Trying To Make Sense of Now

January is my birthday month.  It begins quietly and moves forward at a rapid pace. The best thing to do is to walk to a cafe and read, usually one of Jane Robert’s Seth books. If you can find a seat under a light it’s a blessing. You might acknowledge the lovely human who is usually there at the same hour every day, serendipitously.

Then next thing is to scour the bookshop for art books, a mind bending biography (Julia Cameron’s), stuff on angels, and new happy garden books.  It seems I get a boost from all these subjects right now.  And what I really would like is a good time-travel romance…Susanna Kearsley, please hurry!

A book by Juliette Aristides, Lessons in Classical Painting, catches my eye.  I have skimmed the pictures already. The images are sumptuous in this book, and I love the idea of a modern-day Atelier Program (from Middle French astelier  woodpile, and astele splinter), and learning directly from the artist in her studio or workshop.  But now I’ll do the exercises.

Perhaps that’s what I will post this year.  My progress back to being a painter.  And I don’t mean the kind of painter I was for so long, logging miles on people’s walls and trim with a two and a half-inch Corona.  (Don’t ask).

(This journey might be as slow as my blogging.)

The strange feeling and timber of last year is still working through me. I am looking around for inspiration. I am reminding myself that 2016 no longer actually exists. I am wishing for a black Cadillac with driver to take me on a ride through the foothills…

The nature of consciousness and creativity is a subject coming up right now.  How we create something from nothing (turns out thoughts and feelings aren’t nothing).  How we might begin anew and build a happier “now”, or a simpler life that is rooted in joy and compassion, by letting go a little and not hiding.

Joy and also laughter is something I could use more of right now.  As well as organic home-grown broccoli  (If you haven’t had it you really don’t know what that odd veggie tastes like at all).  On that note I will add one of my rat cartoons.

Happy New Year, friends and family of new beginnings!