Academy Award winning short documentary “The Last Repair Shop” opens with Porsche Brinkley saying, “The hardest thing in my life is my family’s health. Everyone is always getting sick, back to back.” In the film, Porsche goes on to relay her deep bond with her violin and how her school is able to support her music. No one ever mentioned the health issues in her family again, but I was riveted by that reference.
I too was a young girl preoccupied with my family’s illnesses, all of which were evident to me. I wanted to help them and I knew that there had to be a way to do that. I discovered then, like Porsche, that, at least for me, art is medicine. Real medicine.And, again like Porsche, I experienced my family as too distracted by their suffering to recognize the medicine in their midst.
Playing an instrument was not feasible for me, so I chose poetry, which is a kind of inner music or song. Just as Porsche Brinkley flourishes in the glow of her love affair with her violin, so did I flourish with the medicine of my writing. “I don’t know what I would do without it,” Porsche asserts in the film, glancing at her violin. “Don’t even jinx me with that.” A wave of grief passes over her radiant face as she considers life without her violin. The thing I knew about poetry was that no one could take it away from me, so I was safe.
Our world is sick. The music of children and the poems of crones are the medicinal formula to restore health. Does this sound even remotely feasible or is it another one of the riotously idealistic formulations that my dear husband, an environmental scientist, questions. Where is the data? Actually, the longevity of poetry is the data. It will likely outlive us all. It would be wise to look at how and why that is so.
When I founded Climate Change & Consciousness in 2019, I knew that creativity would spark the groundswell to turn the cyclone of ignorance around. We are in the eye of the storm now. Despite all the data that we do have, all the graphs and analyses, I believe it still comes down to investing in Original Brilliance, the creative process, and creative human beings. Creativity is indestructible. Why? Because it is a universal language.
Original Brilliance is the unique capacity that human beings have to draw down remarkable, unforeseen solutions from their alignment with a greater intelligence in service to us all. That is what happens when Porsche plays her violin. A miraculous healing occurs within her and for all listeners. Collectively we are transported to a dimension in which nothing is impossible and solutions abound.
We are all fractals of the greatest Original Brilliance. Poetry reminds us of that.
When Porsche Brinkley briefly considered losing her violin, her countenance fell into shadow; but that wave passed, and she lit up again, glancing fondly at her violin, her best friend. We all felt the love. It transmitted across time and space and evoked an instantaneous healing for everyone. In that moment, we transcended all separation. We were unified, congruent and cohesive with each other and with Porsche and her incredible, irresistible potential.
We can melt the ice in hearts frozen with fear with our words and with our music. That is what Porsche Brinkley did when she spoke from her heart. She linked her message of hope inextricably with healthcare. We were all made well and whole by her expression of truth.
Poet Sonya Renee Taylor says that “only humans have the power to dismantle oppression,” and that is why a bottom-up groundswell of poetry and music could build the networks of resilience that change the way people think about climate and about injustice. Art repositions humans, dislodges resistance and invites spontaneous action. Sam Illingsworth, writing for the European Geosciences Union, says that “poetry is data” if we quantify how it personalizes the climate crisis and demystifies the safeguarding of our planet by humanizing it.
I intend my book, The Great Physician: Medicinal Poetry for the Anthropocene, to contribute to that data collection. Every poem is designed to make clear our intimate bond with the natural world and how our fates are inextricably linked. Like Porsche Brinkley, I will not be separated from my art. I will not give up on believing that art is at the epicenter of what will take us to the other side of the storm.
Let art make you whole. Let art convert you to activism, either by engaging in it or by receiving it. Both are equally important. When you purchase my new book, The Great Physician, you are as much of an activist as if you wrote it. Your absorption and metabolizing of my words and how they fuel your next feeling, your next thought, your next action, matters in this world. Everything that comes from the intention to make a difference contributes to turning the tide.
You’re invited to attend the Earth Day book launch for The Great Physician.
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My copy of the book arrived yesterday. Last night, I slowly savored these poems that reverberate with the direct knowing of the truth of her and our circumstances. A new sense of resolve forms in me in common intention for furthering LIFE! This is a beautiful, moving collection by Dr. Stephanie Mines, that will inspire with Love for our world. ❤🙏🕊🌹