The Painting Lesson

                                                      

"Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways."

--Oscar Wilde        

 


The Intuitive painting class I took last month in Phoenix (see  6/2/15 post,  "Cycles of Creation") produced some interesting moments, resulted in meeting new friends, and captured my 
imagination for what might be possible in the year ahead pursuing a passion for abstract art. I've always learned best by listening and observing. My observations are naturally
very personal and reflect my own esthetic sensibilities, which could very well be
completely different from the artist's own interpretations. But that's what I like about abstract art, there's room for everyone's individual view. The people in my painting class were all teachers in their own way. I'm presenting their paintings today.Thank you everyone!

Melissa (Untitled)

Melissa
     I told Melissa (who by the way was a darling for helping me gather names and emails for this blog project...thank you, Melissa) that her painting reminded me of scenes from my recent trip to Costa Rica. I visited Lankaster Gardens and a small rainforest where the tangled abundance of nature, flowers and animals made a fairly indelible impression. I now tend to see images of colorful birds everywhere I look and could easily pick out a few in her work. I also thought her design was perfect for a fabulous silk scarf or some other killer accessory. I was drooling over her painting and the way it captured a restrained exoticism.

Joyce ("Canyon Ridge")

Joyce
      My photograph of Joyce and her wonderful painting does not do justice to the richness and depth of color and texture in her work. She predominantly used my favorite color (turquoise)  and I was smitten with the intricate layers of color upon color suggesting (to me) caves, caverns and ridges to explore in a midsummer's night dream.It was a painting that called out for many, many minutes of contemplation to explore the rich spaces and places leading to center. And how 'bout those drips? Nice!

Liz ("Hot Music" & "Purple Passion")

  Liz
     I was beset with momentary envy when I saw that Liz had managed to produce not one but two top notch paintings during our class, one warm, one cool. But envy subsided pretty quickly because Liz was way too charming, friendly and talented to be jealous of. I like the way she was able to manipulate shape and design elements while, as the watercolor people always say, 'saving her whites'... that's something I'm working hard on right now. Bravo, Liz!

Sandy ("Open Book")

Sandy
     Sandy's painting showed me how a painting can integrate soft and hard (edges bumped up to gauzy swirls), evoke the whisper of an idea (book), and create interest with one well placed and interestingly shaped swatch of color (ocher, lower left). For me...and this is just my take on it...this is a piece that provides a chance for me to learn by observing, exploring and analyzing the process of how a composition can emerge from a coherent inner vision. In other words, I love the sense of boundaried movement as well as the colors/white space in the piece.

Louis ("Fire And Ice")

 Louis
     Full disclosure here: Louis is my charming and talented husband who loves abstract art and has produced many  amazing pieces which grace our walls at home. He told me he really liked Stan's class  and though he wasn't sure what he was getting into, he ended up liking his painting a lot. Me too. I told him I saw a Georgia O'Keeffe influence, somebody else saw a volcano erupting. Interesting what we see as a result of our own unique experience and perspective. When we got home Louis got inspired all over again with Stan's other technique of 'doodling' pen and ink sketches into a small portable journal. Now Louis is looking at some of the Cubist painters as inspiration  for his daily journal keeping process.

Valerie (Untitled)

Valerie
     Valerie and I laughed when we realized the shot I took of her and her painting reflected almost perfectly Stan's style of painting 'head and torso' (take a look at his website and you'll see what I mean). Her painting was a complete delight to behold because it gave me another way to explore subjects like boundary versus infinity, color blocs, non-traditional focal points, opportunities with white gesso, creating fuzzy edges and more. For me, it evokes a sense of the sky opening up to a stained glass day of beauty and goodness...something about the perceived slants of light from top left, down. The sense of  'salvation' in this work  makes me feel really good...and isn't that what it all comes down to anyway, that old saw:  "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like?"

Suzanne

  Suzanne  (Untitled)

Suzanne was fearless, changing her painting at least three times during the course of the class, which lasted all day. I learned a lot by watching her obliterate a swath of purple, replacing it with a completely different hue that gave a whole different feel to the piece. I thought the Zentangle touch at the bottom of the painting was the piece de resistance, a great addition that provided interesting  and welcome contrast, giving perfect weight to the abstract top third of the piece. 

