What a world, what a life... I’m in love!

Tonight, I’ve been catching up with my friends’ Flickr uploads. I particularly enjoyed reading the narrative a friend wrote for one of her photographs. It goes something almost exactly like this:

She said, “Oh, I fall in love at least twenty-eight times a day!”
He said, “No you don’t.”
She said, “Don’t you ever catch a stranger’s eye and your heart skips a beat, or hear someone laugh and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard?”
He said, “That’s not love.”
... and then, “I’m making sure I never fall in love again.”

She had a feeling things weren’t going to go the way she’d hoped.

Click here to see the dramatically beautiful image that goes with those words.  Thank you, dear heart, dear friend, Tracie. Your words made me smile today.

♪♫ “I've got the world on a string...” ♪♫

Yes, of course things don’t always go the way we might hope, or imagine... but that doesn’t mean we won’t keep falling in love. I won’t. I’m not sure about “twenty-eight times a day,” but I certainly fall in love on a regular basis.

I fall in love with beauty, animate and inanimate. I fall in love, easily, with a smile. Falling in love with the expression on a stranger’s face, a look that speaks to me of joy. I find myself falling in love, more and more often, with easy, unthinking laughter.

I’m in love, always, with those moments when the comfort of friends wraps me in its effortless solace. And I fall in love, over and over again with the silent beauty, the solitude, the gentle stepping tranquility of meditative drawing.

These are the things that make my heart skip a beat. This is what makes living in this absurd, fabulous, nonsensical, achingly wonderful life so extraordinary.  

This love is what makes me want to sing about my love affair with life...

Without the voice of the divine Lena Horne, I express my love affair with life in the written word, but – best of all – by drawing out what’s captured the attention of my heart. Playing with pen and paper, watching the lines as they appear. Curious to see what form they may take each time.

This week, my pens played to the tune of the weekly Zentangle challenge game (#23) of another Diva, the unutterably sexy Laura Harms. [G’day, girlfriend!] She gave me a string for my pen-song (which I copied by hand, from the screen of my laptop).

And I give her this playful tile in exchange.
A pen-song, this time, that sang of my love affair with the whimsical.

“The Yellow Brick Road”
(Click image to embiggen)

Embrace the uncertain, welcome the unexpected...
but most of all,

Never stop falling in love... with LIFE!

---

Less than rhapsodic in blue

It's true, I was less than rhapped with my effort this week for Laura's weekly challenge (which is why I'm only posting it now, although I finished it days ago). But, in the interest of learning a more Zen attitude to my artwork, I've decided to post it anyway.

This piece is in the back of my journal. The fact that I started it there shows how confident I was not feeling about this artistic challenge!  Perhaps, next time I'm not feeling confident, I should start at the front of my art journal anyway [soft smile].

"Blue By You" (click to enlarge).

I am listening to music as I write today (as I usually do).  This week Norah Jones is singing "The Grass is Blue" and I am thinking, as she sings, of the backwards world we're living in these days.

Last night I watched the earth become sea in Japan.  It seems not that long ago I was sitting waiting and watching the waters rise — touching base with friends and family in Queensland, Australia.  And of course, in Christchurch, New Zealand (just across the pond from Tasmania), the earth beneath their feet betrayed them.  Norah sings in agreement from my speakers:

"Rivers flow backwards,
Valleys are high.
Mountains are level,
Truth is a lie."

"How much can a heart
and a troubled mind take?
Where is that fine line
before it all breaks?"

No wonder some of us are feeling blue... even those of us who have only seen these events unfold from the comfort and safety of our living rooms.  My heart caught in my throat last night as I saw the tidal waves washing across the land and realised there were people in there too. I had to stop watching the coverage — instead sending out email messages to those I knew in the area and waiting to hear back from them.

So what do we do with these feelings of sadness — at times overwhelming?  We do what we can, from a practical standpoint, and then –I believe– we make the time to stop, reflect on the impermanence of life in general, and then ask ourselves:

"What am I doing with this life of mine?"

"Am I making the world a better place, for my part in it?"

And these are questions, of course, that we should continue to ask ourselves... ever changing, growing, and becoming the Best we can be.  While recognising (and this is vitally important) that – on some days – our Best may seem more or less than we usually 'expect' from ourselves, and that's okay too.

So, if all I am able to do on this day is bring joy to one person by showing them their previously untapped artistic creativity, I will do it with Passion... with Love... and with Heart & Soul.

