Bidding For Good And Embracing Your Introversion

Diamonds & Rust Buddha 8"x10" at the Shambhala Auction

It's ramping up to that time of year when the consumer machine starts screaming in technicolour. I suspect that a lot of folks who read this blog, just kinda cover their ears.  Me too.  But there are a few worthwhile things out there, if you do indulge in a gift or two.  One of the things I've supported over the last number years is the Shambhala Sun Auction. There's lots of goodies over at the site, including this small original by moi (as Miss Piggy would say).

As a self confessed introvert, I've always tended to avoid a lot of holiday who-ha. And did someone mention introverts? I guess that would have been me? It's been on my mind because I've been reading "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. I watched her TED talk a while back but the book is filled with so much more. If you're an introvert (and 50% of us are) you will find this a compelling read. I have always said I don't do small talk and so the holiday parties can be a bit nerve wracking. And then there's the overstimulation of noise, lots of people and so on. I feel like a deer in the headlights and would rather wash dishes or clear the table than schmooz.

It's so interesting to see so much information collected in print and supported by research that confirms many of my experiences. Doesn't mean we shouldn't go to parties, but we will probably feel more comfortable having a deeper conversation with individuals on the periphery of the action.

Cain covers a lot of ground in her book, and suggests the healthy thing to do is embrace who we are (it has a physiological basis) rather than thinking there's something wrong with us and that if we're going to be successful and happy we need to suck it up and embrace extroversion.  That's often the message schools and work places put out.

And of course after we've embraced who we are, we might want to stretch a little to support causes and work that we're passionate about (that's apparently when we're most successful in our stretch).  Many creative types are introverts and she devotes a whole chapter to the idea that a lot of creative work is solitary work, not "groupthink" work. Remember my attempt to paint with a group last year?  Nope, didn't work for me. I bowed out politely a while back.

So maybe you have an introvert on your list who might enjoy this read. They might be interested to learn that researcher Jerome Kagan was able predict introversion based on a "startle" response in 4 mo old babies. We're reactive and prone to overstimulation, some of us even enter the "highly sensitive" category (a term that makes me cringe) We are not defective but we are different and Cain offers us lots of strategies for survival if we don't already have them. And maybe we just need the confirmation. Oh, yeah, it's okay to go home after intensely social events and put on our jammys and cuddle up with a book. Great stories and strategies fill the book and make it a good read. And us introverts, we love our books! I am  currently in hibernation and recovery mode after a week of 2 different sets of house guests. I am reveling in silence. Where do you fall in the thirst for silence and alone time?

Mapping The Heart

Heartwood 24"x12"

I am mapping something these days. Every painting that emerges resembles a map of sorts. There is a strangeness to it all as if I have become a cartographer, an explorer recording and etching out the roads and river of some landscape that seems important to me. But perhaps every true creative experience feels like this?

I have come following an unknown river with a paintbrush and some pencils. Little continents and landforms appear, rising and sinking into oceans of grey and white, and taupe. Perhaps I have taken up membership in some strange society of cartographers of the heart. Surely my fees in this club are overdue?

The rivers and roads arise from the wandering of sharp tools across the painted surface, small, fierce nomadic creatures, exploring the terrain. The scraping nomads need to be held loosely, with love and trust, so they can trace out their own trail because they know best. The marks that emerge have their own lives. I must let go to bring them into being. These lines remind me that we are never in control anyway. It is merely our human delusion.

And the landforms that emerge are pleasingly irregular, tracing coastlines of the wandering mind, lakes of deep thought, rivers of delight, oceans of sadness.

Geography of the Heart 16"x16"

The webs of crevices and cracks tell stories about the beauty of imperfection. Tracing tiny lines I am reminded that the richness of the world is revealed to me when I attend to the details of life. The crows feet of the land spread out to show it's smiling face.

And while some of the work is done by attending to detail. I need to move outward and view the work from my space capsule. I am reminded that everything is composed of both attention to detail and an ability to stand back and see the big picture.

