kin·dred
n.
1. A
group of related persons, as a clan or tribe.
2. (used with a pl. verb)
A person's relatives; kinfolk.
adj.
1. Of
the same ancestry or family
2. Having a similar or related
origin, nature, or character
Science, and religion both,
will tell us that if you go back far enough, we are all related.
I don’t think we need anyone to tell us that.
Kindred spirit friendships, extended family, and community, weave threads into
the fabric of our lives as real, strong, and eternal as the DNA daisy-chain
that leads to each of us.
I come from a small, close
family. Beyond that critical fortune, I’ve long had a sense, that we are always
gradually gathering with our broader “tribe”, one soul at a time, as we travel through
life. Our sense of belonging unfolds as we learn from, and about, the family we
are born into, the family we marry into, the children we take under wing, the
friends we choose, people we live or work beside, even long departed authors
and artists who we meet through the legacies of their work.
I find the whole thing beautifully complex and
mysterious, and all joy and pain included, I am honored and grateful for my
part.
My family history is like
many others. It is more questions than answers, like a puzzle missing lots of
pieces. Earlier than is usual, my siblings and I became keepers of the flame,
care-taking the family photos and letters. Over the past twenty years, I
occasionally visit the boxes in my care. It’s a little like checking the rear view
mirror while driving down the road you’re on. Each time I look, I gain a new
and deeper sense of where and who I am in the scheme of things, and that each
of us is like a vessel, carrying all that came before us.
This series of images is both
homage and inquiry; a conversation with souls, each as unique as the individual
stars the sky, - and it is a discovery of how, like constellations, we are all
connected.
Each time I endeavor to journey into a new body of
work, I am reminded of the vast rewards of creative process. It has so much to
teach us, when we agree to participate.
May the torch that is passed to each of us ignite
in our beings a blazing awareness of our greatest inheritance- whole-hearted
presence.
-Amy Melious, September 2012
ALSO....
One more week:
A show of scenics, at Fernwood Cafe on Salt Spring
- Summer Hours:
- Open 7 days a week. 10:00am on Saturdays. 9:00am - 5:00pm all other days.
- 325 Fernwood Road
- Salt Spring Island, BC, V8K 1C3
