Thoughts on "Practice."

Dear Friends,

I am happy to share another painting by my mother. She was quite prolific during the last year of her life. When large movements became difficult, she filled her days with the finer motor skills she had honed during hours of practicing her brush strokes. Some of my favorite paintings that I have from my mother are not pictures at all, but practice boards where she recorded her brush strokes and played with mixing color. She loved these also and saved them all. I realize as I write this that what we both admired was the process of exploring color, texture, and strokes.

Do you remember when we were children and actively learning... we often heard the phrase, "practice makes perfect!" That phrase is a trigger for me and I don't believe it is accurate. What about "practice lets us realize where we are fluid and where we are sticky, or practice lets us be in the present moment, or practice let's us learn differentiation and differentiation gives us choice." Let's not limit ourselves with our concept of what "perfect" is. If you really think about it, perfect is a self-limiting word.

So let's practice these possibilities for an increased ability to sense, to learn, to notice the richness of the present moment for all that shows up with our best present moment version of equanimity. May we all continue to grow in peacefulness and spaciousness,

Peace,

Theresa