Tag: life

InterPlanetary

Last week, during one of our morning family fireside chats, I asked the question, What’s a fond memory from your childhood? My youngest daughter chimed in first. She recalled a time when she was much younger and wasn’t feeling well. She was sad about something. I asked her the type of question only a parent who still believes in magic might ask…

“Do you want to leave this planet?”

She said yes, so I proceeded tolifted her up, turned her upside down, planted her little feet on the ceiling, and walked her across, one step at a time. When I asked if she was ready to return to Earth, she said yes again and just like that, she felt better. The truth is, I didn’t remember that specific incident at all. But I do know that I’ve walked every one of my children, nieces, and nephews across some available ceiling at one time or another. Kitchen ceilings. Living room ceilings. Hallway ceilings. Bedroom ceilings. Wherever gravity could be temporarily renegotiated.

That parent-child exchange wasn’t merely about play alone. It was about perspective. Dr. Wayne Dyer use to say, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at, change.” More often than not, that change makes the change. Sometimes the world feels unbearable not because it is, but because we’re seeing it from the same angle over and over again. Same floor. Same ceiling. Same weight. Same worries pressing down. A small shift, just enough to invert the view, can remind us that what feels permanent might only be positional. When you’re upside down, the rules change. The ceiling becomes a road. The weight in your chest loosens. You’re no longer stuck, you’re traveling. That’s what my daughter remembered. Not sickness. Not sadness but motion, care, imagination at work, and much needed relief.

Perhaps that’s the quiet calling of this season. We’re living in a time when many people are carrying more than they can articulate. Grief without language. Fear without clear edges. Responsibilities stacked so high they feel endless. Some are so weighed down they’re not just asking to leave the planet, they are checking out in not so good ways. Ways that can be avoided if we dare to care beyond a thought.

What if our task right now isn’t to fix everything? What if it’s simply to help one another change altitude? To lift someone gently. To offer a momentary escape, not necessarily from reality, but from its heaviness. To say, “Let me help you with this for a second. Let me show you another way to see it.” You don’t need rockets for that. Just presence, care, and the willingness to look a little silly while carrying someone upside down through a hard moment. A change in perspective doesn’t erase pain but it can loosen its grip. Sometimes, that’s enough to help someone feel better. It can be just enough to help them return to Earth a little more ready to move forward. That’s interplanetary work; real space travel that acknowledges the space between us as connection. No doubt, we could all use a little more of that right now.

Esperanza

  It was 2014,  on the eve of my hearing of the passing of the legendary luminary Maya Angelou that I penned these words held buoyant by hers, “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.”  For the last few weeks I’d walked in the challenge of addressing, through art, the theme of violence in Colombia.   Colombia was enslaved by a history of violence that continues to taint its present color in the eyes of the rest of the world.  In my time there, from speaking on the panel with the mayor of Medellin downtown at the Mayo por la Vida Celebration, to walking the neighborhood streets of rural Apartado with school age children; I saw the power of the very thing that Maya Angelou talked about-hope.  Hope, not the one that sits and reaches out to nothing and just waits. No. Hope, that unsinkable mindset that hovered above me night after night as I pondered the depth of the question asked of me many times during my sojourn there, “Do you really believe in world peace?” Each time, the question hit me like a dark wave threatening to drown the belief in change to which I clung ever so tightly.  

   One evening I had the honor of visiting a three year old girl who had been shot just days before.  As I knelt down beside her, without hesitation or concern she reached out and put her tiny arms around my neck and gave me a hug that could have embraced the world. In her sunshine smile and angelic eyes I saw what I needed to see, my answer, the reason I was doing what I was doing.  I saw hope in its purest form shining onto my faith and casting away any shadow of doubt that may have been lurking in my mind. Not the type of hope that sits waiting, internally pleading for something to change, but the kind that continually rises up in the face of all that would suppress us.  The Spanish word for hope is esperanza. That little crippled girl awakened in me a renewed sense of hope.  Esperanza was echoed in the face of every child and Colombian I saw from that point onward. I always reminded myself that there’s always a way.

