It's been a while since I've walked slowly through a museum.  I plan to make time for that again very soon.  This weekend doesn't look promising.  The thing I love about art is the way it makes you feel.  Just yesterday I went to see Lysistrata Unbound at the Odyssey.  There's still time if you're interested.  It was a story I had read in a literature class with Dr. Calabrese at Cal State LA.  He was so moved by the story and I loved his passion but to see it was something entirely different. Brenda Strong as Lysistrata was powerful.  I was so lost in the performance that there were lines she spoke directly to me while my tearful face mirrored the grief she portrayed.  In her loss, I saw my pain over losing my twins last year.  Mother to mother, that ache was fresh and painful and I allowed myself to feel her grief and mourn with her.  

I was invited by my friend and angel Laura Emanuel, as Calonice.  I loved seeing her as such a powerful woman.  Typically, she's soft spoken and graceful but in this role she embodied her natural poise with so much dominance and authority.  It was something I've always known was within her, but have never seen it.  It was such a gift to feel so many things. I was so moved.  

The night before I had gone to a friend's art show.  Calvin Coloma is a well known photographer, who was doing work as a fashion photographer before he shifted his focus. As we talked about his work, he showed me the ways his perspective shifted into different areas.  His show was full of pictures taken on his trip to Iceland.  I had never thought much about exploring Iceland, but since seeing his show, it's now on my list of places I would love to visit.  

In his show, he explained to me the difference between storytelling and documentary photography.  He told me about planning his trip and exploring the landscape.  He showed me the pictures he had taken in chronological order.  The volcanic activity powered the geothermal baths throughout the region.  Ice crusted rocks were all around.  It was beautiful. 

The 16th photograph in the series is what moved me the most. It's a photograph of a geyser that was simmering before an eruption.  You can see the ripples on the water, just below a boil.  You can see the darkness of the water where the well dips deep into the earth.  It looks calm and peaceful.  The water looks so blue and inviting that it's hard to imagine the water boiling the flesh right off of you.  

It reminded me of so much in life.  It was the grief that simmers before being released.  It's the fracturing facade of normality we offer the world, just before the landscape shifts with our explosion.  It's the scalding vitriol of what is within, preparing to scald the world without.  It's pain and loss and as destructive as it is, it's also eerily beautiful.  The longing to experience the pain is powerful, even if we know it's all wrong for us.  

Art allows us to process things we rarely give voice to.  It draws out emotions we are often too carefully shielding from the world to express or release. It's a performance that echoes what you remember.  It's a song that winds melodies around our hearts, stealing any superficial healing. It's a painting that arrests your senses and calls on a memory that faded with the sun after a fitful night of ephemeral visions. It's the winding of metals around precious stones to adorn the bodies of those we love.  It's the careful placement of stones and the manipulation of water and flora that invites fauna in a garden.  

Art is a heritage and a rite of existence.  It's a gift that puts us in touch with the sublime while we reach for divinity.  It's what keeps us breathing while we simmer with knowing and passions greater than our wonder.