Joy with Ramifications

An enjoyable half-hour in Jim and Val's garden led to another enjoyable hour at home, drawing what I saw from photos I had taken.

Then another lovely half-hour making copies of the drawing into cards for friends. 

Still another joy in posting the drawing here and writing about the whole experience. 

One mindful moment leads to another. 

November 15, 2015: That Moment of Happy Connection

Yesterday I was sketching one of my favorite sculptures of the 2015 River City Sculptures on Parade. It’s called “Gossip,” and it was created by Shohini Ghosh, from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. She wrote this about the sculpture: “The inspiration for this piece is the therapeutic benefits felt by women when they get together and discuss life. This depicts ‘that’ moment of happy connection women share.”

While I stood there drawing, two women came up and struck up a conversation. We soon discovered we are all named “Sue,” which made us laugh. We laughed again after one of the ladies told a story on herself about an embarrassing incident from years ago.

When I was finishing this drawing at home, the serendipitous chat with the two other “Sue’s” still echoed warmly in my ears. I thought about the way our circle of three had indeed experienced “‘that’ moment of happy connection.” Life had imitated art. I think the sculptor would be pleased. I certainly was. 

May 5, 2015: Sat Cit Ananda

Sanskrit for "Being, Awareness, Bliss," Sat Cit (pronounced Chit) Ananda can be a powerful daily mantra for meditation practice. Here's what Thomas Moore has to say about this phrase in A Religion of One's Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World: "Being is accepting your situation as it is and sensing your individuality....Awareness is 'being conscious'....Bliss is the special pleasure you find when you live from the center of your life, when you are in tune with your fate, and when you have an opening in your mind and heart to the source of life, acting in accord with the deep laws of your nature. This is ananda -- joy, bliss, or deep pleasure" (pp. 267-268).

Which must be the same well from which Walt Whitman wrote those lines from "Song of the Open Road": "Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune." 

Our fortune -- our bliss -- is within. Sat Cit Ananda.

12/12/14 The Purpose of Winter

Maybe the whole purpose of winter is to help us appreciate color whenever it does appear. Thank you red, thank you blue. 

October 16, 2014: Thank you for October

"I'm glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."
--L.M. Montgomery, 
Anne of Green Gables

"Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile." 
--William Cullen Bryant


What a lovely time I had with Linda that day, sitting, chatting, and painting by this flower garden across from Stella's along Melrose. 

Thank you, pal! 

Let the Dog Find You

“Back to the woods,” songwriter Greg Brown writes in “Eugene” about a road trip he takes to the Northwest. “A dog is bound to find me sooner or/Later. Sometimes you gotta not look too hard – just let the/Dog find you.” Yet earlier in the song he writes, “Sometimes you have to go/Look for your life.” 

Yes, life is such a dance, isn’t it – of knowing when to look….but also knowing when to just relax and let the dog do the work of finding us.

 

Love is Strange

Drawing this sculpture made me really appreciate the way it fits so well into the treescape around it.