Choose Joy!

Dear friend,

I have completed watching 2 of the 4 series of Matias de Stefano’s Initiation series on Gaia. (I am indeed fascinated with this kind of thinking and possibilities.)

I meditated and then lay down and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up around one in the morning from a dream with a remembering of feeling joyful and so much more. It was more emotional than visual.

In this dream, I sensed that someone else was with me. Maybe it was my Higher Self, Guide, Omdala, or all of them in one. They showed me how childlike and joyful I was. I was reaching upward while turning around and around in joyfulness. I was observing myself feeling joyous. I thought to myself in my dream this must have been a forgotten moment in childhood when I felt free and joyful. I felt grateful for this intimate memory. I also felt it should be shared.

Then they led me back to my sleeping body on the couch. I looked on as they gestured toward my body. I felt a cold and dull poking sensation on my right near the armpit area on the back where the trapezius and posterior deltoid muscles meet. I woke up feeling happy but disappointed that the dream did not last longer. Yet it seemed long enough for me to experience the emotions. I want to cherish this dream.

I pondered until I went back to my bedroom to sleep again. I woke up remembering this painting I made in December of 2022. I pondered before I made this painting, asking myself, how does one paint joy?

I wanted to sleep in, but I sensed a persistent compelling. So I quickly got dressed before I find another excuse to not do anything, took the painting out into the field and photographed it with the open field for its backdrop.

Joy!

Oil on panel

36 * 24 inches

Choose Joy!

We are not here to struggle, suffer, and merely survive. We are here to thrive as the beings of joy that we truly are! But oftentimes, what we perceive to be the “demands” of the world cause us to fall into seriousness. Our worldview requires things of us, and in heeding them we quickly get bogged down by the responsibilities that we have heaped upon ourselves. None of it is required. None of the seriousness, heaviness, or stress is required. At the most fundamental level, nothing is required of us – for awareness itself is perfectly free, and in fact awareness fully transcends the forms that it allows itself to get lost within. Thus while you are here on Earth, allow yourself to let go and to choose joy! There is never a circumstance in which you are not allowed to choose joy, should you wish. — Sundberg, Christian. A Walk in the Physical: Understanding the Human Experience Within the Larger Spiritual Context (pp. 129-130). Kindle Edition.

“Reality has only one purpose in art: the artist must become familiar with it so as to know how to avoid it. He should learn from it so as to know how to distance himself from it. To say that art should represent the world as it really is would be to assert that the purpose of art is to imitate those things that do not interest us even in reality. Realism has asserted as much, but in so doing it has merely concealed its artistic impotence. By proclaiming that art has no other purpose than to portray what exists, it hides its inability to accomplish anything beyond that reality...Fiction is eternal; reality perishes. Invented forms live; real ones vanish.” — Jiri Krasek Ze Lvovic, Gothic Soul

Namasté

Studio Window

Dear friend,

I wrote this poem after we have settled into Kennett Square. I heard a distant honking getting louder and louder. I looked out my window and saw…

a pair of geese flew by

my studio window

i’m glad elephants don’t fly

— daniel chow

Studio Window

oil on panel

14 * 11 inches

Just for fun, here is Squarespace’s AI-generated version of my pair of geese:

As I sat in my art studio, completely engrossed in my latest creation, my attention was abruptly captured by a pair of geese gracefully soaring past my window. Their wings flapped in perfect synchrony, creating a mesmerizing sight against the backdrop of the vibrant blue sky. Splashes of sunlight danced across their sleek, feathered bodies, highlighting the intricate patterns that adorned their wings. With each joyful honk that escaped their beaks, it seemed as though they were cheerfully admiring the artwork inside my studio, their presence serving as a gentle reminder of the beauty that exists beyond these four walls. In that moment, I couldn't help but feel blessed to witness the effortless elegance of these geese, a reminder of nature's magnificent artistry.

PS: Do you have childhood memories of clowns following the elephants with shovels and followed by other clowns with wheelbarrows in a traveling circus? It is good that elephants don’t fly.

Namasté

Dear friend,

नमस्ते

I honor the place in you where the entire universe dwells as it is in me.

Mila’s Offering

Oil on panel

8 * 6

Gifted