Freyja-Norse goddess of love, fertility, beauty, daughter of Frigga
Frigga-Norse mother goddess, wife of Odin, spinning the fates
Sif-Wife of Thor, fair-haired like the color of wheat
Enjoy!
Freyja-Norse goddess of love, fertility, beauty, daughter of Frigga
Frigga-Norse mother goddess, wife of Odin, spinning the fates
Sif-Wife of Thor, fair-haired like the color of wheat
Enjoy!
The other person here is Mr. Tim Minchin! Our family is a big fan of this comedian/musician. He is incredibly talented. He has crazy teased red hair and wears dark eyeliner. I love his irreverant humor. You can see more of his work on youtube. So of course, Mr. Tim Minchin needed to be drawn as well!
I do commissioned portraits so if you are in love with a certain celebrity, or want a portrait of a family member, I would love to create a piece of artwork for you!
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This is a watercolor I did called "Compassion Bears." Inspired by a Buddhist type of meditation called Metta (Lovingkindness).
May I be safe.
May I be healthy.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
I was thinking a lot about compassion for the self and reading a wonderful book called "The Mindful Way to Self-Compassion" by Christopher Germer. When we are faced with pain, whether physical or emotional we can easily extend some self-compassion for ourselves through metta. Self-soothing. These compassion bears are coming through the forest with hearts of compassion to soothe you.| Reactions: |
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Watercolor is such a nice fluid medium. I can be spontaneous, non-thinking, free flowing, more instinctual. They can be quick, simple, sparse, just hinting at something without being fussy and overworked.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite Zen quotes: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." -Shunryu Suzuki
So in particular what was coming up were these sad feelings that my son will be going to Kindergarten in the fall, even though he has been going to Junior Kindergarten this whole year at St. Andrews. But he'll be moving schools which brings up change and well, like the Buddha said, there is impermanence! (I don't do well with a lot of change.) There is the transition into summer and summer schedules and then another transition into a new school. I was getting anxious about that! Well, then I had to go to an orientation at the school he will be attending, which set me off again, so I used my mindfulness practice to deal with my experience at the time and I wrote these words that morning...please excuse any rambling. It's largely unedited.
"So I go to a Kindergarten orientation for my son today, which doesn’t start for 4 months. My parent friend Paul, shares some of his feelings with me as we go on our tour. “It’s going so fast.” We hear that often as parents, this idea, this refrain, of “it’s going so fast.” “They grow up fast.” We wish we could slow things down, but this is just how time works. This is just the way things are in the universe. Time doesn’t stand still, it keeps moving. We do too, but we are not as open to seeing that. We may not want to see ourselves as changing, not aging, but we are…kids are growing, we are aging. This points again to just the way life is. The impermanence of everything. The impermanence of our own lives. I started having sad feelings, watching my mind go backwards in time when he was a baby, then seeing it reach anxiously at the future when he goes to his first day of kindergarten and I have to let him get in line and say goodbye. Oh, that bittersweet feeling. Oh, these feelings we feel as mothers, how tender they are. Noticing the strong body sensations as I let myself cry. Then I remind myself that things are just the way they are. These feelings come up for most all mothers. Alas, he will grow up. He is blooming like a flower. And I get to watch him bloom. Am I blooming too? Can I allow myself to bloom fully into the flower that I am? To not be scared of these feelings, to allow myself to have them. To allow life to work in me and through me. To not be afraid of change, of this impermanence. To just simply experience my life. I watch my son and he is not afraid to live fully in the now. I can learn a lot from him. A zen monk once said that if he could learn from a seven year old, he would."
Here is me as Snow White, that iconic figure I love so much, crying as her son enters kindergarten. The unicorn girl is more ambiguous in nature, it wasn't a planned drawing. See what kind of symbolism you can find.
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