“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

It’s not a new thing for me — Every year, I faithfully write a list of New Year’s Resolutions, and every year seeking balance is somewhere on that list.

But this year, Seeking Balance is My Number 1 New Year’s Resolution. That’s because I have spent almost half of this past year doing nothing more than finding, remodeling, and opening my arts studio.

In opening my studio, I have finally reached one of my life’s goals, but getting there required every bit of energy I had and more. The other dream of a balanced life flew out the door.

Especially for me, life should be a mixture of several types of activities–some of them not at all glorious–like cleaning my house. I hate to clean, but if I neglect that task, my entire life falls into disarray.

“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.”
― Libba Bray

“Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that’s the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale’s sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat’s flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole.

But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“To light a candle is to cast a shadow…”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

But most of my life is in search of the light: I am a painter, a writer, a textile artist, and an avid gardener. Having spent half a year restricted to one pursuit–none of them making any kind of art–was limiting. There was no time to reflect–no peering into the darkness and pulling out the magic. There was no dancing about and weaving one aspect of my being into another.

. For months, All I did was clean, move, remodel, and clean some more. The gypsy within me was not allowed out to play:

Gypsy Rose Lee – Jacki Kellum Illustration

“She was a gypsy, as soon as you unravelled the many layers to her wild spirit she was on her next quest to discover her magic. She was relentless like that, the woman didn’t need no body but an open road, a pen and a couple of sunsets.”
― Nikki Rowe

The relentless drudge toward opening my studio evolved into a frenzy of hostessing holiday events.

My final event at the studio happened on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, I threw on the studio’s brakes and began a period of catch-up in  my garden.

Working in my garden has never felt better than it felt the past few days. The weather has been cold and biting, but my spirit needed to switch gears, The brisk chill awakened me, and I began to feel alive again. I am tempted to bury myself in garden soil, but only working in my garden isn’t balance either. For me, Balance is a weaving together of all that is within  me.

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life – that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Water suddenly remembered their prior visit and questioned, “What was I saying when you left so abruptly? Oh yes, I was telling you that I was alive and sentient. I was going to explain to you that everything is alive. Everything is connected: you, me, the trees, the plants, the soil, and the rocks. Everything! Do you know how much of you is made up of me?”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton