The above reminded of a time when I was an active writer, artist (using drawing, woodcarving, painting… I’m hesitant to place musician outside of these parentheses; for that part of my soul being expressed with the use of instruments incl. my own vocals, is in union with those that allowed the other modes of expression listed), I remember feeling that I knew that I was doing exactly what I existed to do. The same holds true for other activities that I was fully engaged in at the time. This included:
Working as a student, While also as a teacher with students and classes for those in pre-K through grad. school. I also served as a counselor, creator and facilitator of educational support groups.
It was a very active era for me with Love pumping me up and driving me to do and to be what seemed so clearly needed at the time. All of this just listed fired up my spirit with what seemed an unquenchable yearning for learning, assimilating what I learned, and using it immediately. It seemed to charge me up with energies that required further expression as through the 1st mentioned artistic endeavors which I allowed my soul to express, as to be, at that time.

I had a lot going on… As a writer and counselor, educator; as one involved in communiy service and development projects, etc., I was urged to publish books, and on some very divergent subjects. I was given contact with my would’ve been/could’ve been Editor at a large publishing firm in NYC.

That scared me! It seemed that I should have been filled with delight at the chance to share my work with large potions of the public in gen., as well as to more academic and career specific groups. So, I can relate to that peculiar uncertainty about having so much to give yet holding back not entirely sure why…

But, this is about aligning or finding the cohesiveness and one thread that holds all of our seemingly different means of soul expressions out from within and beyond ourselves as we channel certain forms of creativity. For myself, and here I’ll throw in my work with horses, dogs and other animals as something else I was gifted with at that time, what I felt held it all together (from teaching college students botony, astonomy, psychology, communication, to the how-to’s of educating classes of children or adults as individuals rather than as cookie-cutter classmates who would/could/ should learn in the same ways, at t he same rates, via the same “lesson plans;”
from singing solo or with a band, to working with horses, to allowing my soul to be fed by the beauty of the nature that surrounded me when outside gardening, fixing the roof, a car, or just being…that one force which made all of it tangibly connected in my heart was Love.

It was Love so powerful that while engaging in these activities which all felt and appeared very much connected and related to me, that they helped me to feel almost untouchable by the evils some of which were then current parts of my day to day life in the forms of abusive people at my then “home base, external”/where I went when not out working, with the primary intent being to sleep there, surviving a whole lot of hell as part of the exorbitant rent I paid. Yet these people were my family members who I felt obligated to be there for and with. That love, so irrepressible then, was also expressed via humor as a means of easing some of the tensions in my life.

As for expressing the enormous power of Love I felt within, it also seemed to render me almost unharmed by my internal(ized) demons, incl. the aftermath of War, which I had no intentions of speaking of, ever… That Love was what drove me to my then current Destiny in expressing myself artistically. Thinking of it now, I’m inclined to believe that all work is art, most noticeably so when it is consciously linked within to the expression of Love.

I would actually sing on the job where I was counseling or educating/teaching and learning. I’d usually hear music while I was writing, music that came from within. Those are examples of where some seemingly different fields of work were always interconnected in my mind, as I believe to be true aside from my own personal perspectives.

Having equated Love with the concept of infinity, of all being in and of all, eternally,
from among my earliest memories, it was easy for me to sense that as the ‘one umbrella’ under which all of my artistic expressions belonged. It was not usually important to me for anyone else to understand this, except when trying to convey it as that which I experienced as Truth via my work, my art, and the conversations to debates I might have with colleagues…

In reading the Blog, my sense is that the same umbrella would amply cover every portion of your work, in every form, informal to more formal, they are all forms which seem undeniably driven by Love. To many people that may not seem a comfortable or “acceptable” term to describe such important externally tangible expressions of self. For such, I would hope that they would allow themselves more conscious attachment to what matters most in life; that Love, existing as the true “thing” craved, and most sought after, beneath as behind the facades of more measurable sources of what appear to be forces and sources of “power, wealth, success,” and keys to happiness, true freedom, and the means through which to seek a sense of self as worthy and capable of receiving As Well as giving love honestly and honorably.

It seems to me that you have your answers, perhaps not always consciously; and, perhaps at times caught up with the interpretations of others regarding your work. For, you began above by speaking of that need to consciously connect with the stillness within (& beyond?) you. That, to me, sounds like making time to allow your awareness of the Love which drives you in a variety of ways to nourish your soul and self wordlessly yet powerfully to do the many forms of work granted you.

Just a thought.