Road Trip 16"x16"

My map making project went on retreat this past weekend, spending time with master cartographer of the heart and mind, James Baraz. We spent the weekend practicing paying kind attention to being present. I learned that breaths are like snowflakes, no two are the same. I will offer you two tiny pearls from my expedition. If Joseph Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness", I think James Baraz wrote "Heart of Lightness".

 Ram Dass said: The secret of contentment is to plumb the depths of the moment.

James told of some insights he had reciting the following phrase while on retreat. He said it to himself but then also envisioned other people. He said the really tough one was thinking of his son and saying this: "You are the heir to your karma. My happiness depends on my actions not on my wishes.

Islands of the Heart 8"x10"

The Chicken of Thought, The Egg of Feeling

Road Through The Mountains 24"x24"

Yesterday when I was working on this piece pictured above I noticed a tightening in my body, a sense of nervousness. "What's this?" I thought? And then it struck me that this was my body responding to subtle background thought "I'm  afraid of making a mistake." The sensation and thought  were sewed tightly together, in the same way you might wonder what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

This time instead of being captured by this familiar lurker,  I caught him red handed and had a little laugh, which made him slink away. "Now what am I afraid of, this is my painting. That's a crazy thought. How could I make a mistake? And if I don't like the next mark, I can paint over it or wipe it off." But I can't tell you how many times I've been captured and thrown in the trunk by this thought.  And sometimes when we look we'll see a seminal thought like this one, that has run like a long thread across the days of our lives, tying us up in little knots along the way. On how many occasions have I frozen for fear of making a mistake of some sort?  See how therapeutic painting can be!

I am getting more comfortable in my exploration of abstraction. Maybe it's partly because I'm finding materials that seem to lend themselves more to what I want to translate onto the page or .... maybe I've just worn down the part of me that cares so much by painting some pretty awful stuff!

I made my own cold wax using an organic orange cleaner called Orange a-Peel. I cut up chunks of beeswax and dropped them into a jar of orange stuff the same way you would make regular cold wax. It melts into this luscious creamy goo. I must warn you this mixture is stinky, in an orange solvent sort of way but more tolerable to me than the chemical or turp based solvent ones. I bought some white oil paint that is water soluble and odourless (doesn't necessarily mean it's non toxic though)  to go with the earth pigments I ordered. I am also using ash from the wood stove and some powdered milk paint.  So I am the studio witch of the north, mixing up strange things to rub and brush onto my canvas. Haven't resorted to eye of newt yet (it's not vegetarian).

Route 42

I have discovered I like things that look like rock and old cement floors, these natural and neutral palettes with organic and intricate patterns and textures. Go figure, but there you have it.  I started looking around for what really interested me as a basis for my abstraction and that was it. I have no idea where I'm going but I feel some sense of going somewhere, if that makes any sense. For a long time it was just pure frustration, but that landscape of ennui seems to have faded in the rearview mirror (at least for now). I went to a great artist's talk last night by Jason Pollen and he said the difference between art and craft is that with a craft you know where you are going (I'm building this bird house, I'm making this quilt) but with art the final destination is unknown. And you know how that makes us feel a lot of time. We like to tie all those loose ends up and feel in control. Yes I know where I'm going, it's that little town about 100 miles away and I have a hotel reservation there tonight. Standing on the edge of the unknown is one of those valuable principles of the Dharma.

And I am lucky I still have most of my hair (this has nothing to do with orange solvent or ash from the fire). I just finished building a Wordpress website and was reminded what a low tolerance level I have for frustration.  Ah, more good Dharma practice. Be civil and kind to that online support guy who is giving you advice that requires a Martian translator and tells you to read the instructions again, more carefully, this time because it's all there.  But in the end I have a place to house a good sampling of my images. And it feels good to have wrestled with wordpress and won. Go have a peek here if you feel inclined.

That's about it at this end of the world. It feels like it's getting ready to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. And this has nothing to do with the American election, I'm pretty sure. What are you wrestling with these days, or smiling at?

