It's not for me.
The cacophony of cars, signs, hustle.
The world of man is a distraction from quiet.
It's not for me.
Give me the magic of waves. The whisper of the wind, and spaciousness of birdsong.
In the noise of nature, my mind is quiet.
Rapturously, wondrously,
Silent.
There's nothing to do.
Not really.
The sun is taking care of itself.
The plants are silently busy.
Rain falls effortlessly.
There's nothing to do.
And in that realisation it becomes quieter, and then there's nowhere to go.
Not really.
In the quiet of here, in the moment of breath, and sensation.
It's enough.
There's nowhere to be.
And it's quieter still.
There's no-one to be.
Not really.
I made me up.
And bore all of the things I had to do.
Busy.
Missing.
There's no-one to be.
Galaxies beyond number,
pirouetting across the empty vastness,
in times and distances beyond comprehension.
And in this place in the universe, on this ball of dirt and slime and air and water, thrown together, the life that you think is yours, emerged.
This incredible lump, hurtling through the depths of space, covered in life.
Miraculous and wondrous.
And then we.
We?
We make….
peak hour.
Impermanence.
Movement.
Change.
Transition.
Mountains, trees, ants and you.
All in a state of flux.
Endless, constant change.
Life and death?
Beginning and end?
Or simply wonderful, glorious,
Movement.
“Wave and Rock Study II”
Water over rocks, rolling over itself.
Stones wearing each other down.
Sand moving.
The surf in the distance, bass rumbling.
There's an insect droning, heard faintly in the gaps in birdsong.
Leaves move over one another, and the wind moves through it all.
Sometimes softly, and other times more insistent.
And listen closely.
The sound of air moving into your lungs.
And the muffled thump of your heartbeat.
Music.
When you walk, you hold your head high, open, aware and alert.
Can you see the machinations of the world with awe and wonder?
Me too.
That's why I paint.
“Sunset Study”
It seems to me that I didn't really know life.
And then,
One day,
I looked into the eyes of death.
And now?
Now I know,
There is nothing to know.
Except, to simply live,
Simply.
There's a tear just there.
Right below the surface.
Made in the stars.
It was created in the endlessness of everything that has ever been and ever will be.
A tiny, miniscule tear.
Born in the realisation that in the endlessness of everything that has ever been and ever will be, there is only rapturous, endless,
Love.
I spent just enough time listening to the thoughts in my head.
Listening to the noise they made that pulled me from being aware of the magnificence of a breath.
Of warm skin underhand, or the earth underfoot.
I spent just enough time to finally discover the silence in the gaps between them.
And then, eventually, the divine silence behind
Everything.
I found the light.
It was glancing off the ocean, and onto the trunks of trees.
It skimmed across people's cheeks, and found the eyes of life.
It bounced to here from stars.
And you know something?
In the seeing of that light?
Everything became......lighter.
“Dune Study III”
“Sunrise Study III”
Two Paths.
One path rooted in the mechanations of survival,
And the unconscious push to have enough.
To be enough.
Restless and loud with the sounds.
Dry.
Empty.
Or, the other. In which peace is found.
Contentment realised.
Enough is seen.
Quiet.
Love.
Two paths. Fear, or love.
You choose.
Why do we forget
that there are complex processes
simply happening
in order for us to be alive?
Why do we forget micro-organisms,
ecosystems,
and the magnificence of stars?
And we forget
cells formed into a heart, lungs, a brain.
But why?
Why do we forget how truly wondrous it is?
To be alive.
It seems a shame to walk on the skin of this planet,
alive and touching life.
Feet on the fragments of boulders and stars,
ground into dirt,
and moved in journeys over times unimaginable.
Air over skin and hair,
into lungs and out of nostrils,
oxygenating blood,
heart pumping.
The wondrous machinations of life,
endless processes beyond comprehension.
Wonder and awe incarnate.
And yet,
it seems a shame to be alive
and not see,
all that.
Ground rocks, under feet.
Pulverised, and broken into fragments.
Sand.
The ocean shaping, pushing and pulling.
Clouds overhead, light through them.
Cutting lines on their edges, casting moving shadows on the earth beneath.
Trees, reaching up, touching the sky and pointing at the clouds.
This, while birds wheel in the sky.
And I?
In this moment, I move paint over canvas.
Alive.
And wide awake.
This galaxy shouldn't be here.
This sun shouldn't be here.
This solar system with this incredible blue orb shouldn't be here.
These trees, this glorious ocean, these incredible animals, worms and fish, should not be here.
Me.
I shouldn't be here.
But I am.
And I will swim, and laugh, and cry, and paint and feel, with endless joyous gratitude, until I am no longer here.
Do we have enough gratitude?
Can we be so grateful that we are filled with wonder at the magic of existence itself?
Can we realise enough gratitude to truly appreciate the machinations of a single, solitary breath?
Are we willing to know gratitude so profoundly that its experience finally obliterates our suffering, anger, greed and disquiet?
I wonder.
A single tear.
It's not much.
Just a tear running down a cheek.
Water and salt, squeezed from an everyday eye.
Not much.
But.
Maybe that tear is shed in a moment of profound awe and rapturous gratitude.
And then, it's not, not much.
I painted today.
It didn't work out. Composition was awkward and off.
I painted today.
The marks that I made went to war with my senses and eye.
When I painted today, the colours were weird.
The picture lacked lustre and life.
I painted today.
The strokes all clumsy and stiff. The marks misplaced and contrived.
You know what though?
I painted today.
I died. And it was exquisite.
In my death, I felt the hum of life.
No more "me" to obscure the view.
I felt the crackle of the energy of the universe.
This puny sack of bacteria, vibrating with life and death.
Reawakening to the divinity of being conscious of the fizz of existence.
“Breathe Out” Limited Edition Archival Print by Mark Waller
Perhaps "you" have to die, to truly live.
Surrender, utterly.
No more "you".
No more striving, no more "should do's", "should be's".
Just the entire universe unfolding in front of you.
Inside you, not separate.
Dancing with atoms and energy.
And finding the source of all.
LOVE.
