#O175-8: Joy and Gratitude

A small study based on a photoe taken on my morning walk. Below is the final picture, and to the right the source photo and the painting at its first stage. I left the first stage painting to dry a bit overnight, then finished it off the next evening.

Meditation: Begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. This slows down the mind. Once quiet, keep it quiet – don’t get bored with peace – go deeper into it. [Nisargadatta]

A poem by Tomas Transtromer:

Summer Grass
So much has happened.
Reality has eaten away so much of us.
But summer, at last.

A great airport - the control tower leads down
load after load with chilled
people from space.

Gras and flowers - we are landing.
The grass has a green foreman.
I go and check in.

Tomas Transtromer, translated by Robert Bly, in
The Half-Finished Heaven

#O175

#O178

The days slip by. Am I aware? What a happening, this life! Tired beyond belief at the end of the work day – I walk the garden amidst the joy and gratitude flitting between heart and green surround.

Pessoa is strident at times:

… and a deep and weary disdain for all those who work for mankind, for all those who fight for their country and give their lives so that civilization may continue … … a disdain full of disgust for those who don’t realize that the only reality is each man’s soul, and that everything else – the exterior world and other people – is but an unaesthetic nightmare, like the result, in dreams, of a mental indigestion.

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