  
Me

Hmmmmmmm, where shall I begin? My painting started out as a John Marin abstract-inspired piece (see center focal point, the remnants of a pretty nice little forest scene), and ended up as a practice sheet for various techniques suggested by Stan. For example, the gray portions are where I tried out how he uses a special gray gesso he concocts. Ditto the black space. OK, tried it and think I need lots of practice going forward. Think I'll use less next time. Side element is pure black gesso, scrubbed with a large dry brush, then scraped with one of those copper brillo pad things from the kitchen. These machinations produced some interesting texture, with bits of my original forest peeking through. I keep thinking of the long pink and gray swath on the left side as some kind of floaty curtain effect. But then what do I know...in the end it could turn out to be just fruit juice dripping from the raspberry bushes hidden by a rectangular black cloud which is in reality only my black visor hat turned on its side. Ha! 

("On The Side" )


      Well, clearly this painting is one of those 'stay tuned' compositions which will turn into something one of these days that makes sense to me esthetically and emotionally, just not quite there yet.  Working on how to save the red and pink and green flower thing, lower right... this exercise in the imaginative recycling of a creation may turn out to be more fun than doing the original. In the next few weeks I'll revisit this, after I've finished another upcoming abstract workshop at the Sedona Arts Center.   

 Stan Kurth

      To our teacher, Stan Kurth  (stan.kurth@gmail.com),  I say thanks a million for the affordable, inviting and provocative painting workshop. Sharing his captivating approach to intuitive painting through informal conversation throughout the day and an after class analysis was entertaining, instructive and appreciated. Learning about his sketch journaling process was unexpected and very welcome information, something that's given me a whole new perspective on combining words and image. Love having this image of his painting to examine and learn from over the coming weeks.

Cycles Of Creation

 Stay hungry, stay foolish. 

--Steve Jobs, at Stanford University's 2005 graduation

Stan Kurth with his intuitive painting & me

                I heard about an intuitive painting class recently and decided to give it a try. Magic! I traveled downto Phoenix for the class, taught by an intriguing and talented artist named Stan Kurth (stan.kurth@gmail.com).  I learned a lot and  met some great people (whose fabulous paintings I'll share with you next week). After the daylong workshop, I was reminded of something Steve Jobs said about living the creative life. "Stay hungry, stay foolish," which I think is good advice not only for recent college graduates but for people like you and me, people looking to find ways to have a life more creative, alive and awake. It's at wisdom's edge, that nether place of eternal vigilance where the awakened people live (people like intuitive painters) and meet their muse. We're still hungry for creativity and foolish enough to go after it no matter what other people think.

The Creative Life

        Stan asked us to watch him as he dabbed helter skelter with a wax marker on a piece of heavy watercolor paper. He 'doodled' a bit, then with a house painter brush, he began splashing some watercolor paint hither and yon. Slap, dash, swoop, swirl. It looked pretty good by the time he decided to begin adding acrylic paint, after a suitable interlude to let the watercolor dry. He mixed sienna and ultramarine blue (hope I'm remembering this right) to come up with his special gray gesso which allowed him to create gauzy, evocative spaces in among the brighter primary areas he'd already laid down. He gave it a rest and I then set about trying to create my own version of what he'd done. I begin to feel a little frozen as I slogged through the sequential phases of laying down paint, apprehensive as I surveyed my work, evaluating and judging as I went along. Oh phooey, I thought, I'm making a mess. And I was. But it was a kind of divine mess that in the end gave me so much insight into myself and my creative process that it turned out to be a spectacular learning experience of how stark hunger and regal foolishness can take you a very long way towards wisdom's edge. What sort of person ("at my age?", I primly asked myself) does stuff like this? I do, I answered, I do this and gave a rousing Bronx cheer to myself.  

The beginning of The Enchanted Forest...

Frankly, I just can't bear the stifled ordinariness of a life in the safe middle of it all--protected, shielded, cosseted. I tried that and eventually started to lose that crucial understanding of why I was set here on earth in the first place. Namely, to give voice to the ineffable, to see through the obscurity, to contribute my small or large portion of enlightenment to help bring the world into balance. 
 Stan told me to live with the painting I'd started, watch it, listen to it over time and see what comes up. He didn't say it this way, but what he meant, I think, is to let that little seed I'd planted have some time to germinate, let it emerge through a cycle of creation as I tend to it with a little faith, respect and devotion. And then see what happens.

The evolution of The Enchanted Forest....

