What should I be doing?
We've got to find a way to bring some understanding here today
Folx… what am I supposed to do?
I am guessing this is a question you are asking yourself, so I decided to ask myself that question as well.
Being a person on a planet in which literal madmen are in charge and in which no one seems to have the means or the ability or the cajones to stop them… well…
This whole situation blows.
What are things people in the Western World can actually do? I am searching that now. Here’s a few things that popped up:
Time Magazine online offers options. Feel free to click that link, but the pop-ups are annoying on their site so here’s the two I like the best:
Nova Ukraine - Established American nonprofit providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Donate or volunteer.
Sunflower of Peace - Established American nonprofit in Boston fundraising to acquire and distribute first-aid backpacks, medicine and medical instruments for medics and doctors in the affected area.
NPR compiled these options, including supporting Doctors Without Borders.
Razom for Ukraine offers this terrific post about how to advocate using your (social media) voice.
But also, art
But while we are making donations and volunteering and using our voices, I feel it’s time, too, to use our artistic voices.
We can’t help ourselves. Art is a powerful counter missile to the war machine. It clarifies truths. It draws on our sense of humanity. It connects us. It draws us together.
Artists are compelled to do it.
Alexandra built a sculpture of food to highlight the depth of the impact on families in war.
A simple, impactful illustration on the grief of war from Ray Dak Lam of Edmonton, Alberta.
Rhian, a Welsh painter living in Stratford-Upon-Avon, turned her original painting “Stand Tall” into a card with funds donated to Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
UK illustrator Lucy Claire Dunbar was asked in IG comments “what good will a drawing do?” Her response was “[F]or now it seems all I can do.” Then she created and offered coloring pages for children to help them process what is happening.
Word Scavenger from the UK felt compelled to write about how quickly one can become a refuge. Click and swipe to read the whole poem.
Art in all its iterations is a holy component of war.
Art is used to promote war. We know this in our fast absorption of propaganda into pop culture.
Art is used to oppose war. We know this from our deep abiding attachment to peace songs.
Art is at the core of the human existence — so that when art museums are destroyed or its contents looted, we know the enemy is striking that the heart of a country’s humanity.
Art is powerful. It changes shapes ideas and moves people. There’s no greater power.
What can I do? Make art, be present, share my writings, and be alive.
What about you?
<3
Thanks Elizabeth ❤❤❤