Consumer or a Creator?

 Today I took Ted Rosen's Slow Flow class (amazing) and at the end during savasana he mentioned to imagine the edges of our bodies erasing or disappearing and to take note of the expansive feeling when these borders dissolve.
I imagined my body as a pencil drawing and I slowly erased the edges.


Once Matt mentioned to me that he liked a part of one of my paintings. I responded, "thanks, but I didn't paint that, it just showed up in my painting. " I love this idea of synchronicity...

I paint not by sight but by faith. 

Faith gives you sight. 

-Amos Ferguson, The Artist's Way

 

Just a quick thought about Black Friday. 
How do you identify with yourself? Are you a consumer or a creator? 

Why should we all use our creative power...? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of
objects and money. 

-Brenda Ueland, The Artist's Way

On meditation and drawing...

I've been waking up gently by starting my day with a dreamy meditation.
If you think that you can't draw, then maybe you need to rethink the purpose of drawing. Is it possible for you to do it without judging yourself or live in fear of others judging you?
- Make a drawing today of something that is sitting right in front of you. Study it, notice the light and shadows around it. Resist the urge to erase parts as you go. Then throw it away without showing anyone else. And before you do, you could try the following before you start. -t
The following meditation I found in the book, "The Yoga of Drawing" by Jeanne Carbonetti:

Breathe deeply

As you do imagine that all of the tension in your body drains through your feet

Take a second deep breath as you imagine that all of the extraneous thoughts are
floating weightless out the top of your head

With a third deep breath bring your attention to your heart center. Imagine a golden translucent cord traveling from your heart to the heart of your subject. Through that cord you can feel the movements of the subject... You are able to register the subtle nuances of feeling, as energy shifts within your own body... -J.L.

Ashes to Ashes...

Last night I had a dream about an actual experience that happened to my friend's son, Josiah (9) last summer. We were all at  a Minnesota state park along with twelve other families. We stayed up late most nights and told stories over a big fire pit. The kids got up in the morning to run barefoot through the woods. When Josiah saw the soft gray charcoal, he walked through the pit. Just under the gray material were bright hot burning embers. Fortunately, he got out quickly and wasn't badly injured.

Aparigraha is a Yama that means non-hoarding, or letting go.

The dream made me think about how the gray matter is like all of the things that we hold on to, both material and emotional. The glowing embers are like the the internal fire both beautiful and strong. It so close (even though it doesn't seem to exist) and is able to be restarted with our breath.

Commitments for November

So far, so good. I've been doing a lot of yoga, watering (and talking to) my plants and I've been cooking/baking too. Above is a picture of the cupcakes that I made today. This weeks focus is Brahmacarya (moderation) and I'm bringing these tasty little guys with me to yoga class.

"Brahmacarya is the feeling of freedom that comes when we have let an addictive craving go -- when we eat to live, not live to eat; when we can work to live, not live to work; when we stand firmly and with ease of heart in the postures of life."
Ralph Gates, Meditations from the Mat