waiting, Monotype of the Day #311

Hospital print day 3

Today I’m thinking about how we choose to spend the in between times in life. So much time is spent waitiing, it would be tragic to waste it all. By thinking of something as a waiting period, an artificial boundary is formed that stops energy from flowing. A lot can happen while waiting if we are open, connections can form, ideas can be received, we can feel love. Often I use waiting times to meditate. I especially love to meditate at the doctor’s. Here in the hospital, however, where it is almost entirely waiting time, and when I’m not 100%, it’s difficult to do. Instead, I’m trying to stay open to whatever happens and receive all the love that has been flowing my way, and there has been so much. I am truly grateful.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window

supported, Monotype of the Day #310

Late night tonight! Hospital time requires patience. 😊 I may have overworked this print. Knowing when to stop is the trickiest part of making art for me. When I’m at home and really listening it’s easy to tell. But the moment my mind starts to run, I lose the sense of my body and that’s how the direction comes through. Here it’s more challenging to stay present especially when it gets to be this late at night. Still, it’s such a blessing to be able to continue my work. I remind myself that my job is not to judge myself or my work, but just to work and have faith in the transformational nature of the creative process.

You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins behind you.

Blessed ones, whole ones,
you where the heart begins:
You are the bow that shoots the arrows
and you are the target.

Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back
into the earth;
for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.

The trees you planted in childhood have grown
too heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

I'm Listening, Monotype of the Day #308

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I haven’t been feeling my best this week, but there are uses for adversity. This poem really speaks to me today.

The Real Work
by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

meditation: the embrace, Monotype of the Day #307

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I had an intense experience today in meditation but it's too late for commentary, my body is demanding sleep! I will let this image speak for itself and, instead, leave you with another amazing Dogen poem.

The moon reflected
In a mind clear
As still water:
Even the waves, breaking,
Are reflecting its light.

by Dogen (13th century, zen monk)

xo

meditation I, Monotype of the Day #306

I recently realized that in order to get where I want to go artistically, I need to up my meditation game. My art practice is about letting the flow of creativity stream through. I need to make more internal space for that to happen. It's a happy goal, and already bearing fruit in my everyday life. I'm shrinking my head and growing my heart. Art and meditation have so much is common. Like art, meditation requires bravery to confront the feelings that come up while practicing. I've always been convinced this is the reason so many artists have been heavy drinkers and generally debauched. It's is because the meditative quality of making art creates space for those painful past moments we run from in daily life to surface. Art helps process and heal these moments just as meditation can, but only if they are held close and felt. If an artist has the courage to do this, making the work will be transformative for them. The energy of the artist's transformation and healing will be captured in the art and passed on to viewers.

My favorite poem about the potential of the meditative state by Zen monk Dogen from the 13th century:

Midnight.
No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

by Dogen

xoxo

wait a minute, Monotype of the Day #305

The past few days, I've had an idea pop into my head before I began to work. I consider these moments messages to follow. Tonight though, I wanted my hands to drive not my head. Hands have their own kind of intelligence and insight and in art the body is your partner. Yes I know there is conceptual art where, in some cases, the artist never actually touches their own piece. But this doesn't really interest me. I'm searching for the heart of our humanity, the precious beat that makes us who we are. The body is our inescapable partner in this so I make sure to regularly give it a voice and to listen. This is what she had to say today... Update: Listening to this print has given me my inspiration for tomorrow.
xo

the artist's hand, Monotype of the Day #303

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I felt the circling birds in last night's print were too tight. They nagged at me all day wanting to be looser. They wanted to leave more space to be filled so I did my best to listen. A poem tonight by Thomas Merton.

In Silence
by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves. “I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

circling, Monotype of the Day #302

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When I was feeling really well a few weeks back, I had a glimpse of my old life where I could go out and do what I wanted. It was wonderful and now as I slip back a bit toward my usual state I am so grateful for that experience. It showed me how the mind gets conditioned and stuck in habits. How easy it is rest and then become accustomed to resting without even considering other possibilities. The body has limits, but it's so important not to add to them with limits from the mind. My art provides so much adventure, so much engagement in my life that I rarely feel my limits keenly. But one of the messages of the past few months is to widen my mind and let go of the ruts. There is so much that is possible if we don't dwell on what is not. Today a poem from Rilke ❤️

I live my life in widening circles
by Rainer Maria Rilke, Trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

seeds, Monotype of the Day #301

The Seeds
by Wendell Berry

The seeds begin abstract as their species,
remote as the name on the sack
they are carried home in: Fayette Seed Company
Corner of Vine and Rose. But the sower
going forth to sow sets foot
into time to come, the seeds falling
on his own place. He has prepared a way
for his life to come to him, if it will.
Like a tree, he has given roots
to the earth and stands free.

xo

nightscape 2, Monotype of the Day #300

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Day 300! I'm feeling very happy, accomplished and excited to keep going! I'm somewhat surprised at myself in a good way, my meditation work on loving kindness must be paying off. It is a delight to be able to see the accomplishment instead of all the negatives my brain used to spin out. Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun I have followed for many years, has this to say: "The first step is developing an unconditional friendship with yourself. Unconditional friendship means staying open when you want to shut down, when it is just too painful, too embarrassing, too unpleasant what you see in yourself." I've really been working with this concept. I've seen what kindness can do to a rescued dog and how much love that dog is now able to give to the world. I wonder if we gave the same level of kindness and love to ourselves how that would pour back to the people we love? It's a worthy goal.

More from Pema: https://noaimiloa.livejournal.com/6121.html

xo

nightscape, Monotype of the Day #299

I can't believe tomorrow is day 300! See you then! Another Rumi tonight:

There's a path from me to you
I'm constantly looking for,
so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.
by Rumi, Translation Barks and Moyne

xo

Untitled, Monotype of the Day #298

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Suggestions for a title? My brain is on strike...

Poem by Rumi, translations Barks and Moyne.
From Unseen Rain

This piece of food can not be eaten,
nor this bit of wisdom found by looking.
There is a secret core in everyone
not even Gabriel can know by trying to know.

The Hand, Monotype of the Day #297

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Exploring something different tonight. Trying out some new techniques which had unintended results. I like the adventure of this process. Thanks!

This work is paired with "A Hand" by Jane Hirshfield

Read it here: https://poets.org/poem/hand xo

From Given Sugar, Given Salt