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         This drawing was first posted in 2012 but felt more appropriate than the recent one..

Loss of Pattern

Here’s a heart-warming image.  Children on my street sitting in lawn chairs with signs and balloons telling their elementary school teachers that they love them and miss them. Nearby, mothers are stringing their children’s art between the trees from yard to yard.At 1pm a line of at least a dozen cars goes by, also with signs, family, dogs and balloons. These are the teachers.

This is just one of the many levels in the changes we are undergoing right now. We miss the people we’re used to seeing, students, teachers, coworkers, and just as important is the structure that bound it together. Each loss reverberates throughout our patterns of daily life. Our routines are the rhythms of home extended beyond the actual residence, a specific loop of familiar imagery, our regular locations and people. Today on Zoom, ubiquitous sign of the times, a student lamented not being on campus, feeling the energy of our creative community as a support.

After the shock and abnormality, adrift without patterns of being, is a challenge to our creativity. 

What I advised my student was to take a big creative leap. Let the unknown open different directions.

It's been said about depression, that the system shuts down when the old ordering system isn’t sufficient for the volume and complexity of new content, the brain uses the space to construct a better system. The world wide calamity has reinforced how connected we are.  The arrogance and anthropocentrism that drove us off a cliff are humbled by the scale of this disaster. It’s an opportunity to build a just structure that considers how our species is integrated with the world gestalt.

Sneer

2-22-2020

When I accidentally see a string of repeated numbers it serves as my bell of mindfulness. If I happen to glance at the clock and it’s all 1s or 2s, I pause in what I’m doing to focus on my breath and pay attention to everything around me for the next minute.  It might use numbers but it’s not math, it’s beauty, at their core just different languages for the same essence, pointing to relations and not things.  Recently, an expert on the radio talked about higher mathematics in a way that sounded like religion. The tone of his voice as he described his practice, felt reverential.  My use of numbers is ritual, posting on the 22^nd of each month, both for the deadline and because that’s the number I find most beautiful.

Formulas are ciphers for relations between things. A matrix that remains constant. Things come and go but the structure of dependencies, the meaning of the placement on the armature is there for the coming and going to flow within. Artists understand ratios as proportions, structure at a glance. It may be that we see beauty in alignment as well as symmetry. Whereas symmetry seems stable, alignment of a single number feels fleeting, counts on and changes to the next. Some arrangements are enough to see go by briefly. A palindrome makes me smile, is enough in itself to have noticed, like a gymnast doing a series of flips in seconds. The attraction is visual and it stays with you. It’s not too different from a perfect shot in tennis. Perfection doesn’t last long so it’s good to pay attention and not miss it.

Moments of minor magic are spiritual practice, a choice to deepen awareness and tune to connections in the world. These are aesthetic choices, not burdened with esoteric meaning.

An alignment is an opportunity to appreciate the ephemeral glimpse of a smile from happenstance.

I recommend meditation because it has given me the power to stop and let the moment spread until the numbers change. It’s an interval to drop the wall of my own thoughts and let the surroundings absorb me into the picture. An unexpected prompt is available as a line or symmetry of numbers throughout the day. Or pick any favorite number and let the unexpected glance at it help remind you to go still. A minute is not long, but it is longer than you think.

Each time offers the random occasion to tune present centered awareness. Anything can be interesting if you’re paying attention.

Refined Primitive Emotions

"Frightened Bunny", just finished in the fall. This is the lead image on the Baker site where
you can see it along with Snarling Puppy and Angry Kitten at higher resolution.
.https://bakerartist.org/portfolios/susan-waters-eller  

Radical Speculation

The start of a new decade feels like an opportunity, a beginning. Part of forming goals is speculating about possibilities. In a time when we’re offered a few very specific accepted narratives, letting the mind run free in all directions to see what ideas eventually take over and spin more ideas, could begin to crack the rigidity of fixed mental habits. More radical speculation might loosen the grip of 20^th century conventions of thought that are holding new ideas back. The banning of a ted talk by Rupert Sheldrake is a perfect example.

https://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg  

Speculation is seeing through time, and travels in both directions. The alternative narratives some call conspiracy theories are speculation about the parts of a past issue that are left out of the marketed version because some facts don’t fit the comfortable narrative of the status quo. When new facts are known, descriptions and explanations must be changed.  Now some schools are rejecting textbooks as more comprehensive records of history are integrating the experiences and accomplishments of the previously marginalized. Skills of speculation can be honed by projects where students investigate the areas where facts may have been lost, thinking for themselves instead of reading and listening.

The speculation on the future looks at what’s happening now and what it points toward. It is an act of imagination and generator of theory. In the category of science fiction termed speculative, many authors have imagined in fiction what would happen if negative trends in the world continue. George Orwell, Margaret Atwood and William Gibson are just a few of the authors whose books create scenarios that build on present tendencies.

I’ve heard brain researchers say the brain’s purpose is prediction and certainly where survival is concerned, knowing what type of patterns lead to danger and what is the next step of a procedure reflect the ongoing anticipatory stream of consciousness we all experience. The twentieth century technique for problem solving too often looked at the issue in isolation often creating new problems for the part of the picture not considered. Looking at the interrelated whole will be the best technique for the 21^st century, avoiding the need to solve problems created by isolated solutions.

Seeing is understanding. To build perception of wholes the best way is looking at art.

Recently my local paper reprinted an article from the New York Times about new research that showed going to museums increased longevity. With the health benefits to encourage people to see more art the ability to see wholes instead of parts might grow as well. A widespread evolution of mind is a necessary precondition to solving problems that require considering the big picture.

Bookmark 2019

Some of you may recognize MICA's fox building from the back, where the gargoyle's tail points to my classroom  Fox210