Happy

Here is the mesmerizing image of a painting by Aboriginal artist Marie Hayes. I fell in love with Aboriginal art during a month-long visit to Australia back in 2004. There is a unique cadence and energy about traditional and neo-traditional Aboriginal art that resonates with my sensibilities, and hopefully I have tickled your curiosity to explore Aboriginal cultural expression.

I have been contemplating this painting since the beginning of time...or perhaps it has only been a couple of months. Visual meditation gives me focus and helps calm my mind. This particular painting palpably pulsates and purrs, plunges and plays, precipitating my connection to the Universe. There are 8 Ps in happppppppiness. This is my happiness. 8 or ∞, a flowing continuum without a beginning nor an end, with surges and contractions, infinite and all-embracing in chaotic harmony.

"I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
Here is the short YouTube video.

Adaptability

As he sits there every morning eating his dry Cheerios, banana and a glass of milk, my husband often likes to tease me about being “high maintenance” and making reference to dinosaurs, that is, if I were one, I’d become extinct. Hey, I just had leftover tuna salad for breakfast, so how’s that for being adaptable? I’m just very particular, as we all are, about certain things: maybe some of us more than others. You can’t outrun change, or evolution for that matter. You can try, but that actually means that you’ve adapted to being a fast runner!

This is my first “blog”, so bear with me. If I recall, this process began way back when we lived to Columbia, SC and I started writing commentaries, sending them to friends via email. I was encouraged to continue writing but I didn't. I went off Facebook, now I'm back on. I went to LinkedIn. I built my website. It's a lot to keep up with in this Brave New World.

What has changed? Adaptability: creativity’s kissing cousin. I've decided that all this is no longer a chore. When there's too much information, I tune it out, selectively. You can too! Ignore this blog, I won't be offended but secretly hope you won't. Throughout my encounters and exposure to artists/art school, it was always highly recommended to engage in journaling, so I forced myself to do so but not without feeling like an impostor. What was wrong with me? Was I not “artistic” or creative enough to embrace this process? Lack of confidence? Yes. English is not my first language but unfortunately I have never truly been proficient in my first languages, which leaves me to obsess about possible errors in spelling, grammar, idioms and colloquialisms. Truncated sentences. More about obsessions in a future blog. For now I'm letting go, ready to embrace the unknown. What will I have for breakfast tomorrow?

Deep breath. Here I go, in a public forum no less, “journaling” in cyberspace like millions of others with a healthy dose of self-consciousness and with a firm belief that it will be interesting (at least to me). It can be interactive. People can comment and I'm finally doing something fun: applying my personality and creativity to mixed (social) media. It's as simple as that. I'm pressing the BIG orange "publish" button.

A (b)log is like a tree falling in the forest. If nobody reads it, does it say anything at all?

I have adapted to the 21st century. Sort of. Stay tuned.