Saturday

Portrait Meditations

Grady got through his surgery today and seems to be in good spirits, purring up a storm, eating up a storm, even playing. I guess he's not going to hold it against us like Seamus did. Seamus was upset about his neuter job for a month or more. We're keeping him in the back bedroom tonight so he won't play with Seamus and hurt himself. He's a little sweetie.

I worked some more on the portrait and am tempted to trash it, but I keep telling myself this is a test of my patience. I practice yoga (occasionally) in order to get control of my mind and not freak out over the state of the world, traffic, taxes, insurance companies, you name it. The ability to clear and calm the mind is all in the breath, "the most important part of yoga" as every yoga teacher says. I'm trying to stay focused on the idea that instead of sitting on a mat meditating, I'm meditating by painting a portrait and not getting too attached, not looking at time lines and breathing and seeing where it goes. As I was alternating between yoga-like detachment and stressing, I couldn't help but think about the odd dichotomy of an artist. The artist, using intuition and emotion, begins to create a piece of art, but it only becomes something worthwhile (sometimes) to the artist after the decision making/problem solving part of the brain destroys parts of it. Maybe I'm just tired, but somehow this seemed like a major revelation. I better go to bed. Om!

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