                  

          This intuitive painting workshop reminded me again that to not trust in the cycles of creation, to remain cloaked in a secure center, shielded from a yearning hunger for truth and the sacred foolishness that hovers just this side of wisdom, is a deadly way of life. That's all there is to it. The fat, soft and mushy middle tempts everyone to cling to the status quo, hiding treasured beliefs while denying our extraordinary perceptions. If your path is that of the creative spirit then get ready to camp out just far enough on the edge of it all so that you can stay hungry and insist on foolishness. Know yourself as that intrepid  observer, that wise fool who can't and won't ever betray the sacred trust for which you came into this often odd and sometimes silly but always interesting world. Here's something to help you hoist yourself out of the safe middle if you find yourself sinking in. Maybe it will boost you up so you can set yourself squarely on a new cycle of creation. Throw yourself heart and soul into trying this one thing and I can make you a promise that you will never, ever see the world the same again.
                                                                                          

       Meet Your Muse

Write about a place you’ve never been but heard about, a place you’ve seen pictures of, tasted the food, explored the culture, experienced the music, and especially, the people you've observed. Finish the story below by writing from the perspective of edge, from the perspective of one who is beginning to live awakened, aware, alive: “I saw them through the fence, the ones who shone with the ignorant bliss of children who remain outside the cocoon of the ordinary stream of life. They called me to join. I was afraid to succumb to temptation. The people of Edgeville were carefree, singing, dancing, feasting, frolicking and worst of all, coloring outside the lines! Well, I said all prissy and pursed, they just better watch out because tomorrow it will be a whole new world when they find out. Find out what, I thought, that they are alive and streaming joy? I set down my bags, opened the gate and went in....”

Surrender To Beauty

        Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
                                                      --Rumi, poet

 

Morning meditation garden

Surrender      
     Every morning I get up, make a coffee, sit down, switch on my electric candle (symbolic, handy, economically sensible and besides I'm Aquarius rising), then deliberately surrender to beauty. Eyes right, a view beyond the small, lace curtained window appears and behold!     Chunky textures and shapes, a pink stone wall, cascading English ivy with deep green leafy variations, an endless expanse of golden sunrise.  Hello out there, you big old beautiful day!

Blue Wind, Tony Abeyta (tonyabeyta.com)

         Sun, lace, rocks, sky, plants? Oh please, I hear you say, this is nothing to get worked up about. No, no I insist, on the contrary, it's everything to get worked up about.  It is in this present moment that I am spoken to about beauty. I am breathing, I am safe, I am grateful and I am blessed. I know how to move into this optimistic and welcoming inner space because I've worked for it. Blood, sweat and tears kind of work (that, of course, is a whole other story and I've written about it elsewhere). Now, it's made easy for me, and I choose these words carefully and use the passive voice for a reason. I no longer try to force anything, an awareness and awakedness that comes in its own way, its own time. My part is to follow the blue winds, listen to the Saguaro cacti, speak to the gnarly old junipers, salute the soul stirring sunsets, marvel at the charming hummingbirds, and honor the magnetic red rocks turned into enchanted cairns living along well used hiking trails.

Hozho      

Surrender, Larry Yazzi

        Here in Arizona, I've become familiar with Hozho, a Navajo Beauty Way concept that means harmony, peace of mind, goodness, ideal family relationships, beauty in arts and crafts, and health of body and spirit. I am reminded of this when I see works like Navajo (Dine') sculptor Larry Yazzie's Surrender. He begins each new piece without knowing what it will turn out to be. He says the stone decides itself what it will be as the piece develops and that he feels like if you ever get to the place where you know what you're going to do then it's "just a job." turqtortsedona.com/Artists/yazzie_larry/index.htm

John Loring

         Maybe Hozho isn't everyone's idea of walking in beauty, but for those who understand the lure of nature and especially the charms of the desert, the mystery, harmony and call of the wild is magnetic and irresistible. Like John Loring, design director emeritus for New York City's world renowned jeweler Tiffany & Co. (www.tiffany.com) who grew up on a ranch in Cave Creek, Arizona. http://sagedillon.wordpress.com/writing-samples/silver-tea/) Now retired and in his seventies, he's said much of the inspiration for his design sensibilities came from the shapes, textures, smells, sounds and tastes of nature he'd experienced during his boyhood years. The above link is an interesting read about Loring's life.