  I am an artist, and art is my weapon of choice for peace and justice. What I mean by justice is that which I want for myself, I also want for others. I bring, like Maya Angelou said, the gifts the ancestors gave and I use them for the enriching of this planet we are blessed to inhabit.  Although I was a speaker of English in a Spanish speaking country, art is a universal language, and her most vivid color is love. I was met with the spirit I came with. I walk with art as agency for change. Change is coming. Not only do I believe it, I know it because I saw the preview of a new world reflected in the eyes of the children who looked into mine. And in their smiles and attitudes I saw the blueprints. That isn’t political or scientific, or any other form of measurable statistic.  It’s the power of esperanza. Where there is life, esperanza (hope) lives, and where she lives, change is inevitable. Hold on.

Hills of Dreams: Becoming What We Needed to See

Sometimes the universe whispers before it speaks.

Not long ago, I had the idea that I wanted to do something for the elementary school I attended as a child. I considered doing a mural or workshop. It was an idea that I mentioned only to my wife and scribbled in my journal. The very next week, no joke, I opened an email from the art teacher at Rolling Hills Elementary School. Her enthusiasm came straight up outta that computer. She had seen my work and wanted me to paint a mural. She had the will and the zeal, but no true idea what it would take or cost to bring it to pass. But I already knew it was destined to be. We trusted the process. Huntsville City Schools and local sponsors answered the call and the project was set in motion. We would call the mural, Hills of Dreams.

With mixed feelings I returned to those linoleum floored cinderblock halls where my own journey began. Rolling Hills Elementary School was where I first discovered the joy of art making as a thing, the exhilaration of diving deep into the creative process, seeing my work on the walls for the very first time. Where I walked with reverence into that precious carpeted library that served as a keyhole to the worlds of my interests. Where I watched a popcorn seed planted in a baby food jar sitting in the window, sprout and reach for the sun. Where at the end of my fourth grade year, the teacher gave me my pick of books on the shelf by her desk. I felt like I bit off a little piece of heaven that day. At that little cozy elementary school tucked into northwest Huntsville, nestled on a hilltop, the foundation who I am as a creative was laid. To create there again, among students and teachers, was more than full circle. It was cosmic alignment.

One day, while I worked on the mural in the cafeteria, a group of students came in to watch a film. Out of curiosity, I glanced back at the screen then noticed a boy with his face toward me. He wasn’t watching the movie at all. His eyes were fixed on me as I painted. I could feel him watching. Deep, steady, unblinking. I turned back to my work, brushed paint onto the wall, and later looked again. He was still watching. Still locked in. Of course it didn’t bother me at all. People always ask whether it distracts me when they watch or talk to me when I am painting murals. The answer is no because I see mural painting as a type of performance art. Interaction with the audience is an integral part of the work.

In that moment, I wondered What was that little fella thinking? Was he seeing himself in me? Was I looking back at me at that age? I thought about how vital it is to live fully in my space, to be visibly present on my wings. Because oh, what it would have meant for me to have seen that when I was his age. To see possibility embodied, to see someone creating, to see myself reflected in real time. That’s what doing what I do is about. It isn’t just putting paint on walls or pen to paper. It’s about planting visions. It’s about representing and recreating for inspiration. It’s about adopting the responsibility to be what I once needed to see.

Every child deserves a light to reach toward. Adults can use it as well. So what do you say we commit or recommit to standing tall in our space, to showing up fully, to inspiring boldly for the ones watching us with wide eyes, waiting for their own wings to sprout. Because Hills of Dreams is not just my slinging paint on a lunchroom wall. It’s an embodiment, an incubator for what belongs to every child or person with a dream bigger than their circumstances. It’s for all of us who dare to go for the dream and to forge trails for others to follow. In fact , as I consider it all, I think I’ve been dreaming too small.

This Is It

As I am writing this I hear the echo of DMX’s gravely bass growling, “Lord gimme a sign.” In the same song he says. “No weapon formed against me shall prosper/And every tongue that rises against me in judgment, thou shall condemn.” This is a truth I hold to be self evident and I invite you to do the same. At some point in our journey we’ve found our weight unusually heavy. Our path gets overshadowed and the way blurs in front of us. In those times we’ve asked for some word, some clue, some sign to let us know what to do or where to go from here.

