Simple Sights

I often wonder why I paint... why write... or play a tune....

Do I simply push around the colours until they form a pleasing image, rework words into an expression of yet another interpretation, form scales, triads, and trills into one more melody...?

Sometimes it seems that what has already been done I am simply copying or reforming.

I suppose one thought is, "Yes, but this painting, this writing, this tune, is remade according to who I am, my delights, my sorrows, my vision and senses."

There is a fulfillment that comes when light and colour clash or flow into one another and reflect back to me from the paper, when words formed into a short phrase embody much ponderings, when a tune causes my mind to forget words, my eyes to close and my spirit to soar in pleasant release.

Oscar Wilde, wrote, "Humility in the artist is his frank acceptance of all experiences, just as Love in the artist is simply that sense of Beauty that reveals to the world its body and its soul."

I don't know in what context this was written but it reminds me that "before the mystery of what is, and what happens, I offer homage because it is not of my own making, and that I am stirred and blessed simultaneously by nature's beauty and depth revealed in the 'ordinary'." How grateful I am to be able to see, hear, smell and touch - and how grateful I am to live life where I can "glimpse the infinity that hides in the simple sights," and  respond creatively to what is.

For the Senses  [John O'Donohue]  
May the touch of your skin
Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.

May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.

And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.