A new day -- a New Awareness

What were you feeling on Tuesday night as the election map began to glow ominously red?

When it looked like we were in for the worst, and after I stopped panicking, I concluded that the nightmare of the last four years could only continue if I remained in a cognitive 'sleep'. I needed some way to rethink my frame of mind if I were going to survive another four years.

If I just continue, I thought, to be merely reactive to the news, social media, advertisers and everyone else who was trying to grab my attention, then I might never wake up – I might never open my eyes to find the radical acceptance demanded by this moment in time.

Tuesday night I made a commitment to myself.

Like David Copperfield, I decided to be the hero of my own life. I decided that I have to become much more conscious of where my attention is going - and where I'd like it to go, because I know that one's attention becomes one's reality.

The first thing I realized was how much I value other people in my life. It is the bonds we create that give us the edges and the boundaries we need to create a definition of our selves.

The idea of the edges created when an object is seen in relation to the rest of the image is a defining theme of my visual work, and suddenly I find it applies to how we define ourselves as well. Yet, unlike a still life object we have some control over how we interpret our perceptions. The choices we make daily, our habits, our routines are the creator of our perceptions - and our perceptions provide the matrix in which we find the edges that define our lives.

So, I want to tell you how grateful I am for all the people who are woven into the fabric of my life. There is no me with out your threads. Thank you.

To my former students - when we struggled together, and it was often a struggle, to create a love of learning, a love of creating, and a love of curiosity – I say, thank you for bringing definition to my life.

To my friends, I am delighted to find we can often easily pick up conversations left off a few moments or even decades ago. Those fibers of shared consciousness are valuable and dear. Thank you.

And those of you who are friends I haven't yet met, I look forward to the opportunity to interact more with you. Thank you for reading.

Our lives are created of little steps, not just the big decisions, because the little daily decisions add up. Like each vote, each choice matters. So, I am choosing to be attentive and grateful. I did learn something from Tuesday's scare - it is always the right moment in time to practice radical acceptance.

Every day is a new day! Now, let's go out and dance in the street!

And make some ART! A few pictures below.