Tiffany Flora & Fauna, edited by John Loring

Focus
            This focus on beauty takes patience and fortunately most of us past 50 have developed some by now. Courage too. I have the deepest admiration for people who fiercely and wholeheartedly devote their lives to the embrace and creation of beauty. The longer I live, the more I hunger for that because life is awash, just drowning in possibilities for walking the Beauty Way, for the sacred experience of Hozho, however you may find it or define it. I see not only the visual as a part of Beauty Way but also the intangible and spiritual: the wish for someone's well being, a sense of gratitude for comfort and safety, gladness for reconnecting with old friends, letting go of an old, tired, ugly thought. Purposely focusing on the present moment as a singular beauty in itself is a way to honor it for what it is now and for what it might become. Just as Larry Yazzi begins work on each new piece not knowing what it will turn out to be, so do I begin each day open to what it may become. I let the day itself decide  for me. My part is to wake up, pay attention and surrender to beauty. Life isn't a job, it's a work of art.

Your Hozho

1)    Describe a moment when you encountered something in nature so beautiful that it brought you close to tears with its near-perfection.  Don't forget the sensual details, sight, sound, taste, feel, smell.

2)    Create a short tribute for an inspirational person you admire (real person or fictional character) who first gave you a sense of beauty and awakened you to the possibility of being so present that life could be experienced on a higher, more creative and fulfilling plane of existence.

3)    Recall and write about a story (could be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essay) that was so viscerally powerful that, after you’d finished reading it,  your life was changed forever in a positive way.

A Remarkable Meeting

Kituwah

A Remarkable Meeting

        Shortly after arriving in Sedona last year I joined the Sedona Visual Artists' Coalition, a vibrant and inclusive community of creative souls, nice folks, talented artists. The group's annual show in November featured a theme of "Who Am I?" and as you might imagine, there was great creativity and joie de vivre displayed by the artists whose interpretive artworks were shown. One in particular caught my eye and apparently a lot of other eyes too. The People's Choice Award went to  sculptor Tom Gebler for his bronze Kituwah, a Cherokee Native American. And though the sculpture itself is stunning, the really amazing story is why Gebler chose this piece to answer the question "Who Am I?"

 
A Timeless Tale
         I talked to Tom at the show and got the feeling I'd encountered a man on a mission, a sense reinforced when I heard the remarkable story of how this sculpture was created. The prize winning bronze represents Gebler's dogged determination to find the answer to a mystery that has haunted him for years. Tom's story is an inspiring tale of awakening, enlightenment and reparations, a story he describes as a journey to make peace with what he believes is a lost-and-found part of his own personal history as well as a quest to offer insights in to peacemaking among cultures. But the story that you're about to hear is probably not not what you may think.

Kituwah and sculptor Tom Gebler

The Story
          Tom says it all started when he was an art student back in 1981. Sitting in his dorm room one day minding his own business, he experienced an intense visual experience of a Native American man accompanied by a feeling of  visceral 'knowing.' He couldn't describe or explain what it was but the artist in him knew enough to quickly fashion a clay image of the bust of a young Cherokee man who Tom would one day know as Kituwah. Just before completing the piece, he had the compelling feeling that he could no longer work on it. He didn't know why but somehow it felt wrong to touch it. So he put it away and that was the end of it until 1993. He was working on a guided visualization with a healer which turned out to be an experience that provided further revelations for Tom and his relationship with the mysterious Indian he had encountered 12 years before. Tom describes it this way:
         "During that session she asked me to go to a place where I felt safe, I saw and described the apple orchard across the creek from my  (boyhood) cabin. Then she asked me where I felt powerful. In my mind I went from the apple orchard to the nearby rocky wash and described how it felt as I ascended the massive boulders. She then simply asked 'Who is there at the top?'  At that moment I saw the image of this Native American man and said the word 'Kituwah.'"  Tom recognized the image but again didn't follow up with any real intent to connect the dots. It was only when as a middle aged man in his mid-fifties, after he'd returned to live permanently in what had been his boyhood vacation cabin in Sedona's Oak Creek Canyon, that he felt a pull to revisit the other connections made all those years before. His story took a sharp twist when an event involving a potential life and death drama set him on the path he's now following. It turns out that the cliff above Oak Creek Canyon by his cabin  where he'd encountered Kituwah in his long ago guided visualization turned out to be the very same spot where he ended up initiating a rescue for a stranded hiker at serious risk. The grateful hiker later provided financial support for Tom to finish the original clay bust of Kituwah and to cast it in bronze. With the sculpture finished after languishing all those years, Tom began a serious investigation into who and what Kituwah might mean, for him and perhaps for others someday.

