Focus and meditate

Take your pick of anything to meditate upon in the garden at the Friends Meeting House.

Thank you for allowing us to enjoy it also.

Today's quote:
As we move deeper into meditation, the state of our mind expands thus allowing us to create more space within our body.

inspiring artist Tricia Cline

I just came upon an artist who sent me into whow, then into meditation on some of her images, then into another place entirely than when I first started.  That doesn't happen every day.

Tricia Cline

She crafts porcelain figures that are incredible, then paints them often.  They are in costumes, or merged with animals often.  I could not stop looking at them.
 

In her Bio on her site she says:

 Direct-observation of an inspiration is a careful love of it without mental interpretation. This approach was greatly influenced by the writings of psychologist James Hillman from whom we learned a great deal about the life of imagery. He describes in his book Blue Fire, a dream, where suddenly a great black snake shows up, if the dreamer, upon awakening, decides to interpret the meaning of the snake, he kills it. And thereby the relationship with the image is lost, because the vast Unknown has been limited to only what is Known. The image is a transcendent guest coming through you into form. But through interpretation you cut off its link to that transcendent Reality.

In the true work every iota of its space deserves total care and attention. Attention equals love. This approach towards detail is a kind of deliberate, very present meditation and allows a transcendent quality to enter through you.

 

Porcelain - Tricia Cline, Cat Sings to the Acolytes

Labyrinth

I've made a few of these models of the Labyrinth from the Chartre Cathedral in France.

I've never been there.  But the path of this meditative form may be followed by just holding it in your hand and tracing the glazed parts with a pencil or pen, or even your finger.  Using your eyes is part of the meditation...it slows your breath, (go slowly so you can notice everything) and brings you to focus on something besides the daily life around you.

People who walk a Labyrinth regularly will tell you all the ways this is healthy, healing, and a spiritual practice.

I've been part of giving a workshop where we not only created our own drawn and colored labyrinths, but then built a big walkable one outside in a field.  We didn't try to make it permanent, but used feed corn, so birds and deer might feast upon it after we created and walked it ourselves.  It was fun!  And of course we had a slide show of famous labyrinths.  You may have seen the other one that I make in clay for finger meditations, a triple spiral like the one at Malta and Newgrange, Ireland.

It's international, global, and basic for many who follow that path.