And, contrary to the lyrics of the song, I will always know in my heart that – even when it is beauty restricted to a 3.5" square canvas – Truth will always be Truth. So I will follow my heart, be True to my Self and live that Truth without compromise... for as long as I have to live it.

What does tragedy remind us?  What does all this death and destruction have to tell us?  Paradoxically, it tells us about Life.  It reminds us that we are safe and that Life is precious and full of meaning. Reminded of Living True, I photographed these trees at the meditation Centre I was at this time last week.

(Click to enlarge.)

I found myself looking up often during the course.  The trees grew so strong and tall in that beautiful place (another place of truth: of Dhamma).  I didn't speak for the duration of the course (that was easy).  I also didn't draw (that was very hard!).  But when I returned, I remembered watching the sunrise touch the tree tops early one morning at the Centre, and almost feeling the push of those trees to reach back to the sun.

"Tall and True" (click to enlarge).

Stand Tall and Live True!

Live with Courage and Zeal and Compassion!

_________________
 
In other news, the Australian Calligraphy Society's book, WordsWork, is now available from John Neal Books.  (The artists are published alphabetically, but I like to think my ZIA calligraphy is on page one three times over – page 111. [smiles])

Motorways, megabite, meditation, monotangle

If you've come to see my entry for The Diva's Weekly Challenge this week, look no further than the first photograph (well, there's more tangly goodness further down, so you may want to scroll on through).  If, on the other hand, you'd like to be further entertained by the weirdness that is my life (and hear the explanation for the alliterative title of this post), then read on...

This is how my day started... on the motorway (yes folks, in this town, more than one lane travelling in the same direction is what passes for a motorway).

As my choice of photograph above may suggest, I was quite stressed at the beginning of this week.  I had so many things to do, I didn't know where to start.  So, on Sunday, I decided to create a 'tasks list' and then prioritise things.  It took most of the day to get the list sorted out — there were almost 100 items on it (just under 100 actually, or my head may have exploded).  I narrowed down what had to be done in the next couple of days, then yesterday (Monday) I spent 13 hours "doing."

It was, however, clear to me that I wasn't becoming less stressed in the process, even though my list was down to 87 tasks by the end of the day.  (No, I was not slacking off... as I was crossing of the tasks I was remembering still more!)

The List (somehow it has now achieved capital letter, double underline status in my mind) currently stands at 83.  Unfortunately "write blog" wasn't one of my Listed tasks.  Nor was "tangle The Diva's Challenge" (drat), nor was eat chocolate cake.  Bear with me, I must digress a moment or two.  No, I really must, and this is the awesome reason why —

Chocolate Mud Cake!

My week was cheered considerably today by the Tuesday Tanglers (it's tomorrow already today in Australia, remember? okay... now keep reading [grin]).  Every Tuesday, as you may or may not have heard, our local tangle family gets together and whiles away the hours tangling at a local café.  Today, however, was even more special, for it was a Tuesday Tangler Birthday.  Yep – this is where the chocolate comes into play (and the mega bite – see how I did that?).  That chocolaty goodness made a rainy, grey day and rather stressful week, suddenly brighter and more relaxing... oh, and tangling... and, of course, the company of good friends too.  Yep – it was mostly the company (and the laughter... let's not forget the laughter!).

So, what to do about my (not permanently reduced) stress levels? Well, tangle – obviously – though there was some tangling already on my List (from now on I'm not taking on tangling that comes with deadlines, it's incredibly un-Zen).  No, the only possible response to having so much to do and not enough time to do it, was to decide to spend four days doing almost nothing.

Illogical?  It may seem so, but I realised that, as soon as I find myself thinking, "I've got too much to do!!" [add a tone of mild panic as you read that sentence for full effect], it's time for me to stop Doing — and switch to Just Being.  So I applied to attend a meditation retreat.

• no speaking (people always think that's the difficult part, but it's fantastic)
• getting up at 4:00am every morning (I'll admit that's not fun)
• and meditating for twelve hours a day

It's wonderful.  (Honestly! ...I've done it before.)

I doubt I'd have come to this (now seemingly obvious) decision this time last year.  I'll put that down to the effect of Zentangle on my (clearly improved) thought processes.  (Sandy's "Yoga For Your Brain" descriptor is clearly spot on.)

