Imaginate and Play

 

“Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, 

for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine” 

- Ludwig van Beethoven

Author, Mark Z. Danielewski feels, "Passion has little do with euphoria and everything to do with patience."

When we create art, endurance propels us past frustrations and failures. We enter into the unknown with awareness. Puzzlements and dark emotions circulate during our path to a project. Even though we do not always feel good, we eventually create good feelings through the art we share.

As the artist Henri Matisse said, "if you want to paint a rose, first forget about all the other roses ever painted." Work from your inside out, explore your true nature, its freshness and originality.

Surge into your secrets and explore them into creations of all kinds.

Wander into the forest of dreams. 

Lizardo imaginates under the O.  

He grants marvels to the unsuspecting.

Octavio hugs the weary and forgetful.












Discover a turtle that beckons dreams in waterfalls of wonder.

Whoever paints the illusive sky receives a ride on a heron's back.

Imaginate and Play. Watch the majesty of miraculous arrive.

Into the Flow

 

"The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." - Norman Maclean

A river tumbles and teems with life to reveal the search for simplicity and unity. Waters weave their magical powers. Swift-surging rivers change with the light during the day. They merge with wonder in darkness. The flow provides opportunities for meditation and reflection. The river reveals a symbol of constancy within change.

Norman Maclean wrote, "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." The Indian word, 'hassayampah' means, the river that loses itself underground. It is like intuition.

Recall a river or body of water that affected your life.

We experience others' lives. They move on, flow through other landscapes and merge with different lives. Consider those who came before you. How, like a river do you carry them with you?

Write your personal journey as a life that flows, constant, and changing.

Playing with Oddities

"People have a natural sense of wonder," Harold said. "I try to provide them with a little oddity now and then. Takes them out of themselves and away from their own troubles." from SARAH CANARY by Karen Joy Fowler.

Write about oddities today:

What mystified you as a child? 

Recall observing someone "different" and your reactions.

What mysteries can you discover by hiding or revealing your "little oddities"? Create a character.

Follow shadows today and search for peculiar. 

Laugh and let the words flow.

Tickle Your Humorous

 

Defining humor and how to write about it creates the first challenge. Humor relates directly to the sensitivity of one’s funny bone for the nuances in life. The discovery of humor in unlikely situations takes talent.

What makes me laugh might not do the same for someone else. I don’t give up a chance to make a humorous connection in my search for silly because laughter’s my buddy. I humor on.

Humor must have evolved as a survival skill. Imagine primal humans hunting all day and suddenly a sabre-toothed tiger charged from behind a bush. One hunter said to the other, “Distract him while I run back to the fire and get help.”  

Almost any situation can lead to a twinge of humor . . . for someone.

Dave Barry, a universally appealing humor writer, feels humor relates to fear and despair. The series, M*A*S*H, delved into these stressors of life and played with dark humor. Having the ability to add a humorous twist to any tragic situation, Shakespeare must have had strong stomach muscles from chuckling as he wrote.  If he has written puns, he would have had many plays on words.

Even scientific research has shown the benefits of laughter in the healing process.

If we didn’t have laughter to keep us buoyant in a world that twirls way beyond our control, gravity certainly would keep us grounded. We need to stimulate our funny bones to release fears and anxieties. As Dave Barry says about humor writing, “A, keep it moving, and B, spend a lot of time writing it. And C, after you're done, show it to somebody.” I’d add, show it to someone who likes to laugh.

Lewis Grizzard said when you write humor, you only have to look at the world from the front of your eyelids forward and soon you’ll see something funny to write about. 

Tickle your humorous today. 

Spring Delights

Spring urges all to pet flowers. Hug tree limbs with hummingbird smiles.

Clouds play and breathe with the breeze.

Eager for camaraderie, the sun invites the clouds to dance at sunset. 

A celebration of nature's amazements begins.

Clouds cuddle the sun in their hands.

Observers feel the wonder as the sun dips into the sea.

Sea Lion Attractions

 

The La Jolla Cove sea lion population knows how to play and get along.

Acrobatically, they twirl and twist above waves, then dive under and surf to shore.

Once they decide to rest, they pile on top of one another and snuggle. 

If they decide on a rock that requires a jump from the sea of three or four feet, they try and try and try again until they succeed. A friend who has already arrived will give a little tap on the buddy's nose to welcome and congratulate.

Welcome. Let's bump noses.

Family oriented, they take good care of their kin.  With barks and chuckles, they enliven their day and mine.

Friendship conquers all.

Humans could benefit from watching their behavior on how to enjoy life, play, and just get along.

Into the Garden

 

Olivia Laing believes gardening situates you in a different kind of time; the antithesis of the agitating present of social media. 

