Waking this morning, I smile.
Waking this morning, I smile. Twenty-four precious new hours are before me.
Each morning, for about a year, I recited a list of koans, gathas, slogans, and poetry I had memorized. The above phrases are an example of a gatha — a daily, hourly, or momentary touchpoint that can be written down somewhere or memorized. This one is from Thich Nhat Hanh’s list of 44 gathas. Once such phrases had a resonance in my daily life, I began recording the reflections and insights that emerged. They have become a jumping-off point for this blog that will also include some bits of wisdom, inspiration, and humour that spontaneously emerge out of the depths of wherever those things come from. I’m not necessarily wise, inspiring, or funny but those moments happen in the midst of life, practice, and study. Perhaps often enough to populate this 52-week series of posts.
As I am both an artist and a writer, any stories naturally have visual counterparts. The photos in these blog posts began as both source material for painting and as promotional material for the May 2019 group exhibition I curated, Respect for Earth. They are of simple everyday happenings, usually in nature, that either made me smile or struck me with awe while I was out walking. The photos have an emotive quality that speaks to our true nature. This is true (I hope) of the poems I include as well.
That year of introspection, reflection, and insight also ended up being about my mother and mothers’ love. It may have actually become the main resolution of grief in my life. My mother died when I was a toddler. I know from her letters that she wanted nothing more than to have children. My sister and I were her heart and beloved. Now, remarkably, I feel swaddled in the love of a primal mother and Life itself is experienced as exuding love. I feel what my mother’s love for me was like because this love is the nature of existence. This emerged in the painting Fawn and Doe at Dawn — despite the looming red dawn, that essence is between the two deer.
The problematic term, Beloved, emerged as a touchstone for this time period and the premise of writing these entries. The term is problematic because for one thing it creates a duality: one who is beloved and another who loves. This is at odds with the singularity of Emptiness. As I explore and understand it, this Buddhist quagmire — which it becomes as we try to explain it — is like the whole universe in its trajectory of entropy in many manifestations and yet as all one. Ram Dass and Rumi called it Beloved. I tried alternate working catch-alls for these writings like All Things and Seasons. Then each time I ran through an edit of the whole of them, I reverted to Beloved. Because, my experience with these practices has been one of greater intimacy with life. Nature and people seem more alive, more precious, more fragile, and the suffering in the world more intense. In the space of Loving Awareness, all that’s left is a tender heart and a vow to help. It is all beloved interaction.
The second reason to not use this title is it would be disrespectful to an iconic and important novel: Beloved. Especially given the relative privilege on which my creativity, practice, and life experiences are founded. It would counter the gratitude I feel for the many advantages life has had in store for me. And it would feel like a theft from the many people and cultures from whom so much has already been stolen. Although in the end, the premise seems even more true to me — we are simultaneously lover and beloved — I went in a different direction and settled on A Brief Dance of Light to summarize this series. That was my mother’s life; is all of our lives.
This blog is a process of unfolding. For me, writing about things is a way of sorting them out and letting them express themselves so I understand them better. I hope that unfolding resonates with anyone who chooses this blog to accompany them and that they find some truth within.
