There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes
You could say I wasn't having a good day. Without going into detail, I had messed things up, and was suffering the consequences. Feeling very anxious and "out of sorts", I headed down to the creek with my camera. Looking around, I saw the same landscape I had photographed a thousand times before. Nothing new or interesting immediately presented itself, and I wondered why I had even bothered to walk down the steep hill from the cabins above. It was hot, and about as humid as a steam bath. I stood for several minutes, watching my dogs swim across the creek and run around the edge of the island.
At some point, I noticed the sound of the moving water, and started to relax a bit. The more I listened and looked, the better I felt, the presence of the creek beginning to soothe me as it always had. Nothing to take pictures of, I thought, but at least I can sit here and meditate. Suddenly the appearance of one of the dogs on the other side of the creek drew my attention, and as I gazed across the water, I was suddenly struck by the bright, almost neon green color of reflected vegetation on the water's surface.
It rippled and shone, in dazzling patterns, lines, and swirls as the reflections were animated by the movement of the water and the changing light. Mesmerized by the dance of light across the surface of the creek, I turned on the camera and began to focus on what looked to me like a magical, ever-changing abstract painting.
The patterns of shapes and lines were most dramatic where the creek rushed around a large rock. The closer I looked, the more I saw it not as water, but as shapes and colors.
The effect was hypnotic. In some ways, when I zoomed in closely, it didn't look real.
These photos are strait out of camera, and haven't been altered in any way.
Each image drew me further and further in, until I lost myself completely in the colored shapes and lines.
Water, light, and color can do some pretty amazing things together.
Things that we often take for granted, or don't even notice.
Further down the creek, I noticed this.
I'm glad I noticed. In the words of Mary Oliver:
Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The lovely Tammie Lee of Beauty Flows is hosting this week's drawing challenge, Prayer/ Meditation/ Still Point. As soon as I heard what the theme was, I knew I was in; much of my art revolves around these concepts, so it was right up my alley, as they say.
While I worked on this piece, I asked myself what "indestructible truth" actually means to me in relation to the theme of the drawing challenge. When I come right down to it, the only indestructible truth I know, that I feel sure of in my heart and soul, is that everything in the universe is connected to every other thing. Every human being, every blade of grass, every rock, every animal, every tree. When one thing is affected, it can have far-reaching consequences; this is known as, "the butterfly effect". Here's how Wikipedia describes it: "In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state." I prefer to meditate/pray while outdoors in nature; that "still point "is the moment I feel that connection, or 'become one with everything'. The experience cannot adequately be described in words.
This reminds me of a joke (and who doesn't love a good Buddhist joke, right?) A Buddhist walks into a vegetarian restaurant to order a veggie burger. The server asks, "What will you have?" The Buddhist replies, "Make me one with everything." (Sorry, I can hear the collective groan, but I just couldn't resist.)
Notes on technique/strategies:
Going back two posts ago, I wrote about strategies for pushing your art to another level. I incorporated a couple of them here, one being the "throw out your first ten ideas"idea. I really didn't keep count, but I threw out a lot of them, because I've developed habits of doing the same things over and over, and I felt the work was getting stale. I also limited my materials, in that I decided not to include any representational objects, unless they were real, such as the flower and the feather. Then, just to make it even more frustrating, I tried to limit the amount of compositional elements, because I've been feeling like my compositions were too busy. That required a great deal of restraint on my part; I just had to keep asking myself, "Will this improve the piece, or not?", and frequently the answer was "No!". As a result, I am happier with this piece than some of the others I've made lately.
Dont't forget to visit Beauty Flows for links to more posts on this drawing challenge!
In my last post, I kind of ranted and raved about my arch-nemesis,TIME. I'm sure most artists, especially those who, like me, work a full time day job, can relate.At this time of year, it's easy to start freaking out about not having enough time to get things done. I've gotten lots of empathy, which I truly do appreciate, and even an idea or two. The most intriguing one was to "command time", requiring "just a tiny change in thought." (Thanks, Cat!) Apparently, Cat has been reading up on her General Theory of Relativity, a la Einstein, who happens to be one of my personal heroes. Here's how he sums it up:
"People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between the past, the present, and the future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -Albert Einstein
Here are a few other thought on time that I thought I'd share with you. This one's pretty funny:
The line between science and mysticism sometimes grows thin. Today physicists would agree that time is one of the strangest properties of our universe. In fact, there is a story circulating among scientists of an immigrant to America who has lost his watch. He walks up to a man on a New York street and asks, "Please, Sir, what is time?" The scientist replies, "I'm sorry, you'll have to ask a philosopher. I'm just a physicist." Clifford Pickover, Nova Online
So, I thought I'd check out what philosophy has to say. Here's a bit about the Tibetan Buddhist perspective:
Kalachakra Mandala: The Wheel of Time
The word kalachakra means cycles of time, and the Kalachakra system presents three such cycles – external, internal and alternative. The external and internal cycles deal with time as we normally know it, while the alternative cycles are practices for gaining liberation from these two.
According to Buddhist thought, we humans discriminate between past, present and future, and we give them substance by attaching name and meaning to them. This everyday notion of time is not reality and is based on fundamental ignorance (or avidya). Unlike the Christian concept of time, time in Buddhism has no beginning and no end.In order to awaken to true reality, one must do as Hesse's Siddhartha did - i.e. eliminate the concept of time by realizing that it has no substance. This is how [one] attain[s] wisdom and enlightenment. -The Conscious Universe
* Try attending a trance dance, ecstatic dance or another movement class where there is no talking allowed in the space. Allow the music and movements of your body to take you outside space and time.
* Make a commitment to spiritual growth. The more you practice living in the present moment and loving yourself, the more you will experience pure moments of superconsciousness.
Spirit in Flight, by Laurel Julian
* Busy yourself doing something you love. Crafting, reading, painting, singing: Do anything artistic that you enjoy. If you are truly focused and love what you are doing, time and space with dissolve. You can even transcend time and space while doing household chores!Turn your creative outlets into a ritual. Set intentions for what you want while you are creating.
Wait a minute, wasn't that what this whole TIME thing was about in the first place- not having the TIME to do what I love? Is that ironic, or what? I guess I've come full circle here; it has been pretty cathartic in the end. I guess it's TIME to stop whining and get back to making art!
By the way, I'm pretty sure the part about household chores is a lie!;)
