Who can you blame?
Are the feelings unjust when a decision is a matter of knowing you must find fault or favour with the ill winds of change?
It is never enough to simply rearrange plans or predicaments. It is like making a prediction of all my flaws with my faith as fractured or fragile as it is, or has been.
Far easier to see what I haven’t been doing.
03/24/2023 j.g.l.
We tire of unpredictable weather, the damp morning chill, wet socks and lost mittens. Winter keeps reminding it is not through with us.
We have suffered long enough.
The streets are tired and dirty and the time change only makes things darker in the morning.
We need a brighter view.
We need, now, the renewal that comes with spring.
03/20/2023 j.g.l.
Progress comes less from planning than participation.
Dreams and wishes require action and attention.
Start moving.
03/19/2023 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
I spent most of yesterday morning painting by the lakeshore and, yes, it was as calming as it sounds.
It was mindful creativity; it was non-judgmental art.
I’m doing that this month: art.
It is, pretty much all I’m doing this month.
Art.
I’ve got several projects on the go and none of them with a specific deadline. I’ve taken artful adventures with and without my camera (I think of them as field trips) and I’m also mindful of random, spontaneous artistic thought.
The painting session was as spontaneous as a painting session could be. I had intended on writing, but painting on a picnic table by the lake sounded more beneficial.
I’d gone to this same spot two weeks earlier and painted, essentially the same scene. But it looked different yesterday, and not only because it was hazy. I know two weeks ago, as I had undertaken this August art immersion, I was thinking more as I was painting. My paints had sat in the wooden box too long, and I was refreshing myself on technique and considering composition and all sorts of things that can clutter the mind.
Yesterday I just painted; seven small sheets of paper, one scene, and several different versions of the same scene.
All created without rushing.
And all created without judgment.
Sometimes you just have to paint.
Sometimes you have to just be.
Sometimes there are mindful thoughts in watching paint dry.
Would you like a small post-card sized painting from the Toronto lakeshore?
If you send me a postcard from where you live, telling me something about your corner of the planet, I’ll send you a handcrafted postcard from my city.
During the month of October, on this website, soultalk will will be celebrating Homecoming Month. In addition to writers I have invited into this space, postcards will be used to help make this world a little smaller. I’ve already received cards from around the world, but I’d like more.
If you’d like to be involved, send a email soultalk@mythosandmarginalia.com and I’ll send you details and my address.
peace
-j-
