I talk a lot about mindfulness—being in the moment—present. When I can get there it’s exhilarating.
This morning I asked my husband what he’d learned about being more present and he shared Jon Kabat-Zinn’s profound and simple thought:
“The best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.”
Wow—By being aware of what is going on with you--not fighting your current experience but understanding what you are experiencing…not jumping ahead, pushing it down, judging it…you can get to a place of just letting it unfold and truly having faith that the moment is as it should be. I love that image.
It’s a struggle for me in general.
But when I paint, I am all in.
And my best art is when I am deeply--wholeheartedly--in the moment. I don’t judge my work. I act before I can even think. It is a flow. And it’s why I got up at 5:30 this morning to finish this painting. While I painted Wholehearted, I felt overwhelmingly joyful as I responded to the colors, shapes materials—I was on auto pilot in full intuition. Nirvana.
David Whyte’s poem, Beauty, describes the dance of finding your presence.
It begins:
“The harvest of presence, the evanescent moment of seeing or hearing on the outside what already lives far inside us; the eyes, the ears or the imagination suddenly become a bridge between the here and the there, between then and now, between inside and the outside, beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside us…”
Ah! Finding the presence becomes the “present”—the beautiful gift. The magic that allows me to create work that marries my past and present.
So there is the secret that David Whyte and Jon Kabat-Zinn speak of—by letting yourself experience what is in front of you without a need to alter it—to actually know where you are in the world at this time—by engaging your awareness, you make room for beauty.
And so as we begin our holiday weekend and transition to a new season, I wish you the most beauty-filled days~whatever treasures and trials may come your way. Namaste.
This morning I asked my husband what he’d learned about being more present and he shared Jon Kabat-Zinn’s profound and simple thought:
“The best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.”
Wow—By being aware of what is going on with you--not fighting your current experience but understanding what you are experiencing…not jumping ahead, pushing it down, judging it…you can get to a place of just letting it unfold and truly having faith that the moment is as it should be. I love that image.
It’s a struggle for me in general.
But when I paint, I am all in.
And my best art is when I am deeply--wholeheartedly--in the moment. I don’t judge my work. I act before I can even think. It is a flow. And it’s why I got up at 5:30 this morning to finish this painting. While I painted Wholehearted, I felt overwhelmingly joyful as I responded to the colors, shapes materials—I was on auto pilot in full intuition. Nirvana.
David Whyte’s poem, Beauty, describes the dance of finding your presence.
It begins:
“The harvest of presence, the evanescent moment of seeing or hearing on the outside what already lives far inside us; the eyes, the ears or the imagination suddenly become a bridge between the here and the there, between then and now, between inside and the outside, beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside us…”
Ah! Finding the presence becomes the “present”—the beautiful gift. The magic that allows me to create work that marries my past and present.
So there is the secret that David Whyte and Jon Kabat-Zinn speak of—by letting yourself experience what is in front of you without a need to alter it—to actually know where you are in the world at this time—by engaging your awareness, you make room for beauty.
And so as we begin our holiday weekend and transition to a new season, I wish you the most beauty-filled days~whatever treasures and trials may come your way. Namaste.
