No ‘New Normal’

When artists embody cultural knowledge
The Arts can heal, cleanse and astonish
Live performance is contemporary ceremony
Audience can witness and avoid feeling lonely

Place artists first – let them practise their art
Permanent employment is a good start
More Arts funding and reallocation of priorities
Artists are essential, their decisions producing quality

Catastrophic climate crisis is terrifying and real
Building immunity with cultural understanding is ideal
The Arts have ethical and spiritual applications
Sensitive courage towards Divine aspirations

Interdependency of life has power and potency
Grounding ideas of social and political equality
Combating over consumption with reclaimed Non-violence
Campaigning for racial and ecological justice

Let Nature be the teacher of humans
Partnerships with forms of wildlife blooming
Wisdom traditions guiding clearly
Reality of bio-physical scientific theory

Interconnectedness, Remediation,
Cooperative work and Detoxification

Small-scale solutions impact the whole system
Value process and outcome as regenerative rhythm

Collective leadership, partnership, Adaptability
Resilience, Resistance and Decentralised agility

Artists can grow by connecting with country
Making in Nature is complementary
Learning cultural practices and sustainable ethics,
Evolving social structures and mystical aesthetics

Producing art that re-connects humans with environment
Expands relationships with Earthly enlightenment
Unique voices and skills, crafting inspiring work habit
As we discover more in this miraculous Planet

Well before the pandemic artists suffered a deficit
Income and job security were basically negligent
Inconsistent employment affecting belonging and love needs
Achievements celebrated, but sold as commodities

Arts entertainment workers share mental health laments
Anxiety, depression and suicide attempts
Unpredictable work causes helpless despairing
Feeling unvalued, low self-esteem and no caring

Artists need cultural safety, physical and mental strength
To feel the fragility of life with breath and respect
Being vulnerable with stories, reflections and dreams
Remembering their death from subtle to extreme

Tune internal compasses with outward looking empathy
Offer challenges, confidence and hopeful remedies
Provoke speculation, laughter and sensible discourse
Stimulate arguments about destiny, fate and existence

Art using Indigenous and alternative systems has gravity
Creating artistic bonds with human rights and environmental longevity
Decolonising human contact, bringing us together
Growing us into community whilst braving brutal weather

Establishing socio-cultural spaces for everybody
Despite gender, wealth status, disability or ancestry
Power of the arts to nourish souls with calmness
Navigate the way with stories from the unconscious

From patient quietude, acknowledge past with tender dreaming
Artists create live experiences, open curiosity and seeing
Imagine placing arts and culture centre to life and living
Socially we will flourish with spiritual, cognitive and emotional giving

Listening deeply, listen listen listen
Sitting sitting stillness, awareness opens vision

Humble mind bowing head below heart
Hear every dimension, wait until inert

Ancestral chants rise in circulating blood
Lava heart mountain releasing sternum through cloud

Lobes of lungs incense, a smoke particle violence
Unguarded immunity, high risk to strange virus

Fathomless grief, intergenerational wounded feeling
Personal trauma recovery, repatterning for healing

Slipping into cultural skin, container of consciousness
Inner transmission, outer health a vital consequence

All fluid children, a new purpose returning to share
Powerful kinship, future friendly protection and care