Noticing Things

Weather Map of The Heart 12"x12" cold wax on canvas

I have been noticing things, things like how much I want from a moment, just a single innocent moment. When I sit, if I am honest with myself, I see the long slender digits of desire greedily fingering the air. I want this moment to be a certain way. I might want it to make me happy or entertain me, make me feel safe or comfortable or offer me a little drama so that I might escape from the boredom of a grey February morning.

All this wanting and noticing is like what is happening in the kitchen of a fine dining restaurant while you sit out front sipping wine and chatting.  But when I sit quietly in the kitchen of my mind, I see how much I try to cook the moment so as to make its flavour just right for me. I am kneading and pulling on each little fibre of now.

I also notice how I am not content to just work the moment but I lean anxiously into the future looking for the next moment or hour to please me, seeing what I might wring from the day. If we are honest we can notice how much we "want" without pause:  how we want things to be easy or simple or sweet, people to cooperate with and like us, how it would be nice to get some good news or a special treat.  Fill in the blanks. And with all the wanting I notice what it stirs: agitation, busy mind, nervous energy. I notice all these underlying weather patterns of my heart and mind when I am quiet. If I weren't sitting in meditation they would simply form the ground which the day travels over.

All this noticing reminds me to stop, to take a breath and just be. I remember how pleasant it is to just be right here, right now, without wanting.  And I notice how hard this is, how the momentum of habit has hardwired wanting into my brain.  I notice how much energy is preserved, even cultivated in this state of not wanting, how my heart sighs in relief when I am simply with life as it is.  I notice the startling and mysterious sound of rain drops plopping into the pond as I make my way around the shore. I am gobsmacked by the chartruesey greenness of the moss on the roof.

As I did a drawing exercise from my Frederick Franck book the other evening I notice how hard it  is to really see.  As I drew a small fallen leaf from my indoor ficus tree, I notice how my mind jumped ahead to fill in the lines with how it imagined the leaf looked.  I noticed how hard it was to slow down and simply see, to let the hand follow the eye. The mind is such an impatient, bossy creature!

So in between noticing things, I have been making my own cold wax with gamsol and beeswax. It smells divine, sweet like the beeswax (even though the gamsol is a petroleum based product). This seems much more do-able for me than the orange oil solvent which was a natural product, but intensely smelly. Turpentine is a natural product and also intensely smelly.

I have been doing an online course with Eric Maisel which is essentially coaching for artists. I am liking it a lot.  It deals in this lovely straight forward way with how to actually get down to work, how to deal with some of the unhelpful self talk that can surround the creative process and lots of helpful info on working with stress and anxiety and thoughts about marketing.

I have been listening to the World Tapping Summit!  Have you heard of tapping or EFT.  It uses meridian points (as in acupuncture) paired with some statements around things that might be issues for us; health issues, emotional issues.  I am finding it really interesting and it feels like there's something to it.

And thanks to Eric Maisel I have actually been painting everyday, first thing in the morning that's the trick.  I have some coffee, do my qi gong, make my juice and go off to paint for a while. January has flown by and now February is blasting through. I hope your winter days are rich and filled with inner and outer adventure! Where has this new year carried you off to?

Curious Attention, No Shake & Bake Answers

"When an object appears familiar, it's a certainty that I'm merely seeing my ideas of the object rather than the object itself. Furthermore, the idea I form of an object is invariably a "rounding off" of the object to accommodate a categorical generalization, whereas the object itself is always sharp, specific to this exact moment, and doesn't repeat itself. Categorical generalizations render actual objects, persons, and events into types of objects, persons, and events. There are in reality no such types, but only the discreet things themselves."
Lin Jensen from "Together Under One Roof"

I'm reading Jensen's lovely little book of reminiscences of a life viewed through the lens of the Dharma and when I stumbled upon the above paragraph I paused. It struck me how I live most of my life in this way, viewing the world through the slightly foggy lens of my ideas. It is easy and comfortable and habitual and quite human. True wonder happens when we really pause and just see something, someone, without our cherished opinions and our "knowing", delegating our mind to its appropriate role of good servant as opposed to megalomanic master.

Even, or perhaps especially in drawing or painting "the knowing", the idea gets in the way of seeing. I was talking with someone about this just the other day. If I think I know what a head looks like I fill in where I think certain lines and shapes should be. I get ahead of myself (ridiculous, pitiful pun intended). When I go back and look with care or trick the mind by looking at the negative space or holding a photo upside down, I often see how wrong "my ideas" about how a head looks are. Yet the mind is quick to jump straight to the idea. It takes care and vigilance and discipline and patience to just see.

Jensen goes on to observe: "When I give this sort of curious attention a try, I'm surprised at how unfamiliar the neighbourhood is. This fresh strangeness is the gift of attention." And that's just it isn't it? Habitual thoughts and ways of seeing things are so predictable and familiar. I have run over them with my mind enough times to put them out of their misery but still they keep resurrecting themselves in the same boring form each time. But to really see each thing brings a freshness to life. Walking down a trail today I noticed an Arbutus leaf curled upward, a tiny leaf cup, filled with water, patterned with shining shades of green and yellow and orange. Not just a leaf, not a label, not a dry, stale known thing, a leaf like no other. But mostly the mind runs over one thing ( oh yes, pretty fall leaves, lovely damp trail), and on to the next, looking for excitement, drama or danger, something more worthy of its attention, always moving like a hungry monkey.

Jensen's observations about "truly seeing" people reminds me of my Zen teacher's constant reminder to students that there are no generalizations that can be applied to life's difficult situations. Our questions at Dharma talks were always on the prowl for generalization that would make our lives easier. We wanted simple formulas and little recipes that we could apply in our semi-awakened or fully somnambulant state but our wise teacher always reminded us that each situation needed to be carefully considered on it's own merit. A similar situation with different people or on different days might require a totally different response, no canned, pre packaged, shake and bake answers. And if we are paying attention and responding from that immediate place we find an appropriate response.

And she was clear that we needed to look carefully at the details of any interaction. When I would describe a difficult situation with my mother she would ask questions, "did she say thank-you." And I'd say something like, "I don't remember, but she was so negative." After a few of these exchanges, I'd get the picture that I hadn't really been paying attention. I'd been working on the premise that my mother was always negative. I was working with "my idea of my mother". And so trouble was perpetuated as I skated along on the slippery surface of my ideas.

So Jensen extends the invitation to us to abandon our ideas of how things are and wander out into the fields of bare attention to directly experience our world. I am setting the hay bale table out in the field. Will you join me? I promise there will be no shake & bake.