Well, here I am, teaching Brush painting to adults…..over 3,000 at this point and most everyone that I’ve taught toils all week in left brain activity. Don’t we desperately need some way of escape, some glimmer of respite from the slavery many of us find ourselves in? However, learning a right brain activity can bring a lot of detritus to the surface. Feelings of inadequacy and dread, the general state of fear that overtakes us like one of the horses of the apocalypse.
Eureka, it suddenly occurred to me why Asian art seems to draw so many people (including myself) when in actuality, many times it isn’t beautiful in the western sense. Rather, it can be disturbing until we understand what we’re looking at. In the East there’s no perspective, no light source and everything is a metaphor - but of what?
Of retreat or rather withdrawal from society and all the elements in the paintings serve to take one on a journey irrespective of time and space. A journey of the imagination if you will where all the cares and daily struggles are set aside if even for a few moments. In a spiritual sense, it can serve to re-connect us with our Creator. So that is what I wish for you. A day, perhaps just a few hours of quiet….no cell phones, no laptop…just quiet…listening to the sounds of life….smelling the fragrance of creation…..observing the minute details in a flower. Perhaps a butterfly will alight upon you.
This I promise, if you can truly surrender and trust that you have been created for a great and glorious purpose that only you can fulfill, you’ll find that all the answers you’ll ever need are already waiting for you at each step along the way. This huge Loquat tree was planted from one seed…...
And now the birds not only find shelter in it but nourishment as well.
You are wondrously made and your assignment is to go out and find your joy!
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