Dear reader,

Today I worked again on one of the 15×15 cm squares that I cut from the large 50×70 cm underpainting.

(By the way – today I use Google’s automatic translation function – I’m very curious if you notice anything about that, and if the translation sounds strange.)

I’m not so happy with it this time (with the final painting). I always try to force myself not to say or write things like this. My motto is always: the result doesn’t matter, it’s about the process, it’s about the practice. Whether the process flows smoothly or with bumps – that does not matter, and that is what makes daily painting so special.

I found the process quite difficult this time. Perhaps the “start square” was less inspiring. I kept covering things up, instead of bringing the original square to life.

Anyway: it does not matter. I painted, and I’m happy with that!

Steve Taylor: The Leap

Something else: I am currently reading a book by Steve Taylor: ‘The Leap – the psychology of spiritual awakening”. The foreword was written by Eckhart Tolle, and that immediately aroused my curiosity.

I find Eckhart Tolle a very inspiring teacher, so if he recommends someone, I’m curious what this person has written.

I’m only halfway there, but I think it’s a fascinating book. The book is about ‘enlightenment’. Steve Taylor calls it ‘wakefulness’.

The word enlightenment has many connotations that create distance. Enlightenment is supposed to be for ‘very special people’, for people in India who have turned away from worldly life, for people who have meditated for years and have devoted themselves to a spiritual path. Clearly it is not for ordinary people like you and me.

Steve Taylor denies this. He says that the process of becoming enlightened is something very natural, something that is inherent in everyone as a possibility.

He says (and so does Eckhart Tolle), it’s the natural evolutionary path that humanity is slowly moving towards, and some people (more and more) are going through that process of waking up right now – to a greater or lesser extent. , and with more or less intensity.

Waking up and creativity

There is a lot to write about that ‘waking up’, and I hope to do that in another article, but what I want to say is that he makes the connection with creativity very clearly. Many people who are in an ‘awakening process’ feel inclined to write poetry or to paint.

Waking up is about something unnameable, something that cannot be put into words, something that transcends the rational. Poetry and art allow you to express what you are experiencing while waking up – because making poetry and art is not done with your mind, you do it with your soul, with your deepest being. You cannot rely on the ordinary ‘mind strategies’.

At the same time, making art provides the stillness and immersion in the doing (instead of the thinking), which supports the process of waking up. So it is a real ‘spiritual practice’ – a spiritual practice.

This all very valuable.

More on this in a later blog article. I will certainly announce it in my newsletter.

Below you will find the ‘starting square’, and then the final square.

Here’s the final painting:

Bye!

Have a creative and wakeful day ;-)!

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