Naked Nowness

I'm finally settling in! My Mexico home is wrapping its loving arms around me and reminding me so much of who I am.

20 years ago I began to understand that I thrive most outdoors close to nature. It's not a place I want to just visit, it's where I want and choose to LIVE. This year I'm celebrating 20 years of living my best life. I cherish the day I chose NOW over someday. And, even then, some unforeseen obstacles almost deterred me. I'm so thankful to my brother who encouraged me to follow through on my plan to leave beautiful (but rainy and grey) B.C, Canada for Mexico in spite of what seemed like road blocks back then. 

Most importantly, I'm living in radical gratitude for each day. I'm emphasizing being as "here now" as I can. Old voices and doubts do creep in. I'm meeting them with appreciation for the rich life I've lived and the days that I'm privileged to continue living. I know each is a gift. 

Getting to this place of living my authentic truth didn't happen overnight. It's a lot like how paintings don't usually find a direct path to completion and rarely without some head banging. There are many moments of doubt that threaten to overwhelm and undermine. I'm learning to recognize the doubts for what they are, important steps along the way, and to remember that the journey of every painting has been laden with them. And yet each time I end up with a piece I love and/or have learned from. Either way, each painting journey is a blessing. 

An artist that I learn from these days named something that is especially exciting for me about abstraction in painting and what keeps me coming back to this form of expression. It's that we have very little idea of what the outcome will be. It's like unzipping my heart and mind and letting it all out onto the canvas. Then I play with whatever elements show up, constantly curating and being guided by what's already happened.

This is after I've spent an hour or 2 each day immersing myself in the beauty that surrounds me and drinking it in through every pore of my body. I walk, I touch, I float, I bask. I absorb the endless variations in textures, tones and patterns. Until recently I didn't sketch outdoors and only rarely photographed, so I worked from memory or from what my subconscious has stored from what I'd experienced. This contributes to the element of surprise.

I don't start out trying to render anything. Rendering has no appeal to me these days. Instead, I'm turned on by the idea of communicating a felt sense experience from the deep rabbit hole immersions of each of my outings. I can't know for sure if this will appeal to or matter to anyone else, but I do know it's my authentic expression these days and that is tremendously fulfilling.