Allow me to share a short fable about a great oak tree that grew strong on the edge of a cliff. Its roots gripped the rocky ledge. The tree was battered day after day by windstorms, rain, and scorching sun. Every other tree in the softer soil of the valley grew faster, looked fuller, and seemed more secure. But when the storms came, those trees were the first to feel the brunt of the winds and rain. They fell. The oak held firm. Why? Because it had been tested. Every storm, every gust of wind, or shudder of the earth had made it dig deeper, reach further, and grow stronger. It didn’t just survive the storm—it was shaped by it. That oak is us.

Right now we’re living in a time where many feel they can’t go on like this. True the weight of uncertainty can feel real. But please be reminded that deep down inside is a place within us that is always certain. The winds of change are howling and it’s easy to wonder if we’ll make it through, if we’ll get by. But there’s a part of us that knows we will. I want to remind you of this as well: trouble don’t last always. And more than that, it doesn’t get the final word. In fact, it’s often in the pressure—the pushing, the waiting, the stretching, the longing —that the best in us rises. We discover grit and grind; we didn’t know we had. We learn to dig deeper, think sharper, love harder, and spread hope wider. We were made for this.

When the going gets tough, we don’t just endure—we evolve. We double down. We link arms with those who are on journey with us. We get creative. We hustle. We pray. We build. We were never meant to fold—we forge. This opposition is not the end. It’s the sharpening stone. It’s what is going to make us shine all the more bright. Hold on. This moment is not the breaking point—it’s the turning point. We will win—not because it’s easy, but because it’s in us to do. We have a power that cannot fail. Hold on. Hang in. Push forward. This storm isn’t here to take us under. It’s here to reveal us. If you’ve been waiting for a word or a sign. This is it…

…Where The Light Ends

When I was a boy, my cousin—who also happened to be my best friend—moved into the neighborhood just behind ours. It was like a dream come true. It wasn’t right behind us like the next yard. We weren’t connected by roads, but by a stretch of woods, a washed-out creek, and a decaying bridge with only the hulking metal beams left. There were no streetlights. No sidewalks. Just, trees, grass, earth, and shadows. Between our houses was a journey, not a route. And that journey taught me more than I realized at the time.

One fall evening —one of those days where the trees are close to bare and the air feels thin, not quite cool but southern chilly—we were hanging with some of the guys in my friend’s neighborhood near their house. We were pulling dried stalks from their dad’s garden area and hurling them at each other like spears. We were laughing children at war with boredom and boundaries. The sun had since began its slow descent, and after a while I felt that familiar tug: You need to go now….soon. It’s going to get really dark. And soon enough, it did.

As artists and creatives, we know that moment well—the sinking light, the encroaching unknown. The moment where playtime ends or procrastinations needs to, and the solitary path begins. I had asked earlier when the sun was high, would they walk me home through the woods if I stayed longer. They said they would if I stayed. I took assurance in their words, plus I wanted to stay anyway. But time kept slipping by, and it finally became clear when the excuses started, that none of those guys were taking that trip with me. I looked in the direction of home. The space between the trees was a gaping dark hole, daring me to enter. Finally, in a moment of clarity, decision, and being fed up, I grabbed a handful of rocks—my version of protection —and headed on out, stepping into the woods all by myself.

Years later, I see that boy in so many of us. The ones with vision. The ones with stories lodged beneath their skin and colors in their souls. The ones who stand at the edge of the metaphorical woods, waiting for someone to walk them through the dark patch. Waiting for the invitation, the validation, the right mood, the funding, the perfect collaborators, the clean studio, the ideal conditions. But the truth is, the work begins where the light ends. The art, the creativity, the work, waits in the dark.

The truth is, we’ve all stood in that backyard at some point in our lives, playing around— then wanting, waiting for someone to walk us through the hard parts. Waiting for the timing to feel just. Waiting for the fear to shrink or for company to show up. Sometimes people mean well. Sometimes they don’t come though. Sometimes they can’t. And sometimes, the path you’re supposed to take is meant to be walked alone. You don’t need a full spotlight or a crowd of supporters. Sometimes all you’ve got is all you’ve got. Summon the courage to start. Sometimes you walk with shaking knees and pockets full of rocks. But you go anyway.

