Sea Otter--Day 15
Sea otters float together in communities we call rafts. Holding hands, wrapped in swaths of kelp, they maintain connection amidst the ever-changing waters of the sea.
I yearn for that kind of circle of care.
These otters must tend to themselves constantly, hunting and consuming up to a quarter of their body weight each day, grooming their fur with great devotion to keep it waterproof and warm. In tending to themselves, they tend to the integrity of the raft. In tending to the raft, they tend themselves.
Committing to a daily art practice can be hard, especially when I had grown so certain that my place in life was to be available for others, To be helpful. Responsive. Accommodating. Because I have never made a great deal of money, I slipped easily into the belief that my time was somehow less valuable than other people’s time. And I am, by nature, a very good assistant.
During this project, I held a few part-time roles, writing, research, some coaching, and while I was busy, I also had more flexibility than many people working full time. I justified my late nights writing, my early mornings painting, my less-than-stellar meals, and my increasingly untidy house by reminding those around me that this was temporary. Just one hundred days. Just a little over three months.
But something in me had shifted. If you decide to gift yourself a practice like this, you don’t have to do it the way I did. I have lived many years of working on my art in what we call stolen moments. This time, I chose not to steal.
Going public with the project was part of that choice. I wanted to live as though the thing I am called to do is worthy of space, worthy of asking for support, worthy of rearranging a life around it, worthy even of a bit of disorder.
I have known for a long time that I carry important work. It has not always been easy to name or explain, and so I tucked it away, promising myself I would return to it later. Now, at this point in my life, I find myself surrounded by people who see me more clearly, friends and a partner who recognize something essential in what I am doing, and who are hungry for it.
My work lives at the intersection of ecology and spirituality. It swims in the waters of deep imagination, nourished by biology and myth, and reaches back to sit at the fires of the ancestors. To do this work, I needed to tend to myself as the otters do, throughout the day, again and again. I needed nourishment. I needed care. I needed the steady, repetitive acts that keep one warm and buoyant enough to dive deep into the imaginal and the unconscious and the fields of knowledge reached only through intuition and dreams and belief.
And I needed raftmates.
These daily paintings became a way of tending myself, small, consistent immersions into the imaginal field. When I learned how many hours a day sea otters spend grooming their fur, just to remain afloat, I recognized something essential. What, I wondered, might it take for me to stay buoyant in the cold and shifting waters of modern life?
Sharing the work each day became a way of tending the raft. Not just maintaining connection, but strengthening it…thread by thread, image by image. And the raft itself widened.
It is not made only of human hands that resemble my own. It is made of animals, plants, fungi, insects, places, and presences of spirit. It is made of attention. Of relationship. Of care.
At times, messages from friends would arrive. Small notes of encouragement, recognition, gratitude. They felt like gentle hands, tending the fur, helping me stay afloat.
And I hope, in my own small way, that these offerings have done something similar for you. That they have wrapped a bit of spiritual kelp around those of you who read them and sit inside this raft of care. That they have added a measure of wonder, and perhaps a little buoyancy, to our shared and ever-shifting sea.
Who holds you steady in the shifting waters?
And whose hand might you hold in return?
For the next while, I will be sharing these paintings and devotional reflections here on Fridays. Taken together, they form a quiet record of one hundred days spent listening closely to the living world.
These are offerings made with attention, curiosity, devotion, grief, and gratitude. You are welcome to wander through them in order, or to simply pause with whichever being happens to greet you.
These devotional encounters are part of an ongoing series for a book I am drafting in public.