Before the truck arrives, the quilts made that year at St. Paul’s are displayed in the sanctuary, draped over pews and unfurled like flags representing a harmonious galaxy, the fabric version of the stained glass windows. “After the trucks are packed, we say a blessing that what we made with love and care brings comfort to people who need it most,” Sylvia says.

Kenny doesn’t separate music from visual art, or art from community. “It’s all the same practice, really,” he says wisely.

Humans naturally respond to images—words often “aren’t exact enough”—so Jackie incorporates her art background and encourages clients to connect with their intuition through images and symbols.

More than just a business, she’s carving out a place where people who have felt invisible and disempowered discover new possibilities of being and doing.

Inviting spontaneity, silliness, and collaborative playfulness, modeling creativity in action. Polly’s voice rang out: “People ask me, How do you write a song? Usually I just make stuff up. And hope it works out.”

These pieces, culled simply from events and thoughts/feelings in one day, often with very little elaboration, were intensely moving. Strung together and read aloud, they felt like profound koans and/or fragments that have survived from Ancient Greece.

What if there’s a way to both disconnect and connect simultaneously?

We are narrative machines. A blessing and our kryptonite.

“I re-learned that slowing down enough to let go of the goal and being with what simply is—a kind of intention-guided surrender—is a path of least resistance.”