Who Is Thinking These Thoughts Anyway?

Moon Buddha - Original Mixed Media On Matte Board 

 8"x 8" Matte  3.75"x4.5" Inside Dimensions 

$25   includes  free shipping in North America

I have learned something today.  You can blog late into the night and that works just fine.  You can even paint ( a bit trickier because of lighting) or do design work late into the night but it is next to impossible to take a good photo of your work after the day has morphed into evening.  You see where I'm going with this....  So I am keeping honest.  I did create a new piece of art today but alas by the time I was done it was too late to capture with the magic box, so you are seeing a brother to the Brush Buddha of Day 1.  I was having so much fun I did several of these.  Just goes to show that it never hurts to have a spare Buddha in the freezer.  You never know when someone is going to drop by.

The fun part about today's piece of art is that it is very different from the two days that went before.  I have my own little surprise factory.  I never know what is going to come out of the studio's easy bake oven (remember those?)  It reminds me that we don't really know our own minds.  They are a mystery to us in so many amazing ways.  I can create something and be as surprised as if I am a stranger at what has appeared on the page.  It's kind of delightful.  It makes me wonder, who am I anyway?  And where do my thoughts and inspirations come from?  In a way these surprises that appear are like little road signs pointing toward the illusory nature of the self, the fact that no solid, substantial self exists.  It is always moving and changing and becoming something else.  It is not that solid, pinchable me that I normally take myself to be.

The little buddha in today's post is done on a page from a small chapter book I purchased at my door about 12 years ago.  A young man was selling two little books he had written, door to door.  I don't remember how much they were or if he left it up to the purchaser to decide but I was so taken with his bravery in doing this that I had to buy them.  If I remember correctly his name was Stephen Parks.  Sometimes I wonder where he is now and what he's doing. I liked his writing but over the years I have used his art to make mine.  One thing is always becoming another.  Impermanence, yes?

And so that is my story for today.  I have learned about shadows and the mysterious nature of the self, the odd things the mind remembers and how it is all part of the ever changing landscape.