Monthly Archives: August 2012

Day of Rest

If you aren’t already bored with me and my problems, you know I have been working this week with maintaining my sanity, staying present, and keeping my heart open in the face of uncertainty, contemplating the notion of impermanence. As I practice, I find that it’s important to keep things simple. I’m experiencing intense emotions and discursive, obsessive thoughts, and the more I can maintain a clear focus, the more workable my situation.

Susan Piver posted a new blog entry and video this past week 5 steps to establish genuine confidence. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her talk about it, but it was quite timely and so helpful. Basically, “The underlying theme is to simplify, slow down, pay attention to details, and have faith–not as an act of wishful thinking, but because as you take these steps you see that your life is actually unfolding with a sense of order.” I’m sharing this today because I think you, kindest and gentlest of reader, might also find something useful in this teaching.

August Break: Day 26

This is not my picture, but I wanted to share it with you.

This is a piece by San Francisco-area landscape artist Andreas Amador. His work is brilliant, amazing, beautiful, and completely temporary. On his website, he talks about the impermanence of his work, saying that:

The only constant in this existence is impermanence. In the end our lives are about the experiences we’ve had, not the things we have held on to. And in the face of certain erasure, in the face of our own personal, inevitable demise, the act of rallying forces on behalf of creation and beauty is a declaration of one’s existence in the face of a seemingly indifferent ocean of reality. I really like that metaphor–it encourages and propels me.

In the face of certain erasure, we are compelled to create something beautiful with our lives. Love or art, we long to leave a mark, no matter how temporary it might be, and we can find joy in that, peace even.