Musings On Things That Matter To Me: January 2009

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Reflections & Resolutions

Life moves so fast we almost miss it in our own self created whirlwind. This is a brand new year full of so much promise and so much hope, for so many people. Sometimes something happens in a moment and I am caused to stop and truly reflect on all that the experience means.

I answered a phone call this past week, it was a business call and the caller was also someone I count as a friend. She had information that needed to be relayed and information she needed from me. We handled the matter of the call in all pleasantness, and then I wished her a good week (this one up coming) and she stated back to me in words that were so simple yet they were full of so much upbeat emotion. "This is going to be a wonderful week!"

I realize now that she was thinking outside of our moment's box. She was feeling and thinking across an unselfish, and broader plane than my colloquial comment had been. She was thinking with connection and all of the silver threads that come with our connections. She was reflecting a global consciousness, a gift to me in one brief moment in time.

Having that experience with her has caused me to reflect and wonder, how many of those moments have I missed in the past. Those brief ellipses of time where there is true meaning being cast forth from the universe. Meaning that is there to cause me to stop learn and listen, if only I would pause long enough to take it in.

It is always happening for all of us experiences and events sometimes brief, sometimes extended in time. But always gifts from the universe telling us that nothing is just about us. A call to say "stop, feel connected" to something bigger than the moment and bigger than ourselves.

I am not usually one for resolutions at the start of a New Year, but I vow to try to be more aware of the essences of each and every moment.

Mother Universe

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

I This Much Is True...

I have not been over here to post in a while. Reasons don't seem to be important, but the truth of the matter is that life and living to life's fullest seem to have been taking up much of my time. I am not complaining on that matter, for it seems that life and my reflections on living in the moment have been teaching me much.

Some of my most favorite quotes come from Thich Nhat Hanh. It is he who said "there is no enlightenment outside of daily life." I have been richly blessed in that category.

When I had first started the musings here, I had truly thought that there would not be a central theme, hence the title "Musings...". My passions led me to much discussions around the scarves that I love so much. More recently my wanderings have led me back to the real reasons I fell in love with them in the first place. That is for their artistic value, both the statements being made by the artist who create them, and the art one creates upon oneself when one wears them. For me those two characteristics seem to me intertwined, and it becomes difficult to separate the two. Hence they have become somewhat of a part of my own identity.

A paper I did in a college class on the relationship between collection and identity comes to mind, for it was in the research of the paper that I found that what we collect and how we collect says much about our inner being. I think for a long time I got lost in that world and only recently was able to reconnect to the roots which were the foundation for my collection. That being my true love of what I see as art.

This much I know is true, the entire universe is art. An infinite canvas which not only awaits our discovery, but is there ever changing from moment to moment. We are hurried creatures, so focused on trivial, meaningless tasks, that we often miss the glory all around us calling out to be seen. The age old idiom, "stop and smell the roses" should be a rule for living rather than a colloquial saying.

There are so many the world over who for one reason or the other (ie. war, oppression, hardship, poverty ) can not recognize beauty around them. I count myself as blessed and fortunate to have been given the opportunity to drink it in, and appreciate the created splendor all around me, and perhaps in some small way preserve and share it as I go.

It is all art, and art is all there is around me.