Good morning friends, rise and shine! 🌞 I'm a morning person, and I have come to love my morning routine! That almost always involves getting up before sunrise, doing my meditation/brain training practice, then having coffee and writing poetry. This all takes place before I start my studio time. I'm not the best sleeper, so some days I wake up feeling rested, but others I wake up feeling quite fatigued. Are the rested days more perfect than the tired days? I'm surprised at myself to answer... not necessarily.

Recently, I went to see Wim Wenders’ film “Perfect Days” (2023), (watch the trailer here). I went to see it without knowing anything about it; ready to surrender myself to the experience, sit quietly and receive the imagery and metaphors of the film. It had a fascinating, slow-moving, meditative quality that requests your full attention and focus.

“Perfect Days” is a thoughtful, poetic study of a Japanese sanitation worker, played by Koji Yakusho. It was co-written by Wenders and the Japanese poet Takuma Takasaki. The film is the cinematic equivalent of mindfulness, leading the viewer through the daily routine of the sanitation worker, Hirayama. It rhythmically repeats the sequence of events until the viewer can discern the nuances of each day and each emotional state of Hirayama, and appreciate any small changes. I found it layered with beautiful imagery, and full of sophisticated studies on light, shadow, reflections, and patterns.

As critic James Greenberg writes in his review, “The beauty of the movie is that ordinary things may very well look different to you after seeing it”.

In the afterglow of the movie, I've been noticing even more about the ordinary, by just noticing what's in the realm of my 5 senses at any given moment: what am I seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and tasting, right NOW?

Years ago, before I knew what meditation really was, I referred to creating patterns as meditative process, and that’s still true. I love the way my hand seems to learn the pattern, and I settle into a focused rhythm that allows me to get into the creative flow. ☯

*“Martha’s Vineyard, Blue”, gouache on paper, 18” x 24”, 2020*.

This painting was inspired by Martha's Vineyard, the island where I spent every summer as a child, and where I later learned to fly my Waco. Creating this piece was an act of meditation for me! There’s a bit of aeronautical map in there, of course the island silhouette; images of the ocean, flowers, and constellations, but the main theme is the juxtaposition of patterns.

In this detail you can see how the painting required concentration, fine motor control (and a lot of 20/0 brushes!) and time to finish it. That kind of deliberation didn't allow much else into my brain-- blissfully! This painting started with nothing but the silhouette of the island, and then I just started adding the flowers to the ocean area, building something that has repetition but that isn’t an exact repeating pattern.

It's been interesting to notice what constitutes a perfect day for me, over a period of my lifetime. More and more I think the range of experiences, from the lows to the highs and everything between, is what makes life perfect. Perfection is in the ordinary, the quotidien. And if I cultivate that mindset, then striving for some ideal isn’t relevant, because I have it right in my hands, every day.

What is a perfect day to YOU? Can you feel the spectrum of perfection I'm getting at? Feel free to share any thoughts or comments, send me an email!

Also, please pass along this newsletter, or the link to subscribe, to anyone who might enjoy it.😃

Bye for now,

Lise

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