Connecting the Disconnected

Connecting the Disconnected

By Mason Gehring

December 17th

Final thoughts on the year. I feel like the entire world is holding its breath waiting for the countdown to the new year. Although the earth will take no notice, it is less than a blink in its timeline. But for us humans, and our self imposed time structure, we get to start new. We get to hang up that new calendar and set fire to 2020.

Because of my new diagnosis with epilepsy in November of 2019, I had already been quarantining because I couldn’t drive, felt so detached from reality because of the wrong meds and emotionally wanted to isolate my very raw heart. I truly took it one day at a time. My body and brain couldn’t handle anything else. I wanted every day to be slow and uneventful because I had gone through so much in so little time. Christmas was small and simple, my birthday was the same. Just let me blink my eyes like the earth and feel nothing when time passes. And then COVID happened and it seemed like everyone was in the same circumstances as I was. Don’t leave your house, you can’t work, and constantly checking-in on how your body feels.

In a very strange and very heartbreaking way, COVID has helped me figure out my new future. It gave me the space to really slow down and think about how I can create and work and take care of my body. It was a relief. And seeing the stress that the world was under I immediately started creating daily creative meditations that I shared on my Instagram. They were simple drawing and coloring exercises that anyone could do with simple tools like markers and crayons.

I was trying to connect a creative practice to meditation, visualization, and affirmations. I kept it up for about 2 weeks and then was exhausted myself. I’ve carried this thought with me the rest of the year. People are struggling and need simple, creative, low cost, no side effects, and meaningful ways to cope with our new existence. So this is my general focus for my career as an artist in healthcare professional. I am here to help people create a creative practice and space in their life to use art for expression and coping because there is a need regardless of circumstances. We have detached ourselves from a creative source that most people believe that’s not for them. And that’s a lie. Everyday we need to find our ways that we can connect to our creative source.

See below for images of my first Daily Creative Meditation from March 2020 or GO HERE to watch the video of how to create your own!