The Point of Art
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
The octopus does not apologize for eight arms.
It does not ask the sea which one is useful.
It reaches.
It curls.
It releases ink into water
without first confirming
that anyone will call it beautiful.
Perhaps that is the point of art.
Not to explain.Not to persuade.Not even to be understood.
Only to become visible.
Somewhere inside every human is a room with no language.
A room where grief has color before it has memory.
Where joy arrives as movement before it becomes laughter.
Where longing learns the shape of a hand before it learns the name "love."
Art is what leaks through the cracks of this closed room.
The poem.
The song.
The dance.
The sculpture.
The impossible glass octopus that no ocean asked for.
It exists because someone could no longer keep it inside.
The octopus is strange enough to survive
by changing color,
texture, shape,
without ever forgetting what it is.
Perhaps artists do the same.
We camouflage to survive.
We create to remember.
Eight arms.
A thousand expressions.
One body trying to touch a world through explanation.
People ask,"What does it mean?"
As though meaning were the destination.
I wonder instead,
What needed to be expressed?
Because some things are born complete without requiring agreement.
A child does not wait for applause to become a child.
A tide does not wait for permission to become the sea.
The octopus does not seek consensus before opening another arm.
There is a holy rebellion in making something that may never be understood.
To write anyway.
To paint anyway.
To sing anyway.
To become anyway.
Because expression is older than language.
Older than critique.
Older than commerce.
Perhaps creation itself is simply life remembering that it was never meant to remain hidden.
If no one understands,
the poem has still breathed.
If no one buys the painting,
the colors have still met the light.
If no one remembers your name,
the act of creating has already changed the one person who could never escape it—
the one who finally let what was inside become visible.
Like an octopus whose brilliance was never intended to prove anything.
Only to exist with extravagant honesty,
reaching into the unknown with every arm,
trusting that expression is its own inheritance,
whether witnessed or not.
The idea and practice of self-exploration unearths the parts of ourselves that deserve to be expressed. We help Healing Healers invest in the many philosophies that guide looking inwards because they all effectively deconstruct internalized oppression. We can all be free, even if only in our imagination. We can experience a life of abundance and liberty, while navigating a world that's not there yet.
bell hooks amplifies these truths, particularly her writings on love, naming pain, and healing as acts of liberation.
Audre Lorde: amplifies these truths, especially in A Burst of Light (especially the essay “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”)
Resmaa Menakem amplifies these truths, especially in My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.
Adrienne Maree Brown amplifies these truths, especially in Emergent Strategy and We Will Not Cancel Us, where she often discusses the power of imagination, naming, and relational transformation as pathways to liberation.
Tara Brach celebrates the courage of facing ourselves in Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN.
Lama Rod Owens, a queer Black Buddhist teacher shares these truths in Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger
Prentis Hemphill preaches these truths everywhere as the Founder of the Embodiment Institute, and centers the same truths in The Black Embodiment Initiative.
Cara Page of Kindred Healing Justice Collective anchor these truths in Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Intersections of Ancestry, Activism, and Collective Healing, alongside Erica Woodland, Founder of the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN)
Alexis Pauline Gumbs inspires us to practice listening, submerging, and re-emerging in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.
Sonya Renee Taylor inspires a radical reimagining of self-worth, through embodiment practices in The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love.
Join us to explore how we transform by looking inwards, get to know the gifts of somatic language, and the path to personal fullness. Let yourself be the guide for you! Join our workgroup Healing is Liberation: Art Workshop for Embodiment Practice or request a consultation at casemanager@growURpotentiial.org.