Mandala #53

Mandala #53:  

When in doubt, apple scruffs (-:

HOLY DARKNESS AND A PAINTING BOOK

(1/2 hour "contour" drawing, 6:30 to 7 a.m. -- 6B pencil on heavy weight, medium tooth surface, 9 x 12 Canson drawing pad, while listening to "Chants of India.".

I was looking at the corner of my living room near the windows, where my Suzuki keyboard is.

This morning I made my drawing time part of my yoga asana practice. As of today, I am calling my drawing posture "Lekhavidhasana, "from the Sanskrit word "lekhavidhi" meaning "the act of drawing or painting" and the word "asana" meaning "posture or pose." When I draw, I sit in a cross-legged pose on a comfortable chair.

What has been happening is, since I have been drawing daily in the early morning, I have not been doing my early morning yoga practice. So I decided that I would do "Lekhavidhasana" just before doing Savasana (The Corpse Pose) at the end of the asana part of my Yoga practice.

In order to add Lekhavidhasana, "The Drawing Pose", I have to let go of doing a number of other poses, but the benefit I get from drawing daily feels equal to the benefit from the poses I won't have time to do.)

I love stories. Stories from all traditions. Here is something from a A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas:

"Go on the Useless Presents."

". . . a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; AND A PAINTING BOOK IN WHICH I COULD MAKE THE GRASS, THE TREES, THE SEA AND THE ANIMALS ANY COLOUR I PLEASED, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds . . . "

I love the way Dylan Thomas finishes his remembrance:

". . . I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept."

As I've been writing this post, I've been listening to "Apple Scruffs," a song written by George Harrison. Listen here for a clip.