Touched

Reading “woman of power and grace”, nine astonishing, inspiring luminaries of our time, by Timothy Conway. All of them from different religions. The first one was an Italian nun who at the age of seven has a near-death experience as she nearly drowns and mysteriously was thrown back out of the water. After that, she was full of Love for God and everyone around her. She went all the way to America and became the first American saint. Some of the saints are just so “overcome” with the feverish desire to find God be it by some traumatic event or out of the blue, others are “working very hard at it” and sing the name of God for years or do penance. All of them suffered very much and kept going despite that. In Kashmir Shaivism, they say it is grace and it is given by God out of free will (svatanrya). It is not easy to understand when on the other hand we have free will and “if you want it you get it.” as Swami Lakshmanjoo points out.

But what impressed me most is the outpouring of Love from these women, even reading it I can feel it. I was watching Ammachi, the hugging saint as she hugs thousands and thousands of people with the same intense motherly love and compassion for each one of them. It spreads from her all around and everyone seems to be bathed in that Love.

Watched “the freedom writers diaries”, about a teacher who was teaching a multicolored class in LA that hated each other and didn’t even wanted to learn. She made them read “Anne Frank’s diaries” and encouraged them to write their own stories. I liked the way she felt so compassionate towards them and inspired them to be compassionate towards each other and see that it is not only themselves suffering but others also. It was very shocking to see in the beginning how they could learn and come to school at all after all, so much violence and every day survival war. And great to see how these kids warmed up to each other and how much energy and compassion was suddenly available to them.

It made my own problems seem so petty and small compare to the live threatening issues in the world, and just around the corner here there is people dying just because their skin color is black. That to me is so sad.

We watched “Bury me at wounded knee” on HBO, a very moving and well done movie about the native American’s tragedy. It made me very sad to see how they were treated and died and were cheated out of their ways of life. It said in the movie, “We will be remembered by the traces we leave”.

Which puts it back in perspective . . . when the first impulse is to want to scream and do something about it and stand up for all the injustice done all around . . . I think that all those sad stories around me and touching me are just to teach me one thing. . .

If we all concern ourselves a bit more about other peoples suffering than our own and focus on our being more compassionate rather than on our hatred (towards the people that have done us wrong) and work more to lessen wrong that we are about to do this world would be a more beautiful place. More feminine and loving . . . (and more creative because we would have a lot more energy!)

Now back to painting. . .

“Kashmiri Family” Acrylic on canvas on Masonite board, ready to frame. H 6 x W 9 in (15.3 x 22.86cm)

I kind of got side tracked when doing the smaller paintings, and one of them turned out pretty nice but had nothing to do with the big painting really, it was from a photo. Felt nice to just paint that way. It didn’t work out as a means to get closer to the colors or shadows etc. so I am back at the computer to construct something there. It turned out to be great fun to explore the brushes and possibilities in Photoshop. Then I will print it out and get back to my brushes and paint.