As the sky gently shifted from darkness to light, I began to set up at a local market. The weather was warm but a gentle breeze blew through giving us what promised to be the perfect day. I put up my tables, filled my baskets with prints hot off the presses, and hung up my wall hangings. I paused for a moment, admiring the effect of the velvet swaying in the gentle breeze. It was going to be a good day.
As the morning progressed, however, the wind picked up. The wall hangings were no longer swaying but being whipped mercilessly about by the increasingly strong gusts of wind. I took down a few that were dangerously close to the beautiful pottery in the booth next to my own.
As I watched the market coordinator hanging on to his tent for dear life, the tent behind his suddenly began to walk away. Even with weights attached, the wind was picking up the umbrella-like canopy and dragging it through the parking lot. Artists rushed to help save the tent and the lovely crochet items hanging from its booth walls.
I realized that arguing with the wind was an argument that I could not win. With the help of the market coordinator and the lovely potter in the booth beside me, I managed to move my tent and put it away. The wind had made its point.
There are some forces that are larger than us; some powers that we cannot win against. The key is knowing when to adapt; when to concede; and when to lean into the powers that be.
Over the weekend, Instagram sent me an authentication request which I should have easily been able to respond to. They sent a six-digit number to me via text message. This time, though, the field for that text message was completely blank. No six-digits. No characters at all. Naturally, I asked Instagram to send a new code.
Again, the text was blank. A little panicked, I tried again. Another blank text and, now, Instagram seemed convinced that I was dangerous. They completely shut down my Instagram account, LovedayFunckArt.
With help from some online friends, I've reached out to Facebook support to see if they can help me regain access to that Instagram account. They told me that they'd get back to me with possible solutions in a few days.
Just as I can't make that six-digit number appear in my text, I can't argue with the social media powers that control my Instagram. We may be the monkeys, but it's definitely their circus. I've resigned myself to conceding to the powers that be and accepting that I may need to figure out a workaround. I still have my old poetry Instagram account, LovedayWritten, so I've started posting there again (although I am hoping that Instagram will let me back into LovedayFunckArt).
As I do research toward creating a Kickstarter campaign for my Bloom Where You're Planted Oracle deck, I tentatively created an Instagram, especially for deck promotion, BloomOracleDeck, so I'm keeping my options open even as I am hopeful about regaining control of my Instagram account.
I'm leaning into the wind and acknowledging that I cannot alter its strength or its direction. I'm letting the breeze waft through my hair even as I sink my roots gently into the soil where I am: growing, learning, and blooming precisely where I am planted.
(25% of all sales of my Bloom Where You're Planted artwork for the next month will go directly to the Voices of Children Foundation in support of the Ukrainian children)