There are times in this creative life—heck, in any life—when you’ll need to go through the dark time alone (but are we really alone?). Not because no one loves you or believes in you. But because it’s your walk to take. Your vision to carry. Your bridge to cross. This is for the ones who are waiting. Waiting for someone to walk with you. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for the perfect conditions. Waiting for a word from the Lord. Strongly consider moving past the wait because many people have gotten stuck right there and spent the rest of their lives telling stories of how they coulda shoulda woulda…That’s not you.

Grab your rocks. Use what you have . The path may be shadowed, but your gift was never meant to wait for perfect light or time. It was meant to create it. Go ahead and take that next step, even if it first leads you into the shadows and a season of silence. And when you do—tired, uncertain, carrying only what’s in your hands and heart—you will emerge not necessarily into applause, but into truth. Into the space you were always headed for.

Reflection

I was recently painting a mural at an elementary school when the most inspiring thing happened. Not that inspiration isn’t flowing freely in an elementary school anyway. It was one of the last few days of the school year and energy was over the top. And boy do I remember those days. Plus it was a delayed day because of a previous night storm. A small group of teachers gathered in the Lunchroom for movie time for the children. Kindergarten through third grade piled in and planted themselves on the round stools at the tables, their attention supposedly glued to the big screen. Every so often, I’d pause from the strokes of my brush amid giggles and squeals, and glance back at the group and the show they were watching. Each time, I noticed one particular little fella—not watching the movie like the others—but watching me with intensity. Quiet. Still. Eyes locked in on my process.

He didn’t seem restless or antsy but focused. It wasn’t like he was distracted from the movie. I don’t think he had even started watching it. He was drawn—not to noise or the movie screen, but to the motion of my brush, the forming of images, The colors spreading on the wall, the unfolding progress of creation. To me, it was doing the thing I do. But to him it appeared to me magnetic. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his little head. Maybe he was in awe, mesmerized by this art thing. Maybe he saw himself. Maybe he recognized something familiar in the rhythm of the interplay of mind, spirit, passion, and whatever else makes us do what we do when we do it well. Maybe he thought I looked funny. But more than anything, what I realized is this: that used to be me, often silent but fiercely observant. Sometimes, the quietest gaze holds the loudest affirmation.

As a boy, I was captivated by the act of making, how things came to be. The why, who, when, where of the what. It drew me like a plant pulled toward the sunlight. I didn’t always have the language for it, but I knew I knew. There was something calling, beckoning. And now, all these years later, I find myself on the other side of that moment, being watched by a child whose heart might be whispering the same call. It reminded me that the work we do—especially the work born from intention, from purpose, from struggle and joy—echoes from the depths of life to the surface. It creates ripples. It becomes a mirror, a map, or a magnet for someone else.

That’s why it is imperative that we keep showing up. Not just for ourselves, but for the ones quietly watching, absorbing, being shaped by the vision of what’s possible. We are giving permission to the next artist. The next teacher. The next leader. The next dreamer. The next builder of worlds. What matters most doesn’t just leave a mark on walls, paper, stage, or film, —it leaves a reflection for and in those to come.

Photo by Michelle McClintock

In Search of Okay

This morning, as I lay in bed far past usual, with the sunlight spilling into the room, my mind circled around a familiar yet complicated idea of being okay. What does it really mean to be okay, to be alright? Not in the way we toss it around in passing conversations, but in the quiet, honest places within ourselves. On the path I’ve chosen — this project-based, often unpredictable existence as an artist, I find myself constantly moving between points — this project, that commission, this opportunity, that possibility. And in every moment, I realize I’m often searching for a position where I can quietly say to myself, I’m okay. Not necessarily victorious. Not defeated. Just okay. Okay with where I am, or where I thought I’d be by now. It’s a constant negotiation between expectation and acceptance.

When we meet people, we ask how they’re doing. “I’m okay.” “I’m alright.” Simple words that cover so much. Sometimes they’re true. Sometimes they’re placeholders. And sometimes, they’re shields we use to keep the deeper, heavier parts at bay. Lately, I’ve started to wonder — what do I mean when I say I want to be okay? Is it peace? Is it progress? Is it simply a quiet wrinkle in time where everything doesn’t feel like it’s pressing in? Am I hoping for a point in my life, or my work, where I can be completely alright with what is? And if so… does that place even exist, or are we forever chasing it, catching only glimpses as it moves just out of our reach?

