A Sterner Sense of Justice

 “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

--Wendell Berry

 

Happy Easter

Making a Mark

“I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark. You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better to just enjoy it.”

--Dorian Corey

Children Need Release

Am I allowed to take up space? Am I allowed to ask for your attention? Am I welcome here? May I relax and put my attention to other things? 

Perilous Dark Path

"We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers. Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are here for. But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn't usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer."

---Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

Wishes

 "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets." 

 - Scottish Proverb 

To Mistake the Footprints for the Animal Itself

"The great curse of fundamentalism, which appears in virtually all religions and ideologies, is to mistake the footprints for the animal itself. The instant a scripture or a doctrine or a dogma becomes more than an indication, and in practice becomes an inflexible external standard, the real problems of religion appear. Fundamentalism... becomes intolerant in its circular reasoning, imprisoned behind its protective barricades, fearful of sincere questioning and honest doubt, and finally abusive and even murderous."

--Addison Hodges Hart, The Ox-Herder and the Good Shepherd: Finding Christ on the Buddha's Path 

The Power of Awareness

 "What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative alternatives to the conundrums of modernity is in direct proportion to our empathy."
 - Terry Tempest Williams

Practice, Practice, Practice

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." 

- Kurt Vonnegut

River Stones

 

Watercolor Play

The Older I Get, the More I Want to Disappear

 "You know, it is good to hide your brilliance under a bushel, to be anonymous, to love what you are doing and not to show off. It is good to be kind without a name. That does not make you famous, it does not cause your photograph to appear in the newspapers. Politicians do not come to your door. You are just a creative human being living anonymously, and in that there is richness and great beauty."

 - Jiddu Krishnamurti

 Admittedly I don't want to disappear entirely, or this blog wouldn't exist. But increasingly the point of blogging is a conversation with myself and anyone else who happens along, rather than being found and known, critiqued or quoted, by many readers.

Art Meditation

 When I make art, especially when I am "just doodling," peace infuses me. I cherish the flow state. I remind myself that my journal is a playground, that I get to experiment, that crappy art is permitted, because it's the process I'm looking to engage with, not the product. I do enjoy when art I make is appealing to me or others, and yet my mental and spiritual health require this daily practice of flow, which is easiest to enter when all is permitted and nothing is judged. 

More Art

 This piece is one I began last September at an art camp. And tonight, it's complete. It's acrylic on paper, 10" x 14".

 

A Little Art

Completed a painting I began a couple years ago. Then I re-worked another painting from eight years ago. Spent the whole of Sunday making art, and it felt wonderful.

Belly Rubs

 Watching this video of a baby sugar glider getting massaged, I feel at peace.

 

Oh, to Bee a Flower

One Book, Many Books

 "And then, when she's finished and the book ventures out into the world, the readers take their turn, and here another kind of comingling occurs. Because the reader is not a passive receptacle for a book's content. Not at all. You are our collaborators, our conspirators, breathing new life into us. And because every reader is unique, each of you makes each of us mean differently, regardless of what's written on our pages. Thus, one book, when read by different readers, becomes different books, becomes an ever-changing array of books that flows through human consciousness like a wave. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their own destinies."

                --Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness

The Middle Ring

"Families teach us love, and tribes teach us loyalty. The village teaches us tolerance."

"Home-based, phone-based culture has arguably solidified our closest and most distant connections, the inner ring of family and best friends (bound by blood and intimacy) and the outer ring of tribe (linked by shared affinities). But it’s wreaking havoc on the middle ring of “familiar but not intimate” relationships with the people who live around us, which Dunkelman calls the village. “These are your neighbors, the people in your town,” he said. We used to know them well; now we don’t.

Imagine that a local parent disagrees with you about affirmative action at a PTA meeting. Online, you might write him off as a political opponent who deserves your scorn. But in a school gym full of neighbors, you bite your tongue. As the year rolls on, you discover that your daughters are in the same dance class. At pickup, you swap stories about caring for aging relatives. Although your differences don’t disappear, they’re folded into a peaceful coexistence. And when the two of you sign up for a committee to draft a diversity statement for the school, you find that you can accommodate each other’s opposing views. “It’s politically moderating to meet thoughtful people in the real world who disagree with you,” Dunkelman said."

-Derek Thompson, The Anti-Social Century

The Anti-Social Century

"When Epley and his lab asked Chicagoans to overcome their preference for solitude and talk with strangers on a train, the experiment probably didn’t change anyone’s life. All it did was marginally improve the experience of one 15-minute block of time. But life is just a long set of 15-minute blocks, one after another. The way we spend our minutes is the way we spend our decades. “No amount of research that I’ve done has changed my life more than this,” Epley told me. “It’s not that I’m never lonely. It’s that my moment-to-moment experience of life is better, because I’ve learned to take the dead space of life and make friends in it."

-Derek Thompson, The Anti-Social Century (gift link)