Greet Me With An Open Palm
29.09.2024 Daniel Stevenson
Essence stirring within, something wanting to surface without having the legs to carry it. Sometimes it feels that way with our mouths too, doesn’t it?
When you’re standing in a crowded room, wanting the flow of conversation to extend its hand to you. For you to take it and allow the words to flow smoothly and gently out of you, with ease. Yet it’s not always so easy is it? Not for all of us anyway. Connection in a crowded room can sometimes feel so distant. Connection with someone right in front of us, person to person, can feel so blocked by this weight on your chest that you feel shouldn’t be yours to bear. Maybe you, like I, find yourself wishing to shrug it off and lighten the load. To take a breath. To lean back into the soft clarity that connection can bring.
When I walk down to the water's edge, shrugging off the notions and ideals of this fissured society we live in, I feel connected. Connected with myself and perhaps the true essence of it all. Simply being, for everything simply “is” without right or wrong. Yet this brings me no greater ability to walk and talk with the everyday person. I can still feel sheepish and lackluster in my offering to social gatherings; often using humour as my mask.
But I’d like this to be about you. I wonder if you’re wanting to connect, but feel shut off or shut down by the speed and frivolity of this modern world, not knowing where to begin. I wonder what it is you dread more than anything in the world, and whether or not it's reasonable. Is it forces out of your control? A self-induced anxiety that no part of you deserves?
This is an opportunity for us to lay it all out, together, to connect in a space where that is the sole intent. Here within a warmth of familiar discomfort I hope we can all hold what we need, to talk about real things, to discuss what’s on our minds. To converse about who we really are and take some time amongst the madness to remember the simplicity and wonder of allowing ourselves to simply be, held in the comfort of knowing your compatriots are here for the same reason.
Myself and Ellie of WOI Journal have taken the portraits of some wonderful volunteers who were willing to open themselves up in front of the camera and share a notion of their inner workings, all were presented with the prompt (taken from WOI Journal): “how do you stay connected in a world of disconnect?”.
These portraits and responses will be showcased on Thursday the seventeenth of October, illuminating the pathway of conversation for those of you who wish to join.
Tickets are available at www.woijournal.com. $20 will get you food, refreshments, and curated music to soothe ears. Blanc Studio in the Byron industrial estate, five to nine pm. I look forward to seeing you there.