As we enter this new year with many unknowns still unanswered, I am looking for the positive because I know what I ponder is what gets magnified. Wanting to magnify the good, I am counting my blessings with renewed zeal. I have so, so many blessings to count—life, love, family and friends and the community of artCentral!
While counting blessings I am taking a break from any mainstream news sources. Instead of listening to or watching conventional media, I have been tuning to selected YouTube podcasts for intellectual stimulation and inspiration. My favorite go-to resource is the broad spectrum of interviews conducted by Rich Roll, corporate lawyer-turned ultra-athlete-turned podcast host.
Looking for a positive input for creating community in 2022, I was happy to find Rich’s interview, aired October 28, 2021, with his wife, Julie Piatt—New York Times bestselling author, spiritual teacher, accomplished yogi, musician, chef and mother of their four children—sharing her wisdom on celebrating humanity, and cultivating and sustaining relationships in all their forms.
What follows are thoughts considered and ideas floated between Rich and Julie in the Rich Roll Podcast 637.
Julie Piatt: “Humans are amazing! There is so much beauty in humanity.”
Rich Roll: “Wealth is the company you keep.”
My husband David and I talk about these ideas and often reference a quote that resonates with them. “Your vibe attracts your tribe”, meaning the energy you put out in the world is directly reflected by the energies you attract and those you are open to receiving.
David and I live to put out a beautiful, positive vibe as we serve our world through the making of our art and through our work at artCentral. We live to attract artCentral’s community of members, our tribe with shared interests and energies that provide positive, encouraging support for each other. Our wealth is the company we keep!
Among our treasured gems of an artist friend is Andrew Batcheller. Serving as the president of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition, Andrew, along with JRAC’s vice president Emily Rose, is working closely with us to stage artCentral’s debut 2022 exhibition, VERDANT, opening February 4. For the exhibition’s door prize—to raise funds for the work of artCentral and JRAC—Andrew is donating a giclée of his beautiful oil painting. (“Tolerance”, valued at $250.00, can be yours to take home for a donation of just $5.00!). Andrew’s “Tolerance” is an exquisite demonstration of his generosity and his consistent belief in finding and celebrating beauty in the midst of our greatest challenges. Andrew is amazing!
“Humans are amazing!” we hear Julie Piatt echo to Rich Roll’s “Wealth is the company you keep.” She declares, “They are all so individual and unique and resilient and creative and empathic and loving and feeling. We often hear narratives that are highlighting all the horrible things that are going on in our world. As we know, we are powerful creators and where we put our attention is what expands. And so I feel that through this (pandemic) timeout that we’ve all [experienced] in these last couple of years, we’ve come to appreciate…[that]….there is wisdom and power and intelligence in highlighting the beauty of humanity, because there is a lot more beauty than what is considered.”
Amen!