Practice of the Open Road

Fall makes me think of travel, of road trips. It would seem more seasonal to  think of apples and soup and warm sweaters? But such is the deep groove of habit, carved like a grinning pumpkin face into the soft flesh of memory. We have traveled often in the fall, before the winter rains set in and the inward tug of winter gathers us in front of the fire.  So it was the tantalizing call of warm breezes and restless feet that urged us to pack a little bag, fill the car with gas and head off; Pema dispensing Dharma talks on "The Way of the Bodhisattva"from the CD player, interrupted occasionally by a little shakuhachi flute or some David Whyte poetry as we covered the miles. The windows brimmed with wild ocean in Oregon and parched hills in California.  We stopped to walk beaches and explore towns, sampling local kombucha and freshly roasted coffee.  Fine weather followed us all the way.

We took on the practice of the open road, just going where it seemed good to go, chatting with who seemed to appear, marvelling at the variety of sentient beings and beautiful vistas that fill this amazing planet.  In this post I will impersonate one of those little gnomes that poses in various locations. 

Here I am at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. The wind has blown my gnome hat off! 

More Cannon Beach sans gnomes

open road, gnomes busy navigating and driving

large footed gnomes have wandered off into the fog

Many gnomes cross The Golden Gate every day, but quiet on Sunday mornings as gnomes sleep in

Coffee is serious business at "The Republic" in the Mission District of SF. You must have a mac book pro to have coffee here (even if you're a gnome). I warn you they will check at the door. You can wear your kilt, your dog can bark inside, but you must have a mbp. I don't make the rules, I'm just sharing them with you!

Gnomes advice for San Francisco: Check your brakes, wear sensible shoes with lots of traction (yes, they can have pointy gnome toes, maybe soccer shoes?) and carry a shopping bag, it's the law in California as of Oct 1st (in Texas, I think you have to carry a gun) Speaking of guns, I did see guns for sale in the Fred Meyer store (with camo and pink on them) and boxes of ammo on the shelf, quite creepy in a voyeuristic kind of way to a Canuck gnome.

Gnomes are allowed out after dark, but must be careful not to roll down hill, after long day of walking across the city.

Lovely Buddha in the Japanese Garden. Gnomes (and escorts) are allowed in for free from 9 am-10 am!

Gnomes checking for trolls under bridge

Great find, Diego Rivera fresco at old mission, now an art school. Gnomes can buy water here before descending into North Beach where pizza is the food of choice.

Gnomes report that Jack Kerouc & Allan Ginsberg are probably hiding in the basement. Gnome rule: must purchase at least one book of poetry before leaving the book store.

Musicians put on impromptu concert to honour gnome passing by

The 84th Problem

Buddha House 16" 20" on display at The Naam

How many problems do you have? Do you have 83 or 84? Or perhaps you have more? No matter how many problems you have, the Buddha thinks that your real problem is the 84th problem?

Do you know the story of the 84th problem? I know you do, I mean in your everyday life. I'm guessing that if I know it well, you probably have had a little dust up with it yourself. In fact I spend a lot of time wrestling with the 84th problem and I never manage to get it into a figure 4 leg lock, or is that a head lock?  So much for my wrestling skills. Whenever things go "wrong" according to how I think they should be the 84th problem has got me down for the count.

Here's a short version of the 84th problem. A farmer goes to see the Buddha because his crops have failed. He's heard that the Buddha is very wise and the farmer is hoping for some help. He tells the Buddha his story and the Buddha tells him he can't help him with that problem. The farmer then complains a little about his wife. "Sorry," the Buddha says, "can't help you with that."  

My kids, they don't listen to me or respect me enough."

"Sorry, can't do anything about that."

 The farmer offers a few more problems and then laments about the Buddha being so unhelpful. Finally the Buddha offers a little help, "Everyone always has 83 problems, one goes away, another one appears. What I can help you with is your 84th problem."

"What's that?" asks the farmer.

 "That you don't want to have any problems."

Now if we could just get over the 84th problem, we'd be fine with things as they are, whatever that happens to be. To just give up our wrestling match with life, that's the simple task. The simple task that's so hard to remember when things don't go "our way". It doesn't mean we never take action or that  we don't work for change. It just means we don't argue with what is. We don't need to reject this moment. And we don't even need to reject our rejection of this moment (a particular favourite of mine). We can just feel what it's like to reject, to wish for something else. "Oh, that's how it feels."

