if you know me, you know I can get lost for hours in a conversation, in uncovering layers of a topic with someone. i love discourse, dialogue. i love reading something theory-heavy and unpacking it out loud with someone else who’s parsing through the same ideas. i think these things are so important. i also know they only take me so far.
we talk a lot about praxis in theory-circles: the intersection of practice and theory, putting theory into practice. sometimes though, i think it is easy to get lost in the fresh-new-exciting feeling of KNOWING! of thinking we have ‘it’ figured out! because we have done our reading, our thinking, and are eager to lean into praxis for this new-to-us idea that clicks into our worldview really nicely. we, maybe, miss the part where we have to practice the doing, develop the skills it takes. because these are skills, not just things that ‘happen’ simply because we’ve tuned into the ideas.
i like this perspective on practice as it gives us permission to be imperfect, to try, to try differently if it doesn’t go quite the way you envisioned!
it also reminds us to cultivate the awareness that, your skills might not yet be fine tuned, and to never assume they ever are - and that’s ok! everything is always changing, and we have to adjust and refresh our ‘skills’ as they do! we can give ourselves and others grace as we figure things out.
all this to say that: many of us haven’t been taught how to be in community, how to care, how to listen. or, we learned ways of doing these things that no longer serve us (or never did). these skills are not only not-fostered in our western neoliberal cultures, but STIFLED!
even if you know these are things you want to do, things that are good to do, things you crave for yourself and others, maybe it takes some practicing to get to where you want to be with them, and that’s all part of the practice baby *~
part of how i personally practice being in community, is through the arts! through making art together! it is one of the things i love the most most most about running workshops.
see below for an online workshop as well as an in-person workshop coming this month!
Join us for a gently-guided online collage workshop on April 14th: Everything is a Portal! It is a PWYC workshop with a suggested range $10-30CAD . Sign up here!
I am ALSO hosting an in-person collage workshop on Tuesday, April 23rd and would love to see you there! The space is located in Midtown, Toronto & is wheelchair accessible.
ps. this is a masks-mandatory event, as we are actively practicing covid-safety & community care ‘round these parts!
as always, I would love to hear your reflections on these ideas (I really do love dialogue!!) and I wonder if you’d share with me: what skills have you been practicing recently? what skill could you be practicing more?
hugs,