Michael Leunig and All Relationship Matters
We are absolutely delighted that Mr Michael Leunig has generously and kindly permitted All Relationship Matters to use his work to promote physical, emotional and mental health. Thank you Michael!
We at ARM are moved by his work. Michael’s work captures our human condition, evocatively, clearly and relationally. It does so with kindness, warmth, courage, forgiveness and hope. And most importantly, love. We are honoured to share this with you and hope you enjoy them as much we do.
Michael Leunig is a declared national living treasure. He is an Australian cartoonist, writer, painter, philosopher and poet. His commentary on political, cultural and emotional life spans more than forty years and has often explored the idea of an innocent and sacred personal world. The fragile ecosystem of human nature and its relationship to the wider natural world is a related and recurrent theme. His newspaper work appears regularly in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Michael favourite quote is by the influential child psychologist Donald Winnicott, who said artists are torn by an ‘inherent dilemma’. They have, Winnicott said, an ‘urgent need to communicate and the still more urgent need not to be found’. Michael can capture a sigh, a thought and put it down in ink and paper. Through his artwork, his insight into all aspects of our human condition is brilliant, honest and therapeutic. He thinks with his mind. And he thinks with his heart. His work is both simple and serious, wistful and provocative. He describes his approach as regressive, humorous, messy, mystical, primal and vaudevillian - producing work which is open to many interpretations and has been widely adapted in education, music, theatre, spiritual life and psychotherapy.
On the meaning of life, Michael says,’ know yourself, feel yourself, heal yourself, grow yourself, be yourself, express yourself’. His favourite word is ‘hello’. He says ‘change is the only constant.” “I have changed, my work has changed and my audiences have changed,” he said. “Some of us have gotten wiser, whereas some have gone in the other direction and we will all continue to change, for better and for worse.” One of Michael’s poems…..
There are only two feelings.
Love and fear.
There are only two languages.
Love and fear.
There are only two activities.
Love and fear.
There are only two motives,
two procedures, two frameworks,
two results.
Love and fear.
Love and fear.
Thank you Michael for sharing your wisdom and work with us. Read more about Michael Leunig.
We will be using some of Michael’s cartoons from time to time to illustrate aspects of the human condition and introduce insights about how psychology can help improve emotional and mental health. Meanwhile here are our few favourites:
Living can sometimes be hard. For a while, let us be your therapeutic companion, like the duck.
Do you have holes in your path? We are trained in hole gazing and mending.
Definition of ‘understand’ – to perceive the meaning, significance, explanation or cause of (words, a language, or a speaker). We do. And we ‘get you’.
Sensitivity, pain, growth and dirt…all part of the human condition.
Connecting couples. We know how.
Families. What glues us?
Broken hearts, broken dreams require tendering.
Lonely is painful. We can make tea and we care.
