Process of Life
Moments past,
Take with it future hope,
Leave behind present guilt,
Chaining you to your judgement.
But each moment is renewed,
Like the passage of a stream,
The present need not be tied to the past,
As a new set of eyes or ears or a new breath or thought can unchain the present from what has been.
Past judgements left in the past,
The now, gives birth to new possibilities,
Which open new paths,
As the present allows for you to be born again.
Rebirth of nature every year,
the barren branches, refilled,
the yellowish grass, emerald,
from the frozen soil, springs knew life,
all for a moment,
willing to be alive until the next cycle which demands their change,
for the rebirth is cyclical,
but I’m too often blind to nature’s lesson,
stuck in my ways,
rooted to a singular path,
a path on which I was set on by others,
rarely do we decide where we walk,
little do we change,
rarely is there a new you,
for the trials of such a thing are filled with hardships,
for the branch to discover its leaves it must survive the harsh winter,
for the grass to gain its shine it must hold the blanket of snow,
the bud of spring must hold its breath under the hardened ground,
only though suffering is the renewal possible,
no wonder I stay rotted in comfort,
no wonder I stay the same,
no wonder I only live one life,
but if I had nature’s understanding,
what could I have been?
how many lives I could have lived?
reborn anew,
each year, each season, each month, