Cultivating Your Artistic Life

“To be simple means to make a choice about what’s important and to let go of all the rest. When we are able to do this, our vision expands, our heads clear and we can better see the details of our lives in all their incredible wonder and beauty.” via Jeff, p. 154 from  The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori

“Letting go of all the rest” is an on-going, spiritual practice for me.

Distraction is so very seductive. The key is, I suppose, a healthy balance between dancing wildly at bohemian costume parties and staying home on a full-moon night to write when the entire kingdom is at the ball.

Then, from Tish G., another great reminder that calms my chameleon heart:

“Inside my heart, there's this little Buddha very serene, who always reminds me that it's all just zen. Life is all just zen. And the world falls away....everything matters and nothing matters. It is what it is, in this moment, and that is all. That is how you learn to move between the worlds.”

(image via Fabrizio Fiorenzano, FR Creations)

Comments

[the bluest eyes]

Great you are back! My chameleon heart is changing between dark red and blue these days as work and studies and private life seem to be exhausting more than ever. Thanks for reminding me of letting-go.

I do miss the bohemian costume parties and the days where I stayed in to listen to the Monsoon down there in Asia. Cultivating my artistic life seemed to be a lot easier then ;-)

[shamash]

Hi, bluest eyes! You are right: the lifestyle here makes culitvating the artistic life is easier than in the busy West. Missing you, and thinking of you. I dream of one day, all of us, having a reunion at the Sky Bar, wearing our sexy shoes! ;-)