Study in Blue
The first question from the students in my January online class was:
What do you mean, it’s the small things that are important?
I paused. This simple question struck unexpectedly deep. What I was thinking about was beginning the new year with something small, slender or secret— rather than pledging to do something big. Rather than make a splash, make an offering. Something you can hold in your hand, or your heart. After a pause I thought, that is where the power is.
What do you mean, it’s the small things that are important? She asked.
What I found myself saying was:
I just watched my father die. When someone goes, they leave a space behind. What does one who goes leave you? What memory strikes your heart? Is it their accomplishments, their possessions, their image? I saw clearly, it was not my father’s inventions or belongings, his work, or his beautiful hand-crafted Japanese knives. It was the small acts of kindness.
The Revolutionary Act of "Doing Worthy"
Doesn’t everyone have a day when things fall apart? When it takes more effort than you think you have to put one foot in front of another? When even your technical devices seem to collude against you?
My reverie, pure joy, after my exhibit was done, ended abruptly with a letter from the IRS announcing they are coming to audit my business next week. On top of this, my intrepid father, at 96, fell for the first time and broke a bone.
So my retreat here at St Meinrad, scheduled so long ago, has been infiltrated with dread and piles of papers. The amount of sorting and retrieving of records is overwhelming, seven detailed pages of requests from the IRS … which calls to mind, once again, the old Greek story of Psyche. Her first impossible task was to sort seven different kinds of seeds, filling a gigantic room, floor to ceiling, before nightfall, before Aphrodite announces her time is up. I am thankful for these stories, and for the way a story puts the human dilemma in perspective. Just this morning, on my first day of this retreat, my son, who was born a muse, called. Ma, I had this dream. In a big room were all these small piles of seeds neatly sorted, and a spiral of seeds floating upward.
There are a few spaces in my classes at ABC 2020 in Alberta, Canada this summer: