Maybe it's due to the lack of seasons here that the rain takes on a stronger significance in deciphering the natural rhythm of time. I have always found the rain to be strangely alluring and familiar, as if revealing the rise and fall of things. Rain puts us in a different mood, albeit being portrayed as such in movies, it does have a strong subliminal grip on our senses. It swings us temperamentally into moods as disparate as sweet-coziness (think snuggling up in bed on a stormy night), introspection with a tinge of darkness creeping up, or as popularly portrayed in the folklore of human kind, sadness, tragedy, romantic ups and downs, and the ultimate redemption. It seems inevitable that rain should be used in movies as it is such a primal mover of our emotions.
It was a very wet end to 2009, more so than I can remember in recent years. Time and again, I felt compelled to be out there with the rain, capturing the out-pouring of emotions (sometimes it felt like the whole world was crying but didn't know it yet...and i needed to document it somehow) Maybe because I've been painting full time for a while - time, the misunderstood condition of our time - that means no more regulated time, no more 9-7, and the end of artificial and disharmonious rules that govern the way we live - freedom? Freedom is a wild creature and sometimes I don't think our 'society-conditioned' body is equipped to deal with it. We have to spend time with it, understand it, accept and then let it go...
I saw a swallow fly when I was writing this with its beautiful lines and traced the shape of its unrestrained flight. I watched little flowers appear on treetops as if by magic and white butterflies fluttering amongst it and these are road-side trees planted in the public car park behind my apartment! There is indeed beauty everywhere if we have the time and space to see them. The mechanic who works in a shop downstairs would raise his song-birds to the treetops via a pulley system, while he sits in his rain-washed chair, listening to the chirping of his company of birds. Soften the heart and let it open, open to more of everything, the big and the small. Life is a simple paradox.The most valuable things are free and close by but difficult to find. Our time here is short, yet it can seem like a long time. Life is tiny to the world and history of time, yet it means everything to us. Everything is connected, with threads tying everything together. How we move in turn move all the things that are tied to us one way or another. So don't just live. Have a beautiful vision. Hold on to it.Walk softly, live gently.
Wishing one and all an inspired 2010!
;)
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