Connection: Webs of Wonder
Art + Reflection by Sofia Rector
"How then do we wake up to each other? …Here's what I'm asking you to do. Start paying closer attention to the sky." - Shannan Martin, Start with Hello
Shannan Martin’s call to attentiveness and awareness of beauty as the first steps towards engaging meaningfully with our neighbors arrested my attention as I began reading her book, Start with Hello. So did her description of her journey toward cultivating connections and community. One vignette particularly resonated:
“I am thirty-five, brand-new to the neighborhood, a shy introvert yet desperate to be known. I catch a glimpse of what life could look like if we all took one step closer to each other, unbothered by our differences. Slowly, I stop wishing to receive an invitation to belong and start writing my own…”
Shannan Martin, Start With Hello
This description brought to mind both my own experience and a poem by Walt Whitman through which I’ve come to picture both the persistence of reaching out for community and the beauty and wonder that can result as these webs of connection catch hold and grow. In his poem, A Noiseless, Patient Spider, Whitman observes how a spider casts out thread upon thread as it begins its web, and reflects on a way of being that patiently seeks out connection:
A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.And you O my soul where you stand,
Walt Whitman
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
“Connection: Webs of Wonder” is my exploration of these themes of wonder, small steps, persistence, and (perhaps overlooked) beauty that emerge in the cultivation of community.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
SOFIA RECTOR
An artist and writer with a contemplative bent, Sofia Rector seeks to witness and add to the beauty she sees from her home in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. She finds joy whether exploring the outdoors with her husband and son or curling up with a good book, her journal, and a mug of black coffee or tea. Sofia shares her mixed media artwork, written reflections, and glimpses of the everyday beautiful on Instagram. She also sells original artwork and receives commission requests on Etsy.
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