Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Beyond Shadows of Darkness


Beyond shadows of darkness you will glide... on moonbeam ripples across the tide.
When we traverse life's storms with deep discouragement, it's as if our burdened arms can't raise the sails. This painting was inspired to remind us that the moon and the stars shine bright and staid over us and that by looking to the light, we will eventually find our way out of the darkness.
One of my sources of light is creativity---channeling my feelings into a painting or poem. When immersed in the creative process, I often reach new insights and tap into a source of universal wisdom and knowing. If nothing else, I experience the process of flow, a positive (even euphoric) mental state that results from energized focus on a certain activity.
It's immensely helpful to have multiple sources of "light" such as supportive friends, spiritual resources, and activities that engage and motivate us. What are your sources of "light" when you're feeling discouraged with life's inevitable problems?

Saturday, August 31, 2013

The Tyrannical Facade of the Clock


See more of Amy Scholten's original art at Inner Medicine Art Gallery

The clock rules my life, even more so as I get older. Plunging toward 50, the minutes and hours seem shorter and shorter, the race more urgent. There’s less time to accomplish dreams. More time to realize how much time I’ve wasted on being nothing but a dreamer. In a repeating compulsion to actualize my dreams once again, I realize that maybe I’m better off just being a dreamer. Maybe it’s what I do best.
Contemplation. Imagination. In our time-driven world, these things aren’t seen as valuable, but a waste of time. A life is not measured by one’s inner experience or spiritual attainment but by the rhythm to which she achieves the values that her culture deems worthy under the rule of the tick tocking of a tiny tyrannical machine.  How many are praised for their ability to worship the clock effectively by accumulating money, admirers, symbols of status—a life “well lived” according to someone else, even if they’re not genuinely happy or loving? Even if, in their “productive” use of time, they’re harming creatures great and small because they haven’t taken the time to contemplate who they are and what they’re really doing?
Sometimes I want to throttle the clock, but then I realize its tyranny is a façade, a symbol, and nothing more. In my contemplation, it loses its power over me, at least for a few minutes.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

How Does Her Garden Grow?


 "Summer Garden at Dusk" by Amy Scholten.  Amy's original paintings can be purchased at Inner Medicine Art Gallery
Amy, wary, so contrary, how does her garden grow? With seeds planted too late to bear fruit. With compost that ends up feeding the bugs and not the plants. With store bought tomato plants that cost more than the money she saves from gardening. With many busy hours spent accomplishing nothing while dreaming of an ideal future that already happened yesterday, or is happening here and now, only she’s too focused on tomorrow to experience it.
Her garden grows from endless rain, weeds that crush the coveted peas, deer flies that swarm around her head, and barking dogs that want to be fed green and wax beans that haven’t even sprouted yet. It grows from the rocky goddamned soil that she should’ve tested before buying the plastic spider-breeding ranch house that sits on it, which she didn’t want in the first place but bought because of the nice big flat green yard that would provide a perfect garden. It grows from cow shit that she buys, dog shit that she throws out, and all the shit that she doesn’t buy or throw out.
Her garden grows from an almost 50 year old back that’s aching from all the muscle it takes to plow, plant, weed  and water every inch of this bug biting, slug crawling, wormy little dirt farm of diminutive predators that try to eat it. And she wonders if maybe she’s just a little bit crazy!
Her garden grows from grace, because there’s always a drought when she’s on vacation and her half-assed friend barely waters it and what can she do, fire him? It grows because she comes home a week later and waters the living crap back into it and revives it, wondering why her friend said he’d do it when he didn’t.
Her garden grows because of the lure of magical butterflies and splendid September days when there’s a quiet, reassuring hum of crickets that harken love and abundance, as they did years ago when she burst forth from her hopeful mother’s labor, like the sweet, ripened tomatoes that now fall at her feet.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Grace at Day's End

 

Photography Prints
Day’s end. A time for reflection
The stealthy twig-legged heron stalks the quiet waters of a reedy pond
At peace in tangerine solitude
Confronting his mirror image without vanity or judgment
Unconcerned with yesterday’s catch or tomorrow’s dinner
Single-minded. Intense. Confident in his domain.
Spear-like beak poised in wait of Creation’s offer
Slowly, deliberately, his lanky twig legs wade
in the caresses of glassy, golden, concentric rings
that reach out and embrace
the perfect Oneness.