About two weeks ago I took this picture of the pollen on the lake during our morning walk. The next day it was gone.
My mind has been like that….a bit clogged.
Bundling and tying and shellacking whole bodies of art work and giving them a place to wait out of sight for the ending has helped.
Sorting through books has helped. Many boxes went out this morning. More are boxed in the studio and ready for pick up.
With the books I am coming face to face with the earlier thinking that, “I will need that one day”. And really how untrue that is. Others who could have used what I kept were ignored because I was so sure that these things would be just what I needed….some day.
And what I needed all along was the space that they cluttered up with false promises. I think after all of them are removed from the studio, the best thing to do would be to remove the shelves as well.
I need clear blank spaces.
I need to find a way to get back to my yoga and tai chi practice in that cleared space.
The studio had become a place of reminders of all the things I can either no longer do or am no longer interested in doing.
Today when a friend from the art group came by to collect the books, we parted thinking that we will get together in the studio and just make prints together when I am ready. I look forward to that, sharing what little I will have left in a large open space…..just playing, no thinking, no worrying about what will become of the results, no thinking beyond making marks and printing….and learning.
When I take my blood pressure at the gym three times a week, I mentally go to a place I used to do tai chi. It was very early morning in Geelong, Victoria Australia. And I would sneak off to just inside the tree line of a Eucalyptus forest, carefully take my bow and begin to move my feet over the shed bark of the trees and listen to the whispering of that. It was so peaceful and so invigorating…all that slow breathing with the whisper of Eucalyptus.
My blood pressure is well within the “good” range under those glaring florescent lights with the distant sound of feet pounding on treadmills and groans of physical exertion. Because I am not even there. I am in that forest.
My studio is going to be that forest for me when I get everything that is not necessary to that feeling taken away.
Much more to go, but getting there.
Til later.