Apologies with a Heavy Heart

I find myself needing to offer you my deepest apologies, for the hands that craft my wares move far more slowly as of late.

The world moves in ways that feel beyond my understanding, as though the very ground beneath us shifts with each passing moment. My hands now move slowly through the work I hold dear. The threads seem heavier, the hours longer, and though I cannot fully name what weighs upon my spirit, it’s palpable… a gentle stalling of the things that once flowed so freely. Yet I trust there is wisdom in this quiet… the deepest wells also must rest before they can give again. So, I move gently with what calls to me.

My heart breaks for the suffering I witness in this world. All wars are born of greed and the hunger for power... suffered by the innocent whose only crime was to be born in the wrong place. I see the children, the mothers, the fathers… the lives torn apart by something so senseless, so rooted in the desire of men to control what was never theirs to hold. And the land itself weeps and screams upon deafened ears… soil poisoned, habitats devastated, the very breath of the earth suffocated by black rain falling from burning refineries. The creatures who cannot speak for themselves suffer alongside the people, and ancient places are scarred beyond knowing. The cruelty of it overwhelms me, and I wonder how we have wandered so far from any sense of compassion or wisdom. Yet still I must tend to what is within my reach, and pour what love I can into the world.

In this darkness, I hold on to the connection…to you, to the land, to all those who refuse to look away. We must stay vigilant, keep our eyes open and our hearts awake. It’s within this witnessing that we honor what’s broken. And while the path forward feels uncertain, I choose to press on with the hope that we might yet bend toward a better world.

"Horror of War," Oil on Canvas, Peter Paul Rubens,1638-39