Thoughts on Mindfulness

One of the beauties of mindfulness is that you don’t need to sign up for a class, buy special pants, or chunk out hours in your day. It can start by inviting yourself to be more aware, more present, and live with more intention. 

Mindfulness starts with awareness and choosing to focus and simplify. Despite our current tendencies for multitasking, the brain really only likes to be occupied with one thing at a time. 

Here is a focusing meditation that is super simple and easy to learn. Notice what comes up for you. Allow yourself to enjoy this state for as long as you like. This narrowing of focus while engaging the senses is extremely useful in creating periods of relaxed, focused concentration. It makes for a great walking meditation or game to play while waiting in a restaurant. 

Three, Two, One Meditation. 

 Begin by taking some deep breaths, eyes open or closed. 

 Focusing on three things that you can see while taking three deep breaths. This can mean either right before you if your eyes are open, patterns of light if your eyes are closed, or anything that you can see in your mind's eye. Feel free to use your imagination. If you're not a visual person, choose a different modality.

Next, become aware of 3 three sounds while taking 3 breaths - in the environment, in your body, or in your inner monologue. As you turn more inward, try to hear your breath or heartbeat. 

 Then, switch to three physical sensations with the 3 breaths. Often we begin by noticing what is uncomfortable - an itchy nose, an ache in the back. Bring your awareness to pleasant or simply neutral sensations - the weight of a shirt, a breeze on the cheek. 

 Now, repeat the same exercise, this time focusing only on: 

Two sights

Two sounds

Two sensations

 Last, go down to: 

One sight

One sound

One sensation

This is a wonderful practice, whether you are trying to fall asleep, concentrate on a task, or are bored driving while driving or in a meeting. :Youi'll notice feeling sharper, more relaxed, and completely present.

Sooner or Later

 

Sooner or Later

Sooner or later a person begins to notice that everything that happens to them is perfect, relates directly to who they are, had to happen, was meant to happen, plays its little role in fulfilling their destiny.

When they encounters difficulty, it no longer occurs to them to complain—they have learned to expect nothing, has learned that loss and frustration are a part of life, and come at their proper time—instead they asks themselves, why is this happening?… by which they means, what can I learn from this, how will it strengthen me, make me more aware? They let themselves be strengthened, lets themselves grow, just as they lets themself relax and enjoy (and grow) when life is gentle to them.

Strengthened by this simple notion, simple awareness, that life is perfect, that all things come at the proper moment and that they are always the perfect person for the situation they finds themself in, a person begins to feel more and more in tune with their inner nature, begins to find it easier and easier to do what they knows is right. All chance events appear to them to be intended; all intentional actions they clearly perceives as part of the workings of Chance.

Anxiety seldom troubles them; they knows their death will come at its proper moment; they know their actions are right and therefore whatever comes to pass as a result of them will be what was meant to happen. When they do feel anxiety, they realizes it is because of that thing they've been meaning to do but hasn’t been done, some unfulfilled relationship they've been aware of, but… They perceives the anxiety as a message that they'll have to stop hesitating if they wants to stay high… - Das Energie

It Took Me a Few Times

It Took Me a Few Times

To curl my tongue

Around your name

Encrypt

My minds script

Saying I meditate

Is like

saying I exercise

What form

How often

What does it bring you

We sorted

Plastic macro

Charismatic fauna

Into acrylic bins

I don't usually

Blurt out my story

But when I saw your

Pearlescent fingernail polish

I knew

I was safe

Thoughts on Beginner’s Mind

Thoughts on Beginner’s Mind

If the angel deigns to come it will be because you have convinced her not by tears. But by your humble resolve to be always beginning to be a beginner- Rainier Marie Rilke

Beginnings, successes, and failures. I chose to be a beginner when I signed up for the children's illustration class at Cabrillo College. I know my artistic talent needs to be developed so I enrolled in watercolor classes as well as online drawing classes. 

The online classes were complete flunk. I read the essays and watched the videos, but never did the homework. What a difference it makes being in an actual classroom with an actual teacher. I remember taking the nude portrait class at the Corcoran in Washington DC, my senior year of high school. We laughed as the model did a headstand and we had to draw his danger dangling straight down his belly. 

I felt so inept then, still do when confronted by some charcoal or pastels. I completely fail in realism, something my art lacks unless a photograph. My art feels childish more than cartoonish, immature rather than anime, and I comfort myself by saying at least it's mine. At least I'm willing to put it out there. 

Still my inner critics says it's no good, has no value, and in my dad's voice, it will never make any money. Maybe my art is primitive. It certainly is inconsistent. What is consistent is my pattern of doing something  a hundred times, then stopping, just like the batik silk scarves I made to earn money for the Global Walk.

Or the Herland crafts that I would make after hours -  stained glass boxes in the shape of pink and black triangles; decoupage cigar boxes lined in burgundy velvet repurposed from the thrift store; simply scanning objects and adding a pithy quote to create mugs, bookmarks posters. Magnets and more, who knew what you could do with a laminator and a pair of good scissors. 

Some sold and did make money but there was always a feeling of falseness. It wasn't real art, especially any collage work, using somebody else's images, cut from magazines and old calendars as opposed to just doing a google search and downloading an image. Although in this day and age of AI scrapings, whether mixing music or images, who’s to say what is art? 

These days I struggle with colored pencils, I’ve used up all the pastels, I muddy up the watercolors too often. I’m going back to painting with acrylic. Wonder if I do better with oils. We'll see after the next hundred little canvases bloom...

I choose to be a beginner. Not quite the perpetual student, but certainly willing to flip from medium to medium. Never mastering any modality fully, but least feel comfortable getting my hands dirty. The page and the coffee table now splattered as I spray liquid confetti from the ends of an old toothbrush across the page.