I’ve recently started a morning practice of sketching. Just like jogging, drawing from real life is a skill that almost anyone (with enough use of their bodies) can accomplish if they stick with it on a regular basis. While I’m always creative and drawing in some capacity, I haven’t sketched in many years, so I feel a touch of shape. Sketching what you see is a process of learning to listen to the eyes and not the mind. If I ask you to think of a tree, you can likely picture a tree in your mind. Maybe it’s a tree that you’ve seen, or maybe it’s a symbol of a generic tree, like a simple clip art picture. Those mental understandings of how something looks can get in the way of drawing accurately because we draw from the image in our mind rather than what we see in front of us. While contemplating the act of drawing during my new morning ritual, I have been relating this to the ways in which we “see” other situations from our mind rather than our senses. If I’m having a grumpy morning I’ll assume that person looking at my hair is judging my bad hair day. If I’m having a great morning, I’ll assuming that person looking at my hair is admiring its beauty. For all I know they are staring at the bird in the tree right behind me and have not even noticed my hair! Yet, we create stories all the time about people’s intentions or the meaning of various events. We have pictures in our mind of what a mother, boss, or lover on the street ought to do or say based on our experiences, culture, media, desires, etc. It can be a daily practice to see the person standing in front of us for who they are right now, rather than who we want them to be or fear them to be. People who have experienced trauma, for instance, are more likely to interpret innocuous events as threatening. It can be a daily practice to tease apart our triggers or perceived threats from real threats. My new drawing practice is a mindful contemplation inviting my observer self to notice and recognize when I am no longer present with my subject. Whatever your morning routine is, I invite you to be present and intentional with it. What does it have to teach you that you can bring into the rest of your day?
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February 2019
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