Hi Honey; I'm Home

I have returned from a trip at the behest of a kind and generous friend from Arizona. We spent part of our time at a resort and spa in Sedona located in an amazing red rock canyon. Yes, I did make some enso paintings; I even drew some in the red earth of the canyon. More on that later.

One morning I headed out to walk the trail running the length of the canyon and was profoundly moved by the rocks above me which felt like great benevolent gods. I tried to take photos, but it was not the best use of my time since my skill and camera were inadequate to the task. Finally, I decided to put the camera away. I realized it was getting in the way of my appreciation of my experience.

This led to an experiential insight. As is true of most insights, the raw material was already there, but my ability to appreciate the truth was stimulated by experience. I was able to understand that equanimity is to be cultivated not only around those things that are difficult or unpleasant, but also in relationship to that which we find pleasurable. This is not to take some sort of monastic or ascetic stance in regards to experiencing enjoyment. The need for equanimity comes in the attachment to that in which we find pleasure. These experiences, too, are fleeting and impermanent and by attaching to them we find ourselves unable to be present in the moment.

Being able to fully grasp the impermanence is something that can only add to the enjoyment of the experience. I have found myself fretting about the fact that my lovely experience will eventually end. Upon reflection, I realize what a waste of that opportunity it was to be concerned about the future such that it removes me from fully experiencing the present. Anthony Bourdain (my TV boyfriend) gave up taking photos years ago since he felt it did not do justice to his experience.

Have you ever found yourself in a place of unspeakable beauty, or experiencing an episode of profound bliss and found yourself grasping at the experience? Please share what that was like. What was it? How did it manifest for you? Where did you feel it in your body? Have you ever found yourself regretting it?

Enso It Goes

The last couple of times I've gotten acupuncture I've had these wonderful experiences where as I'm lying there, I've created paintings in my head. Interestingly, they've all been based on the enso. An enso is basically a circle, drawn/painted with (usually) a single stroke. It is an expression of the moment. It's everything. It's nothing. Very Zen.

My acupuncturist tells me that some of my problems are expressions of frustrated creative energy and these paintings in my head are a good sign. If I don't make good use of this stuff, however, I'll keep having the same problems.

As such, I am going to pack a few of my (now severely depleted) art supplies to take with me on my TRIP to Arizona (the universe will provide, as it turns out) and I'll work on making some stuff. If I make anything worth sharing, I'll post it here on the Blog.

The Big Math Test

I've gotten a lot of positive reaction from people on a particular topic regarding the Healing Presence. It is that changing yourself and your relationship to others and to your circumstances is not just a selfish act of self improvement. It is, in fact, a profound change that you make in the world.
The illustration I use to explain this is fractals. I have been intrigued to discover how few people know about fractals. I guess I'm just a bigger nerd than I thought. A fractal is a pattern that follows certain rules, including:

• It has a fine structure at arbitrarily small scales (even when you zoom in, it has a fine level of detail).
• It is too irregular to be easily described in traditional Euclidean geometric language (it has a very complex and somewhat irregular geometric shape).
• It is self-similar (it shows a similar or recursive pattern on infinitely small or large scale).

Fractals are produced by certain algorithms (a kind of mathematical set of instructions) and these algorithms can be used to predict weather, or allow a computer graphic designer to create realistic landscapes. They are found extensively throughout nature. We can recognize the frost on the windows in the winter, or the shape of sand dunes because they have a fractal nature that allows them to always have their distinctive shape while simultaneously being infinitely variable.

I like to think of the whole of human interaction as a fractal. One of the other things that defines a fractal is that when you make a change in the algorithm, or set of instructions, it must result in a change throughout the entire fractal on every scale. What this means to me is that every time we make a change for the better in ourselves, if it results in a more flowing and healthy interaction with ourselves and our circumstances, we change the larger fractal of human interaction. Making yourself better makes the world a better place.

Cloquet "Rendevous"...Now the Real Work Begins

Well, I'm back from Duluth. Lovely venue, lovely people. About 35 people attended my talk (there were multiple talks going on at the time) which made the room about 4/5 full. I was determined to be prepared so I took my information and arranged, rearranged, outlined, deconstructed, and threw it all up in the air and saw how it hit the ground.

In the long run, I ended up doing what those who know me well knew I would do: I winged it. I wonder, can it really be considered "winging it" if you've put that much time into preparing? There were several things that were good about winging it:

1. It felt much more authentic (have I written much about authenticity?) and that is of key importance to me.
2. It gave people the sense that they had permission to ask questions during the talk.
3. The questions and flexibility of my "open outline" allowed an organic flow that followed the interests of the group.
4. I was less nervous and less likely to get flustered than if I was following a script.

The thing that really helped me was that the night before I was delightfully distracted at the Rendevous, a very "casual" local drinking establishment in Cloquet, MN, in attendance at a celebration for a friend of a friend. Met nice people who expressed interest in my work and asked me good questions, had a couple of extremely reasonably priced cocktails, ate hot dish, and generally get good and relaxed. Which I needed. Badly.

The next day, I was very gratified that after I was done speaking, many people came back to my booth to talk to me, sign my mailing list and ask me "When is your book coming out?". Hmmmm....