I’ve begun whittling and carving. It’s amazing and fun. 

 A friend of mine and fellow artist and I were having an email conversation about creating. This is how I feel about creating in any way:

“And I completely understand what you mean by getting in the zen like zone. When it comes to the things we create it’s like “feeling” what is locked inside of these formless materials and letting the medium take you on its journey. We unlock the next phase of those materials lives. I am merely a vessel for the already existing beauty in the world to come to the surface. It takes a oneness with everything that is to listen and feel closely enough to allow that subtle beauty to be passed through us. We are lucky. Most people can’t even see it. Even standing in front of the most breathtaking forms of creation in this world, whether it is a human being, a painting, a building, a garden, a mountain ridge, a slice of ancient history, the depth is lost on a shallow mind and heart. But to be able to see every single thing as something so profound and so special, so unique and the product of so many things gone right in just the right procession, that’s true oneness with all that is. That’s true enlightenment. That’s why I love being an artist!!”

From the intricate design product of all of evolution to the splattering of a child’s finger paintings, this world hold so much beauty. We are so busy rushing off from one appointment to the next that strolling through the park or looking up to the painting in the sky is lost on people. 

How?! How could this be?! And how do we get back to valuing the slower pace of life. Chewing slowly to taste the chefs creation. Walking slowly to notice the buzzing of a whole buggy community right under your feet. When will we realize that more is not more, less is more. Fast isn’t efficient, slow is efficient. Let the seconds and minutes of life last a lifetime, don’t wish them away because you’re bored. If that is the case you’re not paying enough attention. You want to live longer?! You wish life could last forever? Then slow down and take a breath and feel every ounce of it travel through your nose and drip down your throat and fill up your lungs. Cherish it. See the beauty in every single simple thing. 

You’re bored in math class? Realize what that math actually means instead of stressing about the moments creeping by till the bell rings. It is the foundation, the language of all we can see and interact with. It is how we describe the world we live in. 

You wish work would go quicker? Then you’re not paying attention. Why do you do what you do? Simply to pay the bills? But what about all the magic and beauty tucked away in all the hiding places of your boring day? The miraculous beings you interact with have a world and a story of their own. Do you know anything about it or them? The system you’re a part of whether you’re pushing papers or serving tables is an intricate design of something so much bigger than this moment. Than this job. It is connected in so many ways to the beloved world and its systematic homeostasis.

 Just your breath alone is something magical and yet we check out of the process all together way too often. 

Let’s get back into touch with real life. Let’s practice mindfulness and slowing down. Let’s decide to live for today instead of wishing this life away for the promise of a hypothetical eternal life afterwards. Let’s stop writhing in uncomfortability of the boring or the mundane and seek the magic in it all. Let’s go back to that childlike wonder. 

  
After all, every single thing you touch goes on forever. Infinitely. Inward and outward, upward and downward, forward and backward. Inside that tiny leaf there is a whole story, a working world of knowledge, how it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. How it photosynthesises light and assimilates the nutrients in the earth to become its stem and feeds the trunk of a redwood giant that lives longer than any human could ever dream! Inward, all the way down to the tiny puzzle like interlocking mechanisms that keep that leaf together all the way outward to its function in keeping our earth breathing and healthy, there is a story. A history. 

  
Forward and backward and you get this insanely amazing opportunity to be able to interact with it for a single slice of that infinite timeline. That history and intricacy exists for every single thing and being we interact with. Infinitely inward and infinitely outward there is a dance playing out. Let’s fall in love with that dance again and let this life be the finest sips of the sweetest nectar that ever could have existed. And I bet by the time it’s our time to move on from this life, if we’ve lived like that every day, we will be full enough to let it go, not regretting a single moment. 

(This post took a turn but it was meant to be.)

Love in. Love out.