Photography Laura beck
One of the major lessons of 2018 - connections and community I will be doing a video and possibly transforming this post into a blog post at a later date, but I have a few thoughts that I would love to share with you guys. Community is not something you step into and it’s set; instead community seems to me to be a ripple with ourselves at the nexus. It echoes out from us, and is reflected back to us. It grows, and requires pruning, it needs sustenance, patience and time, as well as boundaries. It is ever expanding, and refuses to be limited or easily defined, and many of the problems we have with the notion of community come from our own perceptional bias as to what community is “meant” to look like. There is a problem when one thinks there’s a community rule book; generally speaking there is not, especially when the community has evolved organically and expanded quickly. In such circumstances, there will be rocky years where people come into conflict as their ideas do not mesh or they are unable to find common ground. For myself, community is something most easily glimpsed when people rally around something meaningful; perhaps one of their own is in trouble, perhaps there are situations which need to be pruned out and stood against. I have said before that, when I broke, a thousand unexpected hands were there to catch me, a situation I didn’t expect, but will be eternally grateful for and that has left me altered. People filled my broken heart when hope had fled from it; people listened, people stood by me, helped me to safety, opened the door wide and cheered for my triumphs. In this one sentence was uttered time and again; “you have given so much of yourself over the years, this is just a small thing I can do to give back to you.” I blinked at this idea each time it arose (and it arose hundreds of times, without exaggeration) because perhaps I hadn’t really considered that aspect of circumstance. I was honoured by that sentiment, people wanted me to know that they didn’t feel pity (something I never wanted) but they honoured all that I had poured out from heart space, and wanted to give something in return. It was a community that had been nurtured, grown, a collection of hearts and mind connected to my own. This is a lesson that will not go unheeded. May we continue to rise together, starlets. Much love, Joey