The muse had her way with me yesterday.

As I was walking along the river with Beaumont the Sheepadoodle, she drifted in and out of my mind whispering words of possibility, encouragement, hope.

As I leaned against a tree and rested my cheek against its gnarled trunk, she cast her spell upon the moment, wrapping me in her magic.

And as I sat down at my studio table, she flittered about like a butterfly in search of nectar, until landing on the canvas before me with a deep sigh and joyful exclamation of, “Here I Am!”

Trusting in her colourful presence, I dripped paint and ink and water onto the page and, as always happens when I let go of ‘making it happen’, what was seeking to appear became visible.

The ‘It’s All About The Fuss?’ woman was only a shimmer of an idea when I began.

When I was finished several hours later, my heart felt light, my pulse beat slow and I fell with joy into the creative field where magic and mystery bring me home to myself. Home to that place where I remember, To be the change I want to see in the world – Let it begin with me.

I was reminded this week that, in the ‘real’ world around me, reports are written, ideas are born, recommendations made which, before the ink is even dry, become shelved. Platitudes like, ‘be patient’, ‘change takes time’ ‘we’re doing our best’ are doled out to appease the oppressed instead of the critical dollars and sense and political will to put real and lasting change into the lives of those who need it most. And all the while those in power, those who hold the purse strings and political currency point, with earnest hearts and righteous indignation, at the report as concrete evidence of all they’ve done to make change happen.

Until, 20 years later, someone writes another report that clearly demonstrates how little anything has changed. How little progress has been made.

The ‘It’s All About The Fuss’ #ShePersisted Woman is my rebellion. My line in the sand. It’s my, ‘I’m putting you on notice” declaration of change! Yes. I will make a fuss. Yes. I will keep pushing back until instead of putting your head in the sand and keeping status quo going, you acknowledge how bad it really is.

Status quo only works for those with enough status to take advantage of its benefits and privileges.

Status quo keeps those it disadvantages in ‘their place’. It keeps them hidden in the margins, scrambling to be heard, to be seen, to be known as worthy of more than just the status quo of the limitations that circumscribe their lives.

As long as there are those who insist status quo is not that bad, we must make a fuss.

For those of us who live within its protective privileges and who have awoken to its demeaning limitations to others, must keep making a fuss so that the fuss of those whose lives have been sorely impacted by injustice and inequities in our legal, social and political systems know they are not wrong to insist on change. They are not wrong to demand action.

It’s all about the fuss!

Namaste.