Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

309) If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. – Buddha

Our mind is like a clear glass of water.  If we put salt into the water, it becomes salt water; sugar, it becomes sugar water.  But originally the water is clear.  No thinking, no mind.  No mind, no problem. – Seung Sahn

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down. 

Get the Wizard’s Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles.  

Free Your Spirit

Do you want an antidote to the dark side?  Do you feel sometimes that life sucks and then you die?

I stumbled upon another trick that will help you spend more time in heaven.  OK?

Start by pretending you’re on sabbatical at this moment and travelling to wondrous places…

And everywhere you go, you draw a postcard of what you see.  Then when you fall into hell, you look at the postcard and remember heaven is always right under your nose.  Right now.  Right here.  Always.

Drawing shifts you into your Buddha Brain – your right brain.  In that brain, you experience wholeness and happiness in this moment, right now.  Really.

You can read more in Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing – An Illustrated Journey.

Four Easy Steps to Heaven

You have easily doable four steps.

First: Close your eyes, then open your eyes, then open them again and see magical wonder in front of you.

Pretend you’re an artist and you see beauty in everything. 

You remember how to pretend don’t you?

Second: Create a Drawing

If you have the inner voice that whimpers, “I can’t draw…”, go back to step one.  Pretend you can draw.  When you were young, you knew you could draw.

Know that the drawing doesn’t have to be good.  Simply looking and seeing what’s in front of you provides the magic of transformation.  Not the drawing itself.  Making a drawing allows you to look.  Gives you an excuse.  A purpose.  Obviously, you gain other neurological benefits by drawing but clearly the right brain shift happens with the looking and seeing.

 You only need a pad and a pencil.  I carry watercolor pencils and a couple of indelible black ink pens, too. 

The impressionists only carried five paint colors when they painted outdoors – the three primary colors, red, yellow, blue, and green and white.  You could emulate them.  As in watercolor painting, you can let the white paper form your whites.  (They used oils.)

Pick the tools you like.  I often recommend crayons to people because they viscerally remind you of a time when you were a natural artist.

Drawing Tips You Can Try

• Notice that buildings have vertical lines.  Draw those vertical lines.  Look at the other lines or edges that meet them.   What angle do they form.  You know they’re horizontal, but they don’t appear that way.  I hold up my pencil horizontally and compare that line to the edges.  I am often surprised at the angles formed.  Draw that angle that you see.  Just this will shift you in to your Buddha brain.
• Then add the curves you see e.g. trees, bushes.  Avoid drawing lollypop trees. Look to see what’s in front of you.
• Or even easier, skip all that and just draw in blocks of light or dark.  Or swathes of color.
• Be playful.  The end drawing doesn’t matter.  The doing matters.

Step Three: Write a Poem

You can tell by now that all of this aims at your coming into the present moment fully.  When you’re in the present moment, truly, you live in Heaven. 

Recently, I enjoyed a show at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.  The Chinese artist, Qi Baishi, said that no painting was complete until you added a poem and a seal to it.  So, add the poem now.

Based on what you experience NOW, write a short, simple poem.  You can add the poem later as you have time to integrate the experience.  Note: I also finish the drawings at home or in a coffee shop.

Last Step: Add the Seal

You can see my seal in red.

You can find readymade seals on-line or you can use any stamp that pleases you.  I have one that I got in Vancouver’s Chinatown decades ago.  I also have lots of rubber stamps of various magical icons.  My favorites are images of Winnie the Pooh.

You don’t have to be good…

Anyhow, your art doesn’t have to be good, nor your poetry, in order to gain the benefits of this idea.

Just play with the drawing and the poems.  Your purpose is to connect more deeply with the sacred, not to produce award winning art.  It’s how it works in you, not your audience.

Obviously, it’s OK to produce art you love, but that’s not the point, it’s a plus.

Walk in Beauty

Take walks in beauty.  Draw.  Compose a poem.  Add a stamp.

I drew the images in this on my recent sabbatical in a cold and rainy Seattle March. 

Even the perfect, accidental of the coffee drop adds to the art sense of presence and the fun.

You can achieve some of these results by taking Photos on your phone or even with a camera.

Walk in beauty,

William

P.S. You can get Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing – An Illustrated Journey for an in depth view.