Off To Dreamland Barking Furiously

Off To Dreamland Barking Furiously

Mixed Media on Matte Board

8" x 8' matte, image size 3.75" x 4.5"

$25 including shipping in North America

Okay I write foolish stuff, I might as well have some foolish art to go with it.  I would love to be thought of and remembered as a Zen fool but I think I might have a lot of work to do to get the Zen part right.  I love polka dots - just look at that word - how can you not like it, dots doing what?   Why the polka of course - all over the page.  And then there is the strange little animal ripped and born from bits of brightly coloured paper.  And of course like a cherry on top, just a few random words cut from a vintage Children's story book.  I love nothing better than creating crazy bits of ransom note text.  Maybe I should write a whole blog in this way?  Pure and utter nonsense.  What?  What's that you say?  "I already have a license on the pure and utter nonsense part."  Why thank-you.  Just what I was aiming for.  Oh, oh.  We're on a slippery slope, kids.  I think I better get off the crazy carpet quick.

I found this quote today in an old journal and I loved it, among many others I'd copied down from Ryokan,

 "If you don't write of things deep inside

   Your own heart

 What's the use of churning out so many words?"  

Did he read my blog???  Do his words stand in contrast to what I've written above?  I don't think so.  There is foolishness and lightness and playfulness inside my own heart.  There is in truth nothing I like better than a big, juicy chunk of foolishness.  And it always goes with the Dharma in my mind.  They can sit quite comfortably on the same plate.  Stir fried crazy Dharma hash with tofu.  I think sometimes some practitioners get too serious for their own good, or maybe that's for my good.  They take themselves and their practice too seriously.  Can get a little boring and lifeless.  And of course there is a balance here.  It would never be my intention to be disrespectful.  Some of the most sincere practitioners I know have a great sense of humour.  And watch the Dalai Lama, a lot of laughter goes on there.

And while I might be accused of churning out a lot of words I think a good lot of them come from deep inside my own heart as Ryokan says.  I write about my life because that is the only way I know how to practice.  I wake up with the Dharma peeking at me as I open one sleep smudged eye.  It follows me around, it falls on me, jumps out at me from behind  doors, peers back at me in the mirror.  Sometimes I can accept it with grace and sometimes it stings when it squirts me in the eye .  And so I churn out some words here in my blog, like butter or ice cream and flavour it with tiny sprinkles of heart, and of course on a good day I put a reindeer on top.