To take the work further doesn’t require me to learn a new technique or drive myself ever harder. It requires a change in me. New neural pathways. Slowing back down again to zero and seeing afresh. The tendency is to be driven by old patterns: produce, produce, produce; practise, practise, practise. I slide into that too often, when the real need that is begging to be addressed is a return to where there is no need, no urgency, no me, no ego. Only when I return there do the gifts of the universe get showered upon the being rather than the doing. Not me, not the impressive canvas or the expectation of recognition. The being. Then the doing is inspired. It comes from a different place entirely where effort is supplanted by a different energy that is endless and ever-renewing. So I sit on the bench in our front courtyard. Still and unthinking, quiet and relaxed. I wait in the knowing that I attempt to know by not attempting anything. I feel, gradually, the connection, a subtle, surging energy throughout. That is not attached to or dependent on anything, that has no voice or character that I can define, that is pure beyond pure and there, without boundaries or limitations, form or anything that my senses can identify, because all that I am is within it, and of it. Now, I make a real difference.
Photo by Carol Saliba on Unsplash