Changes

I made a comment to one of my best friends the other day about how I could feel the season shift one morning last week. It was the light. I guess over the years I never realized I could feel that shift so viscerally until I got older. Not only do I see the shift in the light, the slight changes in the color but the feel in the air even though it's still rather warm. Every year it is the same for me - especially when summer is waning.

It is also a really cool thing to notice the difference in light from one part of the world to the other. When I was in the desert southwest it was so rosy in the evenings. When I was with my family during summers in Germany, it was so golden - as if everything had a been dipped in honey. Maybe that is just my daydreaming eye but that is how it always felt to me. Just those subtle changes in light and temperature evoke such a difference in my outlook. If you don't think you notice this yourself, think back to when you went to the beach - didn't it 'feel' different because of the light and air alone? Yes, it was the same sun in the sky that you saw on the way to the beach, but just a change in location can change how you notice the sky and light.

I guess that is why so many painters love 'plein' air painting. Light changes so fast, faster than we even realize that trying to capture that on canvas is truly a talent in my book. My hats off to those folks who do that. Capturing very alluring light in a painting is something that I still am working on. I see paintings that have such intensely moving or even sensual light and I marvel at the artists eye and talent to bring what they felt from a light perspective of the location to the canvas. Our eyes are marvelous things. How lucky it is that we can see. It truly makes you appreciate being able to see the flower on the dandelion weed that is in the middle of your mowed lawn. What a wonder that weed's blossom is if we just take the time to notice.

I will count myself evolved if I can REALLY begin seeing the world around me and not just glancing and passing by. Even in the midst of a concrete sidewalk you can see struggling flowers. I want to notice these things. These tiny miracles. I makes me realize that they are existing against the odds. If a tiny violet can somehow grow between cracks in the sidewalk then surely I can push against my own self created obstacles to grow as well. I guess all too often we just feel the pressure and stress and never look up to see the sun. I know I am guilty of that all too often.

So - let's all try and look up today and bloom where we are, against all odds.

~Peace

Michelle