Emptiness and space

A quiet Sunday night after a snowy November afternoon, and the BF and I get into not a debate but definitely a discussion about the difference between emptiness and having the space for new things. His tendency is to fill any perceived silence and/or perceived emptiness with some combination of video games and streaming entertainment, be it old horror films or the latest episode of some Marvel soap opera, while mine is to play old country music and read whichever Craig Johnson I've got handy while the clowder jockeys for couch space.  The discussion ended as most of them do with neither of us quite understanding the other's stance but agreeing to respect it.

For my part I've never been able to appreciate the recurring din, preferring the sensation of quiet, of the world seeming to still, a pool of deep water at dusk, out of which arises the beginnings of ideas and and the ability to breathe deeply.  Osho writes about something similar in The Empty Boat, about how to find god, or whatever version of truth one seeks, one first has to make space for the potential of that truth to become.  Out of emptiness, of silence, of boredom, rises potential and creativity, and in filling any moment of stillness with noise often the seeds of potential becoming are overridden by some jingle selling car stereos.

I also feel there's a deep and profound difference between the silence of simply being content in and of a moment and loneliness, whereby one dwells excessively on the absence of desired things, which translates into the longing for those things. 









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Silent Voice Quoting Poetry

Today's a day when I write poetry in my head, lines and lines about weeping skies and weeping trees, people whose hearts call for sun and spring as they rush by, huddled in on themselves as the sky shrouds the light in clouds, as the dripping cold rain turns to snow, as the leaves frost white and the branches bow low. 

Spring in Colorado lends itself to quixotic weather, from 80s to snow in a week. Luckily, due to laziness or foresight depending, all my new plants remain unplanted and huddle in the garage. 

Denver Arts Festival

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Harry the Spiky Cactus

 

























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The Art of Asking

My life lately appears to have two themes - asking for help and realizing that some things I just have to flow with.  There's even a sign at the dojo right now that says "being both soft and strong is a combination very few have mastered...." A good friend of mine got me a book for the holidays by Amanda Palmer "The Art of Asking" on how artists, and people in general, don't like to ask for help.  We like to give free donuts but don't like to take them.  We like to help others but don't like to ask for help ourselves, and I'm at least as guilty as most.  Getting into the art show scene has actually forced by hand with the asking for help.  Setting up that booth simply isn't possible with a single person.  Now asking for help in pretty much every other aspect of my life is a different matter.  Luckily my artistic friends don't have quite the same hang-ups.  The past couple of days I've been running flower deliveries for a friend of mine who owns a floral shop.  Always fun to be the person everyone's excited to see, delivering flowers.  Sadly this time around it hasn't been as cathartic as I'd hoped.  The second theme of not everything being within my control and just having to roll with it.  Well sounds like departmental reorgs are afoot at work, and that my headcount is being moved to another department.  I started off somewhat annoyed by this, as they haven't asked me what I'd like.  Then I thought back over the past couple of conversations I've had with people about what I do all day.  "Working on the <insert piece of networking gear here>" is a frequent visitor.  But now its about having to live up to what everyone's saying about my amazing awesomeness with switches and firewalls and wireless controllers.  Its taking the chance of letting everyone down, of screwing up really really badly.


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Invisible People

Spending all day talking to invisible people. 

Yay for chicken wire

December always feels like such a down time for art.  Lots of clouds and a definitive lack of awesome plants to shoot.  Always the month where I consider packing it in and moving back to the area I grew up in or heading for the coast.

This December at least there's glitter in the form of the holiday ornaments I've stapled to my living room ceiling.  Yay for chicken wire.  Only six weeks to go before the flowers start to get interesting again.

Applied again for Cherry Creek last week.  I noticed this year they've moved to allowing people to submit up to 20 applications... At $40 a piece...

Such is the price of hope, although lets be honest here.  Allowing people to submit more than 5 apps is just preying on people's hope, and frankly most of us don't have a large enough body of work to have 80 unique and amazing images.  I restrained myself and only put in two apps.  Fingers crossed.



visit Samantha Byrnes' gallery online...