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 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. 
