Revelations or Renovation

Annihilation… devastation… decimation
Are we there yet?

Mother Nature is pissed
She’s busy cleaning house
Break it down and wash the filth away.

Humanity is in a tail-spin
Skidding on thinning ice.

Turn into the spin
Does that work
When you are dealing with
Nuclear War… Hunger… Democracy?

The dominos are falling
Can we stop the cascade 
Toward doom?

There is always tomorrow
Or is there?

Within this fragile imperfect body 
There is infinite possibility.

Stop and listen
The answers are within 
The stillness.

Bluster, anger, fear, reaction
These will not take you
Where you want to go.

Stop and listen
The answers are within 
The stillness.

by Cheryl McDonald 2022©

If you would like to listen to me read this poem, please click below.

I haven’t let myself think about nuclear war in a long time. Yes I know the threat has been there for many many years. But I hoped that cooler heads would prevail.

Now I’m not so sure they will.

This drawing is from a series I started in the 70’s, yes the 1970’s. The United States and the Soviet Union were in the midst of negotiating a nuclear proliferation treaty which started in the 60’s after the Cuban missile crisis, and there were big discussions occurring everywhere. I was in my 20’s and was involved with the Lutheran church as a youth group sponsor. One of the conventions we went to as a group used the threat of nuclear war as a theme for discussions at the convention.

I came home feeling like I had to make a statement somehow. The dreams started coming and I had to draw. I came up with 4 different images. My skills were not great back then and the drawings were not very good and when I shared them with my art teacher he just said, hmmm, I think you need more practice…

So I didn’t really share them and I just kept practicing.

At some point in the 1980’s I pulled these sketch out and decide to give it another try. This time I had learned more about drawing and I decided they all needed to be large-20”x30”. On the same paper, and in the same style. This time I ended up with 5 in the series and they were all more developed and much stronger images, at least in my thinking. Still room for improvement. Everything is right?

This one is called “ Revelations or Renovation” because within this figure there is annihilation and a reemergence occurring within the same figure.

After a week of Russia making noises about using nuclear weapons to win its war with Ukraine, I decided I needed to share at least one from this series and because a poem developed this morning, that made it even clearer that it was ready to be shared. I do still hope for cooler heads to prevail and if we can all just send positive healing energy to those decision makers, maybe that will help them to stop and listen to the silence. We really need to make it clear that nuclear is not an option. Our world depends on it.

Peace be with us all,
Cheryl