She writes, "Time becomes circular, not chronological; minutes stretch into hours; some actions don't bear fruit for decades. The gardener is not immune to attrition and loss, but is daily confronted with the ongoing good news of fecundity. A peony returns, alive pink shoots thrusting from bare soil. The fennel self-seeds; there is an abundance of cosmos out of of nowhere."

Greeks called linear time chronos. They plotted progress and cynical time as kairos. Kairos to Olivia Laing means the time of gardens and cycles. 

Birds, cicadas, and plants observe cycles of the season.

Find your garden stimulation.

Dive into Yourself

 

"Go into yourself and see how deep 
the place is from which your life flows."  
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Your fingers that nudge keys
Use them rather than a shovel

Dip. Dig. Dive into the sand

The sea will swirl the hole 


Excavate into the depths

Let warm sand and liquid 

swish to massage fingers




Delve to discover a curiosity

that has remained hidden




It may scurry up to you

A nautilus shell              

will reveal its silky texture      

   

Empty means best

Ready? Get fill-eager

Let the salt water wash in

Probe your gifts forgotten




Notice ways memory arrives

Fears. Joys. Sorrows

Desires trickle

Into the layered years

If the tide hurries to shore

to inundate the empty space

Select your found treasures 

Bring them home.

Go for Joy

 

Mind control means anything that happens can be a source of joy.

When your mind tries to dwell on unfortunate situations, sit in a place of peace. Settle the mind's pace. If it continues to ramble, breathe in five breathes and out six for a few minutes.

Consider your favorite natural location. Try a mountain stream with fresh water that cleanses and refreshes. Find yourself watching breaking waves at the sea. Take in the scenery around you. Smell the offerings of flowers from the breeze. Listen for birdsong.

Now wait and pay attention to thoughts that take over. What are the main themes that arrive?

Do you feel an emotional tone? Notice impulses that flare up.  Ignore them.

Try now to imagine your mind as a tree. Healthy branches shine green. Brown ones need your attention by cutting. Those represent your distracting thoughts, emotions, and feelings. 

Name them as you cut. Make a pact with yourself that you will use this imagery in the future to prune distracting emotions.

Take a breath and feel a spontaneous rush of a positive emotions.

Feel your intuition.

Go for Joy in the Day.

IN TU IT

 

Intuition involves developing an acuity of perception. It engages creative thinking with hunches and possibilities. A special sense activates grasp of the invisible and provides insight. Flashes of thrill and understanding result without barriers of perceived notions. 

David G. Myers, psychologist, defines intuition as, "The capacity for direct knowledge and immediate insight, without any observation or reason." Malcolm Gladwell describes intuition as the "power of thinking without thinking."

Both encourage us to cultivate this underusing way of grasping our raw experiences.

Myers also warns of the perils involved with intuition. If kept untempered by logic and analysis, it can lead us down rabbit holes where we lose track of the difference between our fantasies and the real world. It can cause us to mistake our fears for accurate ESP or we can get lost in a maze of self-fulfilling prophesies.

Do you find benefits from intuition? How does it affect your life? 

First Thought

 

I love spring water and wild air, and not the manufacture of the chemist's shop. I see in a moment, on looking into our new Dial, which is the wild poetry, and which is the tame, and see that one wild line out of a private heart saves the whole book. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feeling is what I like in art, not craftiness and the hiding of feelings. - Jack Kerouac

During the '50s, “first thought, best thought,” became the mantra of the Beat writers. They wanted to capture a direct line to the subconscious through what flows in the mind. The Beats went after that wild line.

Wild, free, single lines evolve into a work of art. A sketch results from glimpsed nuances. It all started with the wild sketches on cave walls.

Free form art changed writing, jazz and painting. Jackson Pollock sought the wild image; Thelonious Monk after the wild edge in jazz.

Your first thought taps something deeper; it emerges out of the edges of imagination. Energy arises from that first effort. The spirit of a writer arises in a quick sketch. Depth of feeling, spiritual depth, emotional state of the moment all spill out.

The first impression arises to set a stage.

Get into wilding today. 













Go for a walk and let the wild enter. Notice how the flash will introduce another thought.

Courage and Creativity

"Art is a personal act of courage. It's something one human does that creates change in another." 

- Seth Godin

Look around your living room at the amazement of products the human mind has created: appliances, digital clocks, computers, cell phones, mirrors, photographs, art objects, books, rugs, tables and chairs. Utility items, that we take for granted, make life run.

Art energizes the spirit.

Each required a view through different eyes to develop. Individuals had the courage to create change.

During the day think about the human spirit and motivation to fill needs in positive ways. Also ponder how negativity seeps in and its effects on the process.

How does progress occur?

Recall all the changes and advances experienced in your lifetime. Consider personal, cultural as well as technological progress. 

What have you added to the process?