meditation. Having gone on vacation, some do so to get away from it all. Party, let loose, relax. I did all this recently, however the intent, the priority was to get away from it all so as to reflect on it all. There is no better season than the beginning of a new year. So I would wake each morning to sunrise, sometimes earlier and sit at the shoreline and mediate, focusing on my breathe, and emptying the mind. It feels nourishing as just having eaten a fresh healthy breakfast. I began to draw soon after, and treat the drawing like a mediation. Just truly surrendering to it. Beginning with a direction, but at some point just allowing it to draw itself. The meditation carried over into the drawing, and vice versa and I began to draw figures in mediation and reflected on mediation itself. This one in particular was for a recent friend Claire. She exudes the buddha nature, expressing stillness, non-judgement, emptiness, and presence. Being. And it seemed appropriate to reflect on this while drawing. The text for the piece is-- "The practice of mediation. Bringing the mind home. Back to it's place of stillness before going back to the external world of restlessness. Taming the mind so it doesn't drift into memories of the past that create feelings of depression, so it doesn't drift into fantasies of the future that create anxiety. Rather with this mediation, I deliver myself into the world fully present. Aware of the shapes, the colors, the sounds of every passing moment. Experiencing every moment in and of itself not grasping trying to prolong those that are pleasant, not trying to deny those that are uncomfortable. Simply being. And this mindfulness, discipline of whole being, the birth and death of each, every experience in it's constancy is expressed in the mediation posture. The body as symbol of the unity of all duality of all things in the universe. And developed in the mind thru the practice of mediation, and practiced as a way of being, lived in the waking time of this existence. This is bringing the mind home to it's primal virtue. This is the buddha nature. This is our truest human nature. Simply being."