED Talk , entitled “How to Find Joy in Climate Action.” Vivian clearly brought joy to her work to bring peace to the Middle East—an intractable, big-picture problem that could easily leave us hopeless.  In a similar spirit, marine biologist and climate justice leader Ayana Elizabeth Johnson urges us to tap into our joy when confronting the climate crisis. As she notes, showing up with joy in no way negates the seriousness or the practical dimensions of the task before us:

This is about transformation, and the stakes for humanity are greater than my heart and mind can fully fathom. So I find the best way to cope with this is to…pivot quickly to solutions.

Like building peace amidst ongoing cycles of war, addressing the threat of climate change in the face of deepening impacts and the power of the fossil fuel industry is a gargantuan challenge.  But a big overarching challenge also means that there are many ways to make a difference, many roles to play. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson makes use of a big Venn diagram to explore that territory, while bringing important issues of equity into the mix.  If you’re wondering where you fit into the big picture—or just need your enthusiasm refreshed—it’s worth taking a look.

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Art notes.  To see more of the kind of art you that moves you on Big Planet Love, you can follow Elena Stone Arts on Instagram. I look forward to seeing you there.

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