Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A New Day - Blessings for the New Year

The painting I am posting is called 'A New Day'. I thought it would be appropriate on this New Year's Evening. My husband is working tonite, and my two beautiful girls are sleeping. New Year's is not what it used to be for parents of little ones - but that's ok with me, I like to use it as a time of reflection and excitement for a new time.

My wishes for the world are that we awaken to more compassion for one another and begin working together as a unite rather than separately. I think as humans we haven't scratched the surface of our potential. I also speak about myself as I am on this road of discovery every day and learning moment by moment as I venture through my life's journey. I wish for the world true peace. The kind of peace that is contagious and uplifting. I am going to meditate on that tonite - may we all reach our ultimate and highest potentials and learn to communicate from a place of love and kindness.


"The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work"


-Berthold Auerbach

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

My Vipassana Meditation Practice

I thought that I would start blogging more of my personal life that is so intertwined with the art that comes through me. I have always just written about the art and found it hard and choppy to do and I realize that there's a reason why. I find that the easiest thing to do is just write from the heart and speak my absolute truth. I want to write my story and mix my art in there - so that it's a full picture, a more holistic perspective.

I titled this entry regarding my Vipassana meditation practice since that has been a topic of interest and a personal inspiration in my life. I have been meditating since shortly after my first daughter's birth - she was born in August of 2005. After she was born it took me a lot of energy to adjust since I am not the best person to be sleep deprived! I was exhausted and full of uncertainty. But what I did know was that I wanted to be a calm mother. So I began to meditate and continued a more active regimen of yoga as I started to practice Bikram yoga religiously.

Meditating was great, but I found that a lot of times I would be sitting still and thinking and daydreaming rather than focusing on one object as many types of meditation encourage. I recently (a few months ago) learned of a type of meditation called 'Vipassana'. This is the type of meditation that Buddha practiced which had ultimately awoken him to realizing his true essence. I for one am a big fan of the truth! I think that there are so many perspectives to our understanding of life yet there is a truth that is hard for us to see if we internalize and personalize our stories and beliefs - so in order to see this we need to step back from ourselves and our identifications and allow ourselves to be truly objective.

So I began Vipassana and it opened a whole new can of worms...Wow! All of a sudden I had become aware of my insanity by simply observing it. It was unbelievable to me to witness what was happening to my body simply in response to thoughts and feelings. I was starting to recognize that feelings and physical sensations were almost immediately in sync - they actually were in sync, they danced together. I began to recognize my reactions and found that my identification with certain thoughts convinced me that those thoughts weren't there and that they were reality. weird? crazy! I am starting to understand more of what Eckhart Tolle says in his books.

So at first it was really hard for me to do, but I liken it to having a lot of junk to sort through in your house. It sucks to go through but you feel so much clearer and your home functions much easier as a result. What I found was compassion for myself and then compassion for others. A realization that we all struggle to find peace in our worlds, we all have turbulence and when I see people being miserable to the world, I know that they are reflecting their ten times worse misery in their own worlds.

I want to note that what got me turned on to this meditation was hearing Jenny Phillips on Oprah's soul series. She was a vipassana meditation teacher who began teaching in prisons and found incredible effects on the inmates who practiced this type of meditation. I then revisited a book that I bought years ago in Amsterdam called 'Mindfulness in Plain English' by Henepola Gunaratana. I remember the book being hard to read at the time that I bought it (before my first daughter was conceived) and now totally getting something from it. So if anyone is looking to learn to meditate I highly recommend this book.

So with that, I would like to share this beautiful qoute:

"We convince by our presence"

-Walt Whitman

The Way

This painting 'The Way' told me a story after finishing it. The story is of a woman who was shattered and unwhole in her life. As she got older and walked into her sadness, doubt, uncertainty, fear and many more unpleasant states - she found her true self and realized that she had been buying into the collective pain that women have gone through and are still going through in the world.

Through this she became whole, leaving the pieces and fragments from her past behind as you can see in the center image of the woman being solid moving away from the pieces around her. As she did this, she caught the attention of women everywhere who are young and haven't yet found the way that this woman found. But somehow her wholeness made clear to them of their identification with being unfragmented and torn inside - literally seen in their 'holes' within regardless of their youth and beauty.

So this painting showed me how all you need is one person to change the world - just one person to evoke the curiousity in others. The top of the painting shows a spiral and that spiral to me was a view from above of the procession coming in from all walks of life to realize their greatness and come home to themselves. The truth is, that truth just always rings true.

Realization: I know that no matter what I do in my life, if it comes from the heart it will always lead me to the best possible path.

"The best way out is always through"

-Robert Frost

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Check out the December 2008 Yoga Magazine Issue:
There is an article in there about my affirmation series.