'The times are urgent; let us slow down...Let us make sanctuary'

Dr Bayo Akomolafe

A sanctuary is a sacred place, where we might find refuge, a space to 'be' & be offered care. For thousands of years, sanctuaries have offered protection to fugitives, those who have escaped from captivity, where slowing down and healing can happen. This is not simply resting so that we can continue forward in the same direction, but engaging in deep inquiry about where we are going.

In bringing myself together for this opening, it has become clear that 'Creating Sanctuary' is becoming both my work with clients, as well as my practice & the title of this latest collection of art, created over the last 6 years. All of us, no matter where we come from, our job title, how much money we have, who we are with - will eventually experience change/loss. As an Occupational Therapist, with postgraduate training in Integral Wholeness, I have been working alongside individuals, families & organisations for over 35 years, searching for best ways of being with others through these times, while also honourably dealing with my own life transitions.

Obviously through the recent personal loss of both parents, but also through the state of affairs in the world (escalating disease states, climate change, political unrest, unstable economies, effects of colonialism) things often don't make sense; there is deep inequality, progress is not always a given & there are obvious tangles.

I am coming to truly know & trust that this place of 'discomfort' is the next place of growth; that we 'fall down' to 'break through' the cycles of familiarity. Our personal grief in an invitation to join with collective grief & become like a 'murmuration' (don't you just love that word?) of bodies - not private at all, but ethical, social, ecological activism.

I have deeply and humbly felt the chest pangs of grief, the headaches of a scattered mind, the churning gut of anxiety, the heaviness of trying to control too many things. These feelings are all too real & signposts if we only have the sense to listen to our body, to listen to our Earth. To be honest & admit things are not all stable and clear, coherent & free. Our Earth too is crying out, is my sense, with pangs, churnings & heaviness. And perhaps we don't yet have the answers. And can that be ok? 

My art-working is my way to consciously wonder, to replenish myself & to contemplate ways through. The default (in the business of 21st century living) will otherwise be to fill myself up with dry and useless things that leave me thirsting for more. My art-working is an invitation to slow down. We are all tired/exhausted and don't know which way to go. But what might we discover? What resources have we not even tried?