What makes you come alive?

Last May I did my first ever Artist in Residency and did a presentation on Science, Art, Culture and Mindfulness:

Science, Art, Culture, and Mindfulness…to me, they are all deeply interwoven and I cannot see where they differ.

Science is how I was trained in high school, in college and in my career.

Science is a lens that I view all life through.

Through science, I’ve been able to pay for a roof over my head and food in my body.

Science is why I recycle, why I care about the earth, why I know how animals adapt…and why I know salmon need us as we need them.

Science is so beautiful and magnificent.

Art has always been put on the backburner because “there’s someone better at writing/drawing/beading/painting…and you can’t make a living as an artist”

Art is also a lens in which I view and live life.

Art is meditation in action, it’s when my true self unfolds into a piece of jewelry or drawing or dreamcatcher.

Art is dancing in the snow, singing songs to my loved ones, being drawn to beautiful gem stones and integrating them into my earrings.

Art is vital to my well-being.

Culture and Mindfulness are one and in the same, to me.

I used to think Mindfulness was only learned through meditation, yoga, or therapy.

I was wrong.

Dena’ina and Koyukon Athabascan people have had mindfulness for thousands of years but we didn’t call it that.

We call it going out on the land,

We call it beading/sewing/singing/dancing,

We call it potlatch gatherings,

We call it harvesting salmon,

We call it K’etniyi which means “it’s saying something” – “it” being a rock, the water, a mountain, an animal. “It” is deserving of respect.

All beings and all of nature is deserving of respect.

Science, Art, Culture, and Mindfulness are avenues of which I express my true self in this world, they make me come alive with wonder, appreciation, and love.

What makes you come alive?