Dreamscape Jewelry Design

October 20, 2019: The Power of Connections

“I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village.” – Gina Bellman

We’ve had two New Hampshire weekend shows in a row, using the time between for creating, restocking and driving the long, three hundred mile trip back and forth between our home in New Hampshire and our northern studio. in Maine.  Before a show, I’m filled with both anticipation and anxiety, simultaneously looking forward to it, but also wondering and worrying how it will go. As always, after a show, we discuss our day, reviewing the challenges, triumphs and most importantly the connections we have made with the people we’ve encountered, from fellow artists to our customers..  

One of our traditions at the end of a show, is to share who our favorite customers were.  I’ve written before how it has nothing to do whether or not they purchased anything, it’s about who did we feel the deepest connection with.  The connection can be one that elicited the most emotion, from laughter all the way to tears.  Or it can be a shared experiences, interests or history.  The work of setting up and participating in shows can be both grueling and exhausting, but the connections we make provide the joyful energy that inspires us to keep on this path as jewelry artists.

In a time when daily, news from within our country and around the world pounds out disturbing reports about the strife in humanity I look for the positive examples of how people do care and the importance of compassion.understanding and tolerance. By listening to each other’s stories, the fragile threads we initiate with each other can become a strong and secure testimony to the power of community.

These last two weekends have once again yielded a treasure trove of “stories” we’ll cherish in the days ahead. In reflection, I realize how each of these connections , even from a fleeting one to a long term one, is a thread enriching the fabric of our lives, 

While writing this piece, I searched for some inspiring quotes that illustrated the importance of connections and found these that particularly resonated in my heart and mind.

“I am a part of all that I have met.” – Lord Tennyson 

“Your connections to all the things around you literally define who you are.” – Aaron D. O’Connell

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” – William James 

“I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect.” –  David Suzuki

“We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe. Therefore, everything one does as an individual affects the whole. All thoughts, words, images, prayers, blessings, and deeds are listened to by all that is. “ Serge King

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King Jr

“When we establish human connections within the context of shared experience we create community wherever we go.” ― Gina Greenlee

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. – Anais Nin

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” Herman Melville

 Which one is your favorite and speaks to you? Do you have any other quotes about the power of human connection……we’d love to see them.