Site of Kituwah Mound near Bryson City, North Carolina

 A Sacred Site
        Through research Tom learned of a sacred site, the Kituwah Mound, nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina near a fork in the Tuckasegee river.  At one time the site held a structure which housed the sacred flame of the Cherokee,  kept burning at all times by a specially appointed leader who lived there. This flame was very much symbolic of the life of the Cherokee, and people from nearby villages routinely visited to light ceremonial fires with it. Today the site is seen as a reminder of unity amongst the Cherokee People. Ceremonies are being conducted at the mound, people are returning to pray and reconnect with their roots even as a debate rages about whether the site should be developed. Some say yes, while traditionalists say the site is off limits. The remainder of the mound is about nine miles from the Eastern Cherokee reservation, once as large as 36,000, now a population of around 12,000. The Kituwah site was almost  completely destroyed during the carnage wrought by Griffith Rutherford, a militia General who led an expedition against the Cherokee in 1776 at Kituwah Mound. The twist in this story is that Tom's personal ancestral lineage research uncovered the fact that he was related not to the Cherokee nation, but to General Rutherford himself. The knowledge that he was the eighth generation removed from the man who'd perpetrated a genocidal crime, shocked and bewildered him and made it even more difficult for him to let go of the story. What he chose to do was remarkable.

Lessons Learned

Cherokee Peace Flag

       Last year Tom bundled up a new casting of his sculpture and set off to meet with Cherokee leaders in North Carolina. He says he saw it as a way to offer what might be seen as reparations, apologies, amends. He presented his story along with his sculpture Kituwah to Cherokee leaders who politely accepted but told Tom that in Cherokee tradition "I'm sorry" was not the accepted protocol. Better to simply say "This is what happened and here is what I have learned." A rather humbling experience, one that's brought him full circle. What happens now, I asked Tom. He said he doesn't know, that he's not attached to whatever the outcome may be to the story of Kituwah, but he hopes his story will somehow bring inspiration to others learning to make peace.  

 Signs & Symbols
          Tom's travels with Kituwah reflect his growing belief that spiritual seekers have an expanded field of opportunities open to them if they can cultivate the detachment necessary for paying true attention to the signs, symbols, messages and wonders that are out there for everyone, available for discovery everywhere. "We simply have to learn to be open enough and clear enough and able to pay attention to and receive the lessons life brings, and then let go of any expectations around those lessons,' Tom says. "These are the two key things I've learned from this experience with Kituwah." Tom's put together a youtube video to help make sense of his journey...I think it's worth watching: (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx3gH1rl-Ak)            

    

Writing With Water

   

Everything on the earth bristled,
the bramble pricked and the green thread
nibbled away, the petal fell, falling
until the only flower was the falling itself. Water
 is another matter,
has no direction but its own bright grace,
runs through all imaginable colors,
takes limpid lessons from stone
 and in those functionings plays out the unrealized ambitions of the foam.                                                 --Pablo Neruda, Water

 

I enter the rainforest in Costa Rica....

         When we began traveling about five years ago I knew I would write about my travels and thought I might even make a book about my adventures at wisdom's edge. I asked myself some important questions: Do you think it's true that all serious writers and artists write and paint in order to make sense of things? Life? Death? The Mysteries?  Yes. Are writers and artists born knowing that inspiration can only come slowly and quietly in its own good time?  Probably. What part of this wide and beautiful world most reveals to me the answers to the mysteries and celebrates the wonders of life on earth? Water. And so I went in search of water in a rainforest in Costa Rica, on the North shore of Oahu, Hawaii, California's Pacific coast and at Sedona's Oak Creek. I went when I knew I was ready, after a very long period in the desert, when I was able to understand and appreciate what I found.

 

  Nature Beckons

Swan Lake at Buddhist Temple, Oahu

     On every journey the contemplation of nature, its shapes, textures, sounds, colors, sizes (qualities that make a work of art what it is) nudged me into connection with that inner place where an authentic creative voice has always resided. It took some courage to listen up because I was dimly aware of how it might turn out to be both a joy and a burden to tap into energies I thought were at worst non-existent or at best long gone. I drew inspiration from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's message in  Gift From the Sea: Honor the small still voice inside that urges us on to speak our truth, be it soft and sweet or passionate and bold. Her strong, clear voice is a testament to the power of retreat and return. She wrote her book over a period of time during visits to Sanibel Island and found that the water and imagery of shells spoke to her in a mysterious language that couldn't be transmitted any other way.

