cigarette in sidewalk snow, boston, ma 2009

Mindful art making expands our eco-awareness. The conscious choices for our art making, now, mirror the same choices I try to practice regarding the natural and material world that we all share.

Take a walk outside. Locate a displaced object or slice of nature.

Before doing anything else, PAUSE! Be with whatever you have selected to get to know  more fully. Allow the natural inclination of things – impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete – to be noticed and embraced.

Practice quieting the volume on unrelated thoughts, other places you need to be or what should happen next, and allow yourself to be with this memory, picture, or object for a minute. Go ahead, with steady breathing and a lengthened spine to welcome fresh energy, elevate your awareness. In honor of all ways of life, I invite you to join me – as I try to do myself, about once a week – to reflect on the natural state of things.

Elevate awareness of what you have chosen to notice through your senses and lessen distractibility. After pausing choose from the following: refrain, honoring things just as they are; respond via an original point of view through conversation, journaling, poetry, essay, memoir, or storytelling; or repurpose the thing into a hybrid thing.