Meditation at the end of a rainy day in June 2022: Francis Whitebird's story of his experiences as a medic long ago, told by Gil Birmingham / Rachel Strugatsky's story in the midst of a current war

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Rachel Strugatsky

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Francis Whitebird says, "It's a good day to live."

Rachel Strugatsky says, "I wholeheartedly believe in Ukraine's bright future."

Rage and Grief Meditation On The Life And Death Of George Floyd At Age 46

Meditation for Thanksgiving 2016

Megan Singer, MA 

Meg Singer (Navajo; Towering House/Biligaana Clans) grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah but for the past few years has called Montana home. Meg has a BA in Literature with an emphasis in YA Native American Literature from Westminster College in SLC, UT. Her Master’s is in Native American Studies with an emphasis on Indigenous Deaf Studies at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. Meg’s academic career has included reviving and performing the Indianist opera, “The Sun Dance Opera”, Natives in Science Fiction, Native Humor, Indigenous films, and Indigenous decolonization theories. In her down time, Meg loves to sing, watch TV, and cook.

From the Minnesota Star Tribune:

Meditation On Morning Light Through A Prism

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty

Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.
- Robinson Jeffers

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I would still be in prison.
- Nelson Mandela

The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you as you are and finding in you an unexpected goodness.
- Rachel Naomi Remen

Whatcom Falls Park 5-Mile Walk Meditation

"Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be," writes Agnes Martin. "I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step."

(quote from here)

Life Drawing #4 (1982-1983?)

Just realized that these life drawings were not done on a newsprint drawing pad as I had stated earlier. They were done on a slightly higher quality white drawing paper pad. Because it has been a long time since I have drawn or painted from life rather than memory and dreams, and I thought maybe it was time to start drawing from life again, even if only to draw my cat, I bought a book called HOW TO DRAW ANYTHING: A COMPLETE GUIDE, by Angela Gair. 

On page 20 of that book, she says: "If you are not sure of the height of, say, a tree in the distance compared with a tree in the foreground, you can check using the "measure-and-compare" method. Use the foreground tree as your "key measure," comparing all parts of the subject to that. Hold your pencil at arm's length, elbow locked, in front of the tree. Keeping one eye closed, line up the tip of the pencil with the top of the tree and mark the position of the base of the trunk with your thumbnail. This is your key measure. Now, keeping your thumbnail in position and your arm outstretched, move the pencil to that distant tree and compare its height with the length of your key measure. You can compare the length of your key measure with other parts of the landscape, too, for measuring widths as well as heights." 

This technique is what Tom Sherwood taught us in his life drawing classes and what I found most useful in being able to draw people from life. 

 On the wall near my computer is a large postcard titled "How to Draw Geometric Shapes." It shows, in four steps, how to look at a small dog who is sitting down, a parrot's head and a horse's head in order to draw two triangles, a circle and a rectangle. As a child trying to learn to draw from art instruction books, I never made much progress using that technique of reducing the shapes and structures of animals to geometric shapes in order to build them back up into a completed drawing, and that postcard has been on my wall for years because it still makes me smile. As I was looking at the above drawing again, I remembered that the way I did life drawings was to start somewhere in the person's face, usually the eyes. I would make a beginning mark and then from there begin the measuring process. I didn't sketch in the whole person, as is usually advised, and I certainly didn't reduce the person to geometric shapes, but slowly developed a drawing that I was pleased with. The process was deeply meditative.