I’m learning that maybe okay isn’t a permanent destination. Maybe it’s a fleeting pause — a breath — a fragile alignment between what’s happening around me and what’s happening within me. It’s the moment I stop measuring, stop chasing, and simply allow myself to be. Today, I’m in search of an okay that may not be a finish line or a reward, but a quiet, honest moment where I can say to myself, I’m alright… as I am, right here, right now. And maybe for today, that’s enough. So if you find yourself searching too, know that sometimes, okay isn’t a place you arrive at — it’s a moment you allow.

Make-Believe: The Invisible Bridge Between Worlds

Last week, while visiting a job site with a business associate, an unexpected moment unfolded—one that has been echoing inside me ever since. We were talking through project details when an unhoused gentleman approached. Nothing unusual in a city where gentrification collides daily with poverty. But what came next unraveled some of the lines we tend to draw between people. Both men’s face lit up—not with friction, but with recognition. Turns out, they grew up just a few houses apart. Same block. Same neighborhood. Same era. I couldn’t help but ask what many might think but not say aloud: “What made the difference?” One man with homes in multiple cities, running quite lucrative ventures across several sates. The other, navigating life on the streets. He didn’t hesitate. “Attitude,” he said. That was a common answer. One that I actually expected. The kind of thing you hear in seminars or printed on coffee mugs. But it didn’t sit well enough with me for a number of reasons so I pressed further. That’s when he said it…

“It’s make-believe.”

“Make-believe.” I repeated the words. He went on, “Make-believe. I make believe I can do something or be something… and then I just start working toward it and make it real. It’s all made up anyway— laws, the dollar values, titles, cities, streets, and names. So I just make believe and do it.” We both chuckled at the way he made is sound so simple. But then… it hit me, feeling like home. Make-believe is the same tool we wield freely as children before the world tells us what is and isn’t possible. The same gift that built spaceships out of cardboard boxes and kingdoms out of yard dirt. Pillows became forts and sticks transformed into swords. Towels became superhero capes billowing in the wind as we charged through the house, out the door and leaped from the front porch in that brief airborne glory of flight. It is in so many ways the same energy I now use as a creative. I imagine what doesn’t exist yet—and then bring it into the world out of a blank canvas, a sheet or paper, or a wall…or whatever else.

It’s not pretending really, it’s a form of creating. It’s so easy to think of imagination or daydreaming as child’s play, but what if it’s actually the cornerstone of everything real? What is money, after all, but a mutually agreed-upon myth of perceived value? A green piece of paper backed by our belief. What is a city but a series of stories and structures laid out in grids and street signs activated by someone’s rules of the game? What is a career, a title, a boundary—except a fictitious outline agreed upon by the masses? Just food for consideration here.

The difference between one person and another, between despair and drive, between stagnation and growth, might just be one’s willingness to believe in the invisible long enough to build it. Make-believe. That’s what creatives do. That’s what visionaries do. That’s what children do. Then we grow up. Perhaps that’s what we’ve lost in the vainglorious grind of adulting: the sacred skill of making believe. But here’s the beautiful twist—I’ve come to understand that the artist and the entrepreneur, the educator and the dreamer, the activist and the builder—all require the same core recipe: imagination infused with intention, carried by action.

We imagine.
We believe.
We begin.
We become.

So next time someone dismisses “make believe” as a childish thing, we can smile and nod… knowing full well that the world we live in—every towering building, every invention, every institution, political or otherwise—once lived only in someone’s imagination. It’s all made up. So, if we don’t like the world we live in, just like someone made us believe in the this one, let’s craft another more equitable one of our choosing. Our inner world would be a great place to start.

The Magical and The Mundane

Driving out in the backcountry of Madison County, Alabama, near where I live, never disappoints. Just ahead and to my left across a field on a straight country road, the clouds had parted. Sun slivers filtered down through them like a scene from a science fiction movie. For a moment, I imagined being lifted up, joining a congregation of aliens who would send me back with all my superpowers revealed—everything suddenly feeling possible. Another thought that crossed my mind was the age-old reminder: behind every dark cloud, there’s a silver lining. It’s a comforting, almost cliché notion, but one that always gives me hope.

