Author: bsefran

To all experience, Gassho. To all experience, I bow.

Gassho. To all experience, I Bow.

This one probably requires a bit of explanation for many people:

The drawing (an actual drawing in this case, not digital) was part of an article which I wrote many years ago for the newsletter of the Zen Buddhist group with which I meditated.

A gassho, here, is the kind of palms-together-in-front-of-the-face little bow, with which many non-meditators also are familiar.

It is an acknowledging, greeting, accepting bow, similar to Namaste, a non-contact form of respectfully greeting and honoring the person you meet- a much better form of greeting than a handshake in my humble opinion, especially in these days of Covid ! I wish the whole world would adopt it.

In this drawing, the meditating person on their cushion, enfolded in the gassho-ing hands, is in black, because that is what is worn in zen meditation (when in a group). He or she is faceless because when we sit, we are, in one sense, self-less. However, in the heart region, the region of compassion,   there is a face which could be either a Buddha face or a person (or both!)  this figure is also tenderly cradling a face with tears.   We hold all these factors, these “faces”, in our hearts.  

Just bend, just stretch!

Just Bend, Just Stretch

This one is to emphasize the importance of exercising!

If you’d like a smile, here’s the photo from which this picture was made.

Believe it or not, the inspiration was my lunch after coming home from an exercise class : a bowl of carrot soup on a pottery dish. A lot of twisting and turning and adding in Photoshop Elements . . . and Just Bend arrived. That’s how far my artwork gets from the original photos!

A City Called Life : Alley Cats. Feasting on what can be found.

From A City Called Life Series: Feasting on What Can Be Found

This is based on a photo of feral cats looking for scraps one evening behind a restaurant in Spain, surprised by the light being turned on. It’s made from an old, (1960s) slide and will not enlarge as most of them do.

There have been many “messages” of one sort or another which have helped me throughout my life, from various teachers, friends and traditions. One that really speaks to me is the idea of “feasting on what can be found.” A friend and teacher, with whom I meditated for many years, used to say something like, “If you can’t do what you would really like to do at the time, think about what it is that the desired experience offers you. Then find something else which is available and offers you some of the same.” During this Covid time, many of us do this out of necessity. We can’t go to concerts, so because we need music, we go to virtual ones or play our old CDs, or we can’t travel, so maybe we watch travelogues on TV. Those are obvious ones, but some of our needs or wants take a little figuring out!

One of my mother’s favorite sayings – which used to annoy me as a child, but has stood me in good stead – was, “Enough is as good as a feast !” That has followed me through my life since my wartime and postwar childhood, when substitutions were so necessary. Putting that together with “feasting on what can be found”, today, when due to the pandemic, health issues and aging, I can no longer get around to find or do all I might like to, I don’t have much problem feasting on lots of small joys instead of missing large ones.

For more about the Series, A City Called Life

Covid Time : Three versions!

ORIGINAL PICTURE, representing Normal Time, pre-Covid

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Covid-Time 1 : Time Stretched!

Covid-Time 2 : Time Shrunk!

One of the odd things about this Covid time is that for me, and for many people it seems, time itself appears to either speed up or to crawl! It’s hard to believe it will soon be Summer when I have hardly become used to the idea that it is Spring … and what happened to Winter? Some days I can’t believe it when I see that it is only 3:00 PM when I thought it must be at least 6:00 PM; other times, the days speed by faster than ever and there isn’t time to do all the things I meant to. And it always seems to be the weekend again every few days! Strange.

So I thought I’d have a bit of fun and try to depict that visually.

At the top, is a picture which might represent a chunk of normal Time, with all its ups and downs, ins and outs, lights and darks. (Dont take it too literally: perhaps this was a day I spent looking at flowers, waiting at traffic lights, or making a spinach and tomato soup, then trying not to snooze while watching TV) : )

Then to follow there are Time Stretched and Time Shrunk.

The last two are made by manipulating the same original picture, which is itself an edited photo, just as our brains seem to do with time!

In the Forests of Kefiristan

In the forests of Kefiristan

There is no such place as Kefiristan! This is to show an example of making a picture of branching trees out of something else that branches : dregs of some kinds of liquid, in this case of dregs of kefir (a fermented milk drink) in a glass, turned upside down. Many slightly thick liquids, such as kefir, thin yogurt, some flour-thickened liquids, pea soup, and some paints will leave a pattern like this on a glass or bowl. The photo below is the original, turned upside down. If you want to try it, use a clear glass.

Both the trees and the dregs are examples of the Branching Pattern found in nature, and anywhere there is Flow, (such as information flow). More about the Branching Pattern will soon be added to Patterns in Nature in the Top Menu on the Home Page.

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Old tapestories wear thin!

Old Tapestories Wear Thin

Tapestories. No that’s not a typo: Tapes, stories! This is made from a photo of a tapestry, which did indeed wear thin. It was also attacked by moths and it became so worn that, sadly, I had to throw it out.

Stories, Tapes, are a part of everyone’s life: family stories, family histories, (not to mention history and herstory), religious and cultural histories, myths and folk tales, even nursery rhymes. Then there’s the personal stories, the ones we tell ourselves and those we tell other people, not necessarily the same thing!

There are schools of thought which say that we are just our stories, our self is our story! All these stories, from those of our culture, to the personal ones we hold inside ourselves, play a large part in who we are.

The stories we tell ourselves can often be very limiting. “I’m just a person who can’t do this or that”; “this is the way it’s meant to be”; “it’s all so-and-so’s fault I am the way I am”; “I’ll never get over it”; or whatever! We run these tapes, stories, over and over again in our minds. Part of growing older is the joy of finally seeing that these tapes/ stories are wearing thin, and we can toss them!

Once, a Church.

Once, a church.

I made this one after looking at a wonderful, but very sad, album on Flickr by someone who had photographed dozens of derelict or abandoned buildings of all kinds: municipal buildings; railway stations; schools, concert halls, and many many churches and other places of worship, often places with amazing historical architecture or interior design. It’s hard to imagine what could have led to them becoming abandoned.

Coincidentally, soon after that, I saw on the news that there had been a disastrous fire in Paris ,which destroyed part of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Although I am not a churchgoer, I find old churches very interesting and moving. During my childhood in England I lived in a fairly rural county which abounded in churches, many of them medieval and some dating right back to the Saxon period. Those old stone churches were the centre of village life in those small towns. My uncle, who was an artist, used to take me along on some of his sketching trips as we visited village squares, castles, seashores and meadows and lots of churches and their graveyards where various poets and people of historical importance were buried. At the churches, I loved to look at the gargoyles on the pillars and the stained glass windows from inside. Those windows taught me that something which looks dark and boring from the outside, can be light and colourful from the inside. I particularly liked the mandalic-shaped rose windows!

During my last visit back to England i a few years ago, I was saddened to see that a lot of church buildings, some with beautiful architecture, had been turned into restaurants, bars, bingo halls and flats and so on. I don’t know what I’d want for them, some kind of community gathering place, perhaps, but not businesses!