 

 Lankaster Gardens, Costa Rica

  Water Whispers

  

North Shore, Oahu

Water, the essential ingredient of every life form on earth, covers a huge percentage of the earth's surface and makes up seventy percent of the human body. This  element  symbolizes the feminine or lunar side of life, the side that calls attention to inner wisdom and healing. It makes sense to me that Lindbergh found her genius as a writer and power as a woman through communing with nature, conversing with the elements and surrendering to the sea. Her deliverance was through water, the reflective and luminescent substance often used as a means of divination, superb conductor of electricity that it is.  From an island off the coast of Florida this writer opened her heart, mind and hands to a big blue basin of salt water, and received messages brought to her by shells washed ashore from the bountiful, beautiful sea. What? You say you don’t think those shells were talking to her, whispering their secrets, spilling their stories?  But of course they were! Now whether or not what she heard spilling out of those shells came from the subconscious, the spirits or some other source entirely, well I don’t know and I couldn’t say. 

 

    

Self Realization Fellowship Meditation Garden
overlooking Pacific Ocean 

   

  Listen Inside

        What I do know is that as writers and artists we search for our own genius expressed as that still small voice and eye within. But often we feel the urge to resist listening to the messages all around us just waiting to point us inward. I say don’t do it, don't resist...be strong, open your heart and open your mind! Find yourself a patch of water, even if it’s only a tiny homemade pond of salt water poured into your best crystal bowl. Create an altar: Surround the bowl with a few shells and objects from nature. Surrender to the moment as you await your muse. Soon, in time and with a quiet, attentive, respectful repose, there will come the invitation to connect with the secrets that have the power to free your soul. And only then can you write the stories you hear and paint the pictures you see in the way they deserve to be created. 

 

Images Speak

 

5 Minutes. Find an image, take a photo or paint a picture. Then create a Spoken Image. Write about your image for five minutes  in a journal or diary using this image as focus. Keep it going, don’t edit, let it flow like water. 

Koi Pond at Buddhist Temple, Oahu

   

Take 2 minutes to review what you’ve just written, then single out a particular word, phrase or sentence that has special feeling or energy about it. Just one word or sentence that grabs you. Write it out on a page by itself.  For instance, I wrote about the photo above: "Orange. That color makes me feel so alive!"

"A room with a view in Escazu"
 Costa Rica

Take 10 minutes to write a page about the above. 
Write everything you know about what you chose to focus on from your image. Use any genre you like – memoir, poem, song, short story, novel, reportage. Begin to move deep, not wide, with a singleness of eye and pure intention. Move toward your one true voice by concentrating your  attention on this limited, clearly defined area as thought and energy converges into a single point of focus. 

For instance: 
"Orange. That color makes me feel so alive! I know they call those Koi large goldfish but they look orange to me. When I was a teenager I found an orange patterned shirt and capri pants outfit that made me feel like a million bucks every time I wore it. The pattern looked a lot like those swimming Koi fish. I don't know, maybe it's the call of the

wild or the activation of my second chakra (is that the same thing?) but sometimes, just to get  my orange on, I'll go to the grocery and buy a big fat O from the citrus section. I like looking at it and the juice so sweet and good, gives me solace and inspiration. The inside radials (I must remember to count,is it always the same number?) remind me of the happy rays of the sun. I think of days fat with promise and fun when I see an orange....I think next time I get one I'll cut the rind in to Koi shapes and swirl them in water, like tea leaves. Who knows what message I'll receive?") 

               

Sedona Hilton Hotel pool

A Spoken Image

Share.  Show and tell your intended audience (this can be an entirely fabricated individual or group…or a pet or the creek, the trees, a bird or some other special and beloved element in nature you feel communion with) which image and word/phrase/sentence you chose and why and then read aloud what you’ve written. If you have an actual, active listening partner, so much the better, although they will remain silent with no critique   required. The receiver of your message is there only to bear witness to your arrival at wisdom’s edge.

Oak Creek in Sedona

    

 

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