This instruction "to just feel what it feels like" was part of our work from the retreat with Howie Cohn on "calming the restless mind" and is a good antidote to the 84th problem. And I had opportunity to to do a little of this work yesterday. 

We're building a gate like structure to cover the entry to our open carport. The gate will hide our winter fire wood and other messy bits. I started the morning innocently enough, drinking my coffee and browsing through a design book for ideas. Before I knew it I was admiring all the beautiful homes and wishing mine looked like that, or that I lived in this one, and so on and so on. (I am a recovering design junkie).

This simple pleasant task of sitting in the sun looking at a book morphed into "wanting" and spilled over into an agitation, leaving a subtle unrest and dissatisfaction as I went about my day. In the past I might not even have noticed this domino effect but just felt vaguely unhappy. But now I could clearly see it's origins in the craving for a magazine house, one staged and crafted for a picture in a book. And yet the hangover of craving lingered. And I got to notice, "this is what craving and unrest feels like". I followed it's trail, as it had me looking for a snack, long before I was hungry, had me looking through a slightly darkened lense as I headed to my studio. But I digress from the 84th problem.  Or do I?

Are You Enjoying Your Biscuits?

Buddha Bowl 6"x6" mixed media

I like cooking analogies as they relate to life. They help me see what I am cooking deep in the cavernous kitchen of my heart.  Dogen wrote "Instructions To The Cook" which I usually consume in it's slightly soupy watered down form, finding the original just a little too rich for my pea brain. But here's Ed Brown, talking about biscuits. I think we can all get this in it's original, touching form.  Why do most of us spend so much time wishing for the "Pillsbury" version of life instead of tasting what's on our plate, in front of us?  The answer I think, as Ed points out is that we mostly don't even know we're doing it. The advert media earns it's coin and spends it's full energy convincing us we need something else, something more to be just fine, to be happy. Their livelihood depends on it and often we buy what their selling in a deep way. We become restless and hungry for a life that isn't ours. We reject the burnt corners, the bitter skin, but also miss the tender, sweetness of what is fresh and in front of us.

But without further adieu I will put you in Ed's capable and humourous hands and let you ponder the question, "how are my biscuits?" And if you haven't seen it, his movie "How To Cook Your Life" is a delicious morsel.

"When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem: I couldn't get my biscuits to come out right. I'd follow the recipe and try variations: milk or water, eggs or no eggs, but nothing worked. I had in mind the "perfect" biscuit and these just didn't measure up. After several failures I got to thinking, "Right compared to what?"

Food For The Heart 12"x12" mixed media

Growing up I had made two kinds of biscuits: one was from Bisquick and the other was from Pillsbury. For the Bisquik biscuits, you added milk to the mix and then blobbed spoonfuls onto the pan and didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in a kind of cardboard can. You rapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on the pan and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine just weren't coming out the way they were supposed to.

It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave It To Beaver? And then we often forget where that idea came from or that we even had an idea. Those perfectly good biscuits just aren't right.

People who ate my biscuits could be extolling their virtues and eating one after the other, but for me they were not right. Finally one day that shifting into place occurred. Not "right"  compared to what? "Oh, no I've been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits. Then the exquisite moment of finally tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some (previously hidden) standard: wheaty, buttery, flaky, earthy, sunny, here. Inconceivably delicious, incomparably alive, present, vibrant. In fact much more satisfying than any memory, much more delicious than any concept.

Those moments when you realize your life as it is, is just fine thank-you, can be so stunning and liberating.  Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged products make it seem insufficient. The effort to produce life without any dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger is bound to fail- and be endlessly frustrating.

Empty Vessel 6"x6" mixed media

Sometimes when I was cooking my former partner, Patricia would ask if she could help. My response was not pretty, neat or presentable. The lid comes right off and I would explode: "No!" How could an offer of assistance be so traumatic and irritating. Neither of us could understand why my response was so out of scale, so emotionally reactive. But I suppose it depends on which biscuits you're trying to bake.

