Haiku Ellipses...Invitation...Response...

ODDITY What is that odd thing? plant? insect? animal? face? of course...abstract art! sometimes we don't know what something is AND we try guessing anyway because "we want to know"...for me, there is endless desire to know things, desperately wanting to understand, on some level seeking knowledge/wisdom...partly due to native curiosity, partly a need for feeling as if i am in control when in fact, for many things in life, i'm not in control! so when faced with mystery, instead of enjoying and savoring, i often jump to a judgmental label as in calling this curiously curvy image "abstract art." practice refraining from labeling things/people/issues we don't understand and attempt to relish the mystery and uncertainty (at least for a short time), then go ahead and label it if it makes you feel better!

PSYCHEDELIC SHAMROCK trinity clover a psychedelic shamrock make your 3 wishes! ordinary things from nature rise in the images of consciousness and can take magical form in colorful art ... this shamrock holds the traditional trinity clover form and it has evolved into a gigantic tree with leaves opening in spiral flowing colors, rendering its psychedelic properties...if you look deeply, you will see its magic and can make 3 wishes! this practice can be as simple as "seeing the shamrock" and making 3 wishes...the wishes will connect you with your heart's desires... a more challenging practice is to see the magic in all of nature, including other people, what if we could see into the psychedelic nature of micro-organisms, plants, animals, people, galaxies, how would our interactions with them change?  

PULSING VEINS from the center star come the petals all around each with pulsing veins the star evolved in the creation of the image which began as a series of crisscrossing lines that shaped the petals...perhaps as we crisscross the days and weeks of our lives, patterns emerge in our habits, relationships, and personality...all coming from an ever brightening center sending divine pulsing energy into our veins. do you feel the pulse of life? where do you feel it most? the least? what can you do connect with your center and stimulate the increase of pulsations that nourish your life?  

INTERWEAVING NEW BEING silver and golden penetrate and interweave in a new being the image below stimulates many thoughts/emotions: sacred geometry, ancient Asian, circling, penetrating, and especially the idea of interweaving ... as we live our lives we leave trails, energetic footprints...consider all the people that you've ever met, all the people that you've ever seen, all the places that you've ever been...some part of you still exists there, the whole universe and everything in it seems to be interwoven in space/time, interconnected, and these connections keep growing as we live our lives, increasing in density and connectivity like a neural network or like underground fungi (see Merlin Sheldrake's great work Entangled Life ) that we don't normally see except when a mushroom pops up...if we have the consciousness to step back and see a bigger picture, then we can see the beauty and wonder of the shapes and connections we are creating as we live our lives...th...

SEASONS new birth in springtime grow and produce in summer fall brings freedom...death! the leaves and colors represent transitions from birth to death in the leaf and circle imagery below...the analogy for humans is: we are born, we grow, we flourish (including, usually, producing offspring), and then we fade from one kind of active life to harvesting our wisdom and passing it on to the next generation, hopefully before we die... there are many possible scenarios after death including reincarnation, heaven, merging with universal consciousness and so forth, but all of us here and now have this one life to live, grow, produce, pass on our wisdom, and hopefully, with dignity, transition to whatever awaits us.   the practice for "seasons" will depend on what season of life one is "in," although there are no clear age markers as transitions...for those in childhood and teenage years, finding our identity and purpose is paramount...adult years can be filled with meaning...

GOLDEN TREE golden tree of life rooted in flowing water yielding purple fruit i've drawn this type of tree since i was a little boy, and in my middle years i added a flowing stream near its roots to my drawing, and then in my later years, i've added fruit to the tree drawings... sometimes it takes a lifetime for a tree or plant to bear fruit...i tend two varieties of hardy kiwi vines, and neither has ever flowered in the last decade...i've transplanted the male and female variety to a new location 3 years ago, and the self-pollinating variety i transplanted four years ago--both show good vine growth but neither has flowered...perhaps they have not reached maturity, or maybe they are missing some vital nutrient that the "flowing water" would provide...hopefully, in time, they will bear fruit...in the meantime, i cultivate patience with myself and with my inner and outer gardens. we all are have gifts/talents/skills that often take time to bear fruit in our lives......

PUREST WHITE LIGHT circling colors leading into a vortex  of purest white light From the purest white light, refracted, all the colors of the rainbow emerge, and these are only the colors in the visible spectrum that we as humans can see--other beings, like insects, bees for instance, can see "landing patterns" on flowers, like the morning glory, that remain invisible to us as humans. Metaphorically, as a practice, we might consider different circumstances in life (e.g., a relationship, job, education, book, song, poetry, place in nature, etc) as the "white light" that opens to multi-colored life lessons.  Take one of your favorite songs, and test out this hypothesis right now...does not a moments reflection yield evidence many life lessons that this one favorite song has opened for you, particularly if you've lived with this song for many years? Similarly, our relationships with other people, nature, and the divine can open us to multi-colored truths.

PINK , RED , AND BLACK       pink, red, and black shapes different but something the same 3 cute bikinis at first landing state park in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the Chesapeake Bay, there are many kinds of people in the summer time clothed in many colors and kinds of attire...here i note the color differences between pink, red, and black, and the corresponding different shapes...the outer geometric shapes appear different, but on closer inspection, there are similarities within the shapes, e.g., the asterisk star representing the naval chakra, the downward pointed isosceles triangle representing the root chakra... practice: look for beauty in the human form, and beauty in colors and shapes of clothing that adorn the form...can we see below the forms to the inner beauty in all of them?

GALAXIES ON FIRE circles of colors pulsating, undulating galaxies on fire i love the interweaving of colored, spirally, circular shapes that remind me of clusters of galaxies that pulsate, undulate, and dance with the energy of fire... consider dancing with the fire of the different galaxy clusters (parts of your life...a simple beginning is to consider the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of your life--for a deeper meditation of these aspects see Stephan A. Schwartz's book The 8 laws of change --word power meditation). alternatively, one might think of the colored circles as different energy centers akin to chakras (see Joyce Hawkes book Cell level healing for meditation on colored chakras). 

IMMORTAL DIAMOND Starting with a cross adding more crosses and dots immortal diamond Immortal diamond is comprised of many crosses...Richard Rhor's book The Immortal Diamond  discusses the mystery of the cross, the paschal mystery, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as a pattern for all life...that all of us live, die many mini deaths before our final mortal death, and have many resurrections before we die...this pattern is the way of nature, plants living, dying, and resurrecting from seeds to grow more plants...one characteristic of this mysterious pattern is the immortal diamond, an eternal and unbreakable pattern. For practice, let us examine our lives for where there is life, death, and resurrection...let us take comfort in the thought that we are patterned after the immortal diamond.