Yet, as I pondered these whimsical ideas, I couldn’t help but hear the voice of an old friend in my head, the one who would often point out, with a smacking of their lips, “They’re just clouds.” And maybe that’s true—maybe that’s all they are. But sometimes, I believe it’s about what we choose to see. Those clouds could be just that, or they could be the start of a story that feels as big and strange as the universe itself. It’s all in how you look at it. In the end, it’s not about whether those clouds are just clouds or something more. It’s about how we choose to see them or peel ourselves from the harsh reality of an overstuffed existence. Life is full of just ordinary moments, the mundane that we all pass by without a second thought. But within those moments, if we allow ourselves, there’s room for wonder, magic, and connection. Some cultures refer to these events as omens, others as divine whispers. It’s like the space between the clouds and the sunlight—there’s something in that gap, a glimpse of possibility, if we’re open to it.

So, maybe we’re all given little opportunities to “see” beyond the scene. Sometimes it’s a patch of light breaking through, other times, it’s simply choosing to imagine what’s not immediately visible. The mundane, when seen with the right eyes, can become something far more extraordinary. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the real magic.

A Future Worth Saving

“…We have to matter. If we don’t, there is no future worth saving.” +Ms Marvel

We are all born with something—an energy, a light, a force uniquely ours. But it doesn’t come fully formed. It’s shaped and forged in the fire of life’s torque. Our superpower is not limited to our natural abilities. They are the sum of us, our defeats, our victories, our past, our pain, and our passion. It is rooted in everything that has tried to break us and/or has built us to now. It’s all hammered into a weapon of choice for this life journey.

As an creative, art has been my magic carpet ride, my hammer, my wings. Not easy by any stretch, but the thing that has carried me as I was carrying it. The thing I have fought with, danced with, and ultimately surrendered to. We wrestle daily with who we are and who we think we should be. But true power is in acceptance—the acceptance of all of who we are— the best and the beast. Think about superhero characters like Batman, Daredevil, or The Hulk. Their power isn’t just in their strength, intelligence, or skill. It’s in their wounds. Batman’s greatest weapon isn’t his wealth or gadgets, but the trauma that turned into his mission. Daredevil’s blindness became his most heightened sense. The Hulk? His curse became his power. They didn’t run from their pain; they harnessed it. And that’s the secret: our power isn’t just in what we’re naturally good at—it’s in what we’ve survived, what we’ve wrestled with, and how we choose to wield it.

I think back to a moment of revelation years ago, standing atop an old building in a small municipality in Antioquia, Colombia, South America, preparing to do a mural with my team of local children. These children had a fraction of what they have in the United States in terms of material possessions, yet standing there, with the connection we had, looking out over the area, we felt invincible, wealthy in spirit and verve—on top of the world. I was right where I was supposed to be and the world was my palette. There was no lack, only creation. No limits, only possibility. That’s the essence of power: not what you have, but what you create from what you have. It is of utmost importance that we spread our wings. We have to matter. If we don’t, there’s no future worth saving. Our existence, our struggle, our triumphs—they matter. We matter. We don’t fight just to fight. We fight because what we do, what we create, and how we live shapes the world present and future. If you’re reading this and thinking this is about someone else and not you. Please be reminded that it is you that make up the us. It is the we that will ultimately win. Every time we rise from pain or paralysis, bite our lip and keep on keeping on we lay claim to a little more of our power. We command our space and carve out a chunk for those who come after us.

We can spend an entire lifetime running from ourselves, trying to be what the world deems acceptable, or we can own our superpower—our full, unfiltered truth—unapologetically. Our stories are not just the parts that shine or look good in snapshots of social media. It is also the shadows, the scars, the doubts, and the falls. The key is in bringing it all together, forging it into something undeniable, unfolding our tomorrows of choice. So, I take this loving liberty to challenge you: Own your superpower. Wield it unapologetically. Stand in it fully. Because once you do, nothing—not circumstance, not rejection, not fear, not even that ragged voice that’s plagued you all of your days—can keep you from rising. Allow no thing on this side of glory to break the rhythm of your stride…let’s go dammit..!