I couldn't get it for the longest time. Finally I realized I was trying to make myself Mr Perfect, grown-up man, competent, capable and superbly skilled, performing tasks without needing any help. Someone asking, "Anything I can do?" implied that I need help, that somehow I am not competent, independent and grown-up enough to handle the cooking myself. Ironically the desperate attachment to being the perfect grown-up meant being a moody, emotional infant with strange prickliness. "How could you think such a thing?" I would rage. "You've ruined my perfect biscuits, now leave me alone."

As a Zen student one can spend years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. Everyone knew what the Bisquik Zen student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto as one of my friends says was, "looking good."

We've all done it: tried to look good as a husband, wife, or parent. "Yes I have it all together. I'm not greedy or angry or jealous. You're the one who does those things, and if you didn't do it first, I wouldn't do them either. You started it"

"Don't peak behind my cover," we say, and if you do, keep it to yourself. Well to heck with it I say, wake up and smell the coffee. And how about savouring some cook old fashioned home cooking, the biscuits of the day?  - Ed Brown from "The Tassajara Cookbook

Busy Signal

Street View of The Naam

I just spent some time getting ready for an art show that I hung yesterday at  The Naam, one of my favourite restaurants and a Vancouver institution in the vegetarian world. It's been around since the '60's and if you squint  just right as you sit at your table there, you might catch a hint of patchouli and know that the '60's are still alive and well . 

A table by the window with "Andy's Buddhas"

I could say I've been busy but that would go against something deep inside me. I remember the '90's when "busy" was the answer that everyone wore like a badge. I always wondered what it was all about. What was the deeper meaning of busy?  I had some theories but never cracked the busy code completely. I never felt busy even in the '90's.  I have some sort of internal compass that completely lacks the pointer toward busy.  Recently I discovered this wonderful poem about Busy by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  I hope you're not to busy to read it!

Room View of The Naam

I will pop in some pics from my show.  And if you're in the Vancouver area, pop in and have a look and don't forget to have the sesame fries and miso gravy, maybe a piece of Shakti cake with hemp seed whipped cream. Happy summer days to you! May you lie on the grass and watch the stars. May you taste the rich tang of a summer tomato warm off the vine. May summer live on in your heart, long after it's warm, lazy rays have made way for the richness of autumn.

My trusty assistant helps me hang the show

Busy

"How you been?

Busy.How's work?

Busy.

How was your week?

Good. Busy.

You name the question, busy is the answer. Yes, yes, I know, we are all terribly busy doing terribly important things. But I think more often than not, busy is simply the most acceptable knee-jerk response.

Certainly there are more interesting, more original and more accurate ways to answer the question "How are you?" I'm hungry for a burrito; I'm envious of my best friend; I'm frustrated by everything that's broken in my house; I'm itchy.

Yet busy stands alone as the easiest way of summarizing all that you do and all that you are. "I am busy" is the short way of saying -- implying -- "My time is filled, my phone does not stop ringing and you (therefore) should think well of me."

Have people always been this busy? Did cave men think they were busy, too? ("This week is crazy -- I've got about 10 caves to draw on. Can I meet you by the fire next week?")

I have a hunch that there is a direct correlation between the advent of coffee bars and the increase in busy-ness. Look at us. We're all pros now at hailing cabs/making Xeroxes/carpooling/performing surgery with a to-go cup in hand. We're skittering about like hyperactive gerbils, high not just on caffeine, but on caffeine's luscious byproduct, productivity. Ah, the joy of doing, accomplishing, crossing off.

As kids, our stock answer to most every question ("What did you do at school today?" "What's new?") was, "Nothing." In our country's history there have been exactly seven kids who responded with a statement other than "nothing," and three of those were named Hanson. Then, somewhere on the way to adulthood, we each took a 180-degree turn. We cashed in our "nothing" for "busy."

I'm starting to think that, like youth, the word nothing is wasted on the young. Maybe we should try re-introducing it into our grown-up vernacular. Nothing. I say it a few times and I can feel myself becoming more quiet, decaffeinated, Zen-ish. Nothing. Now I'm picturing emptiness, a white blanket, a couple ducks gliding on a still pond. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. How did we get so far away from it?"

Amy Krouse Rosenthal 

An orange human and a red Buddha