State of Emergency

During this #coronatime moment in history, I go on daily essential mental health walks. Recently I’ve started pairing them with art making — drawing and writing as I walk. I think of this activity as a window of time where I can honour a “state of emergency”. Where I open up to thoughts, observations, and whatever happens in and around me. A kind of active meditation. A a game. An experiment. A conversation with life. I never know what will happen.

I like what Rebecca Solnit writes, that the word “emergency” comes from “emergence” or “emerge”, as if you were ejected from the familiar and urgently need to reorient. Emerge comes from the Latin root emergere meaning “bring to light”.