“It’s an amaryllis. Why not just take a photo instead of going to all of the trouble of drawing it?”
A fair enough question. It’s difficult to imagine a world without photographs, and if I could imagine one, it’s not a world I’d like to live in. So why draw? Well, drawing takes time and requires a lot of paying attention. Your doctor has probably already advised you that slowing down is good for your health. Believe her!
Around the Winter Solstice a friend gave me a brownish, spherical thing, half-buried in dirt. I knew what it was called, but why name it? I just sat and looked at it for long whiles, especially on rainy days, as if it were something that had appeared unexpectedly from another planet.
I like drawing with a pencil and colors rather than taking photos. The slowness and deliberation of drawing allows you to pay attention, to wait, to be patient, to listen. To learn.
To learn what?
First: looking is not one-sided: it’s a partnership, a dance with what you observe. Whatever you are drawing is also looking back at you. We don’t notice, yet the world observes us.
Second: I called my friend’s gift a “spherical thing.” But it’s more than a noun: it’s a verb. In other words, it’s an energy: it’s not just a being, but also a becoming.
Third: Dancing is an energy field you share with your partner. You become a flow and it becomes you.
There’s more to share, but I’m running out of characters and spaces for this post. Besides, it has stopped raining and the world on the other side of the window is beginning to turn white.
For more thoughts and images:
My book ☛ Double Vision, Waking Dreams
My website ☛ JohnMichaelKeating.com