How about this quote attributed to Albert Einstein?

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.

My ‘bible’ for many years, since the early 1980s when I was first introduced to it, was Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I hung onto it, bought new editions, bought yet more paper and pencils and then practised the exercises within it. I’d produce passable likenesses although that wasn’t the point, to produce likenesses, it was to ‘access’ the right side of the brain which was/is good at spatial awareness, the so-called non-rational side of the brain. I believed I could ‘feel’ or perceive the switch from left to right or more accurately I felt my attention had shifted to a more global one. A more balanced, whole-brain ‘use’.

I love these fast-moving cartoon-style animated teaching videos. This one titled The Divided Brain has me left in the dust it is indeed fast-moving. If I watch it a few more times I may catch up and appreciate it more fully.

In the meantime and probably for the rest of my life I’ll be picking up a pencil and yet again start to work through the exercises in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. But with a renewed appreciation of the act of seeing, and then drawing, it helps to balance reason and intuition/’seeing’. The exercising of a more global appreciation.

Many thanks to Julius for sending me the link to this short video. Yep, it’s about balance alright.

Coming to the monastery can be a very special time and can leave a deep and lasting impression. This was written by a young woman in about 1992 following her first-weekend stay. Then later she wrote a song titled The Best Days..

These are the best days by far,
Sleeping bags in a row,
The moon is shining on me all night,
And I just don’t want to go.

Tracey Curtis, Singer/Songwriter

Tracy is an all-around gem, glad and proud to know you good woman. I could sing your praises, but I’ll refrain! You are another one who came and never really left!

Do we believe art, in all its myriad forms, is only and exclusively the domain of ‘artists’? What makes art, ‘art’? Is it the recognition of what’s produced as having an aesthetic ‘value’, accompanied by a rising price tag as more works are produced? And the artists themselves, what of them? They become ‘names’, public property along with their ‘works’. An acquaintance of mine paints and draws and sticks it on their wall, sometimes framed, often not. Who’s to say these pieces will, one day, become valued as have the doodles of some of our greats? Not forgetting among the artists; dramatists, actors, dancers, photographers, performers of all kinds. And then there are the great and wonderous writers and poets giving their expression; pouring out their lifeblood as others do, to express that which is revealed unbidden and inexplicably.

Yesterday afternoon I heard myself say, ‘I’ve just done an honest half-days work.’! Given we are closed to guests at the moment we have made a start on painting rooms in the Hall of Pure Offerings. Putting on work clothes doing physical work, getting dirty, getting tired and hungry causes me to feel I’ve actually ‘done something’. Right there. There is something to show for it. No sooner had I spoken, ironically by the way, of my ‘honest half-days work’ than somebody quipped ‘all forms of work are honest’! Quite so too. No glory or acclaim, no applause for giving simple creative expression to – tending plants for example. It is, of course, the ‘how’ more than the ‘what’ that is significant. We would say it’s about ‘attitude of mind’ which is private and personal and known only within our being. Quite often this knowledge is hidden even to ourselves. Only when the flower arrangement, for example, brings a welling of joy is an expression made manifest to the ‘artist’. And their public!

One of the many memories that have surfaced since Rev. Myfanwy’s death on the 2nd of July is a conversation we had while she was staying in Cornwall, 2001. ‘Gosh’! I exclaimed a bit frustrated, ‘I’ve done nothing all-day’. The Reverend replied, ‘you have been talking on the phone non-stop, that’s not nothing. That’s tiring too’. Clearly, there was nothing to show, nothing produced, nothing to put one’s hand on. Nothing to see or stand back and admire or for anybody else to appreciate either. But she saw through that. I’ve always remembered that exchange. Giving expression comes in many forms, including listening to the words and expressions of others.

Out and beyond.
what impels us
to give expression?

Why pick up a pen
or brush or
rise from a chair!

Could it be
the veil lifts
briefly.

Each of us
driven to
give expression.

Through living
nothing
special!

And so it is and so it must be…

Do not surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender.

My need of ‘God’
Absolutely
Clear.

By Sufi poet, Hafiz

With thanks to Eddie for pointing me to this poem. It speaks to intimacy that has no object.

The late Iain Robinson would, in conversation, frequently exclaim, ‘Good Grief’! This was an expression that covered a lot of ground, anything from mild surprise to outright outrage. I’ve thought of him in recent days/months/years, imagining his heated response to what’s happening in the world. Lots of cause for ‘good grief’s’ these days, ey Iain! In my bones, I feel we are coming up for the anniversary of your death, sometime in July nine whole years ago. Right?

Whether or not those heated responses would be justified, or not, grief itself is ‘good’. I’m coming to understand that rather directly these past days since we heard of Rev. Myfawy’s death last Thursday. Like that tree from yesterday with every twig of it connected to every other branch and twig, one death is all deaths, all connected. Everywhere throughout all time and space, it just takes time (and space) to realise that. It’s a step to know that grieving ends up less personal, more universal. Even when, at the same time, intensely personal.

In the midst of it who goes willingly to one’s sitting place to become ‘intimate’ with nameless blank numbness? But this is part of the curve associated with coming to terms with change. Following the curve on its upward journey, our journey, there is to be found acceptance. That’s integrating the ever-present reality of mortality with the very real practical changes that become our very real, changed, lives.

Death at the door.
Friends, relatives,
lovers and strangers.

Good Grief? Yes, Iain.
Good because grief is
on the path to acceptance.

Not that loss
ever becomes something
other than loss.