LOVE COLOUR EXHIBITION COLDSTREAM JUNE 2011

THINKING AND REFLECTING

I was taking my turn, sitting in a gallery, waiting for customers, pondering and asking myself,

‘Why is it that when some people get really old, they calmly say in a matter of fact way, they’ve had enough’?

I thought, well I can understand in a way, but as I looked out of the window at the changing autumn colours I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of the beauty of nature. Then I remembered that although there are scenes in nature that can be visually stunning, there’s more to it than the physical form, and there’s no doubt that something is having an effect on the ‘heart’, the emotions, which creates the perception of beauty and with it the profound feeling of well-being.

But which comes first, the sight before us then the opening of the heart or the opening of the heart and the beauty before us. Is it both? Do memories of bliss experienced through any of the senses trigger the ability to open the heart? So if we see a food that was once blissful in the tasting, the memory triggers a willingness to experience that bliss again. If we’re using the sense of sight we think it’s what we see, if we listen we think it’s what we can hear, if we taste, we think it’s what we are eating etc. The feeling of pleasure/bliss/love appears to be ‘in’ and ‘require’ specific experiences, a multi-coloured sunset rather than a pile of rotting waste. But of course it doesn’t, because the bliss or love resulting through connecting with any of the senses is the same bliss/love and is only limited by our ideas of what we think will trigger the experience.

With a feeling of love for the beauty beyond the window I asked myself ‘Why limit it to what’s outside? If your heart has opened, keep it open and experience the room’. So remaining in that state, I ignored any critical ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’ mental commentary and looked at the walls, the door, the door frame, the floor etc. without judgement, and everything, form, colour and function seemed very quietly right and in a way beautiful and heartfelt. What was also interesting was that the feeling emanating from the forms seemed to be what I was experiencing in my own form so how could I ever be tired of that?