Building Lives Capable of Staying
A Life of Her Own
A devotion to Georgia O’Keeffe
This piece is shaped like a cow skull—an offering to truth, endurance, and the beauty that remains when illusion falls away.
Bone becomes altar.
At the center, a full-bodied flower blooms not in spite of desolation, but because of it. This is eros that survived solitude, choice, and refusal. The crossing branch evokes spine and boundary, tool and witness, that which one leans on when walking one’s own way.
Turquoise guards the threshold, carrying ancestral memory and protection. Palm grass extends breath beyond the body, reminding us that life continues both before and after form.
This piece is a devotion to Georgia O’Keeffe not as icon, but as woman. A woman who lived as she wished, loved as she chose, and refused to conform to the expectations placed upon her body, her relationships, or her creative life.
A Life of Her Own carries a quiet truth: resistance does not always look like confrontation. Sometimes it looks like choosing one’s life fully. Tending integrity. Refusing to abandon oneself. Continuing to create, love, and live honestly in a world that prefers compliance.
This piece honors sustainable resistance, the kind that is rooted in the body, shaped by care, and capable of enduring.
May it remind you that your life, as you live it, is part of the resistance.
The days leading into this February have been heavy.
I am writing to you from a country in rupture.
I don’t have tidy words today. I have honest ones.
What we are witnessing right now is not abstract. Harm is happening in real time. Innocent people are being hunted, families are being torn apart, and fear is being used as a tool of control. Many of us are carrying grief, rage, numbness, and exhaustion all at once. I want to say clearly: I will not pretend this is business as usual.
I also refuse to believe that despair is the end of the story.
What has been coming into sharp focus for me is the question of sustainable resistance. If we are to resist what is happening, we must build lives and bodies capable of maintaining. This is not a short road. And the systems we are witnessing unravel are deeply woven into institutions, culture, and into our own internal landscapes.
Resistance, in these times, is not only about what we oppose. It is about how we choose to live moving forward.
As the tapestry uncoils, the threads of supremacy become more visible. Everywhere. Meeting this moment will require long-term vision, not just urgency. It will ask us to create containers strong enough to hold grief, clarity, courage, and care all at once.
Part of that container is getting honest about alignment:
Who we surround ourselves with.
Where our money goes.
How we spend our time and attention.
Sustainable resistance asks us to know our values, what we protect, not just what we fight against. It asks us to know our capacity, what we can offer without self-erasure. And it asks us to build practices that regulate, replenish, and ground us so we do not replicate the violence we are resisting.
I want to name something clearly: activism will not look the same for everyone.
Some will march and protest.
Some will form lines of protection.
Some will write, call, and organize locally.
Some will do community-based care and mutual aid.
Some will donate and redistribute resources.
Some will become bolder in their art and truth-telling.
Some will expand who they know and love.
Some will do the deep internal work of dismantling racism and inherited prejudice.
Some will speak up in small, risky moments.
Some will refuse silence.
All of this is activism. All of it is needed.
We do not need sameness. We need diversity. Movements require roots, seeds, protectors, storytellers, healers, and bridge-builders. There is no hierarchy here. What matters is integrity and consistency.
I invite you to ask yourself:
What is one way this month that I can resist with integrity without abandoning myself?
Small, sustained acts, chosen with care, are how we stay human in inhumane systems.
Much love to you and your spirit,
Sara
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