I'll tell you how I go with the meditation when I return (to computers, to traffic, to The List)... but for now I'll conclude with the final "M"... this week's Challenge #11 — Monotangle!

I broke out a new Moleskine journal [hmm... I may have to see someone for these alliterative tendencies] for this challenge: creating a Zentangle (or ZIA) using just a single tangle.  People have indicated that they enjoy reading my 'process' postings, so here's how it went:

1. I decided to use a tangle I've never tangled before.  For some reason I'm drawn [pun intended] to shiny, new tangles for these challenges (hey, why not add a little danger to make it interesting?!)  My rules were: no practising, no test run, study the steps, close the book, and pen to paper.  So I found Etcher in Sandy's aforementioned new book, and I was off and running.  ("Hey – why go simple when I can make it more fun by searching for something tricky?" writes the lady with The List.) 
2. I drew it small... medium... large... with and without a dark background... and then sat back to 'appreciate.'  I was thinking as I tangled (usually a bad sign), "This tangle shall not defeat me. It shall not."  (I suspect my subconscious mantra was, "This List shall not defeat me. It shall not.")  It wasn't a horrible effort, but it looked a bit stressed (surprise, surprise!) – and it didn't 'sing' to me.
   
   
   
3. So I turned the page and had another go.  This time (after the chocolate cake) I was feeling a little more mellow (I think it probably shows).  I ambled around the tile in a rather uncharacteristically aimless manner (for me).  So I was off to a happy start.
4. Unfortunately it was at about this point that I suddenly declared, "Oh dear, those look like little ears!"  (If you're like me, it's incredibly difficult to 'unsee' things once you've seen them.)
   
   

   

   (extreme close-up)

5. Melissa and I looked at them and then, as giggles ensued, I pointed to the one, odd, spiky variant I'd drawn and I dubbed him, "cactus man."  To reinforce his new title, I turned his dots into a smiley face (with a mouth), which only served to encourage the giggling.  Our fellow café patrons probably considered moving quietly away at this point, so they wouldn't attract the attention of the 'clearly-unhinged' women at the corner table. 
   
   Meet Cactus Man (or possibly Cactus Boy – he's quite small):
   
   

   

   (extreme close-up)

6. What to do?  (I said this out loud as soon as my composure was somewhat regained.)  Melissa advised (as I have said to many other students in the past), "Keep on tangling, and see what happens."  She also made me promise to photograph both Cactus Boy and the 'ears' before I covered them with anything [drat].
7. I drew a few circles (you can see the ones I started with at the base of each shape), and I was suddenly thinking circles.  So, without further ado I filled an 'ear' with circles, et voilà!  (That's Cactus Boy with the arrow — transformed. Click here to read hilarious poem by Mel, in loving memory of Cactus Boy.)
   
   

   

   (extreme close-up)

8. I added yet more circle fillings, and here, finally was my Monotangle of choice!  There's no shading, but that seemed right for this one.  There's also a blank 'tile' waiting next to it on the page.  I shall wait to fill that one until I get home from meditating.
   
   
   

I did not surgically remove the first page of my journal (though I considered it briefly).  It will serve to remind me, every time I open my journal, of this week's invaluable lesson —  

It's More Important To Be than it is to Do!

♫♪♫ Do, Be, Do, Be, Do ♪♫♪
...sorry, couldn't resist one more giggle for the day [grin]

Another wonderfully playful Challenge this week – thanks Laura for your great, Play-Encouraging words (great timing!) – and, by the end of it all (now about 3:00am as I put my blog, and myself, to bed), I'm feeling rather more relaxed than I was sitting in a traffic jam this morning. 

Hobart: a lovely little city — where two lanes of slow moving traffic
is called 'Peak Hour' (even though it's more like 40 minutes).

Once I leave for the meditation retreat, I will be offline for a while.
No email, no Fbook, no blogging, not a telephone, not even a pen
and paper (that last part is a truly scary prospect).

So, until I return,

Be Happy — Be Here Now!
—————————————————————

Coming up next time :  our latest Ensemble prints will be back from the printer, and I'll post the photographs!

 

A timely point of interest : if you're ever reading my blog and wondering what time it is where I am (you know, in case you wanted to drop by for a cuppa), there is now a helpful "Local Time" clock to the side below the search box.  Also, for local tanglers, if you're wondering when the next Weekly Challenge might be going live (Monday mornings in Diva Land), a little further down is a "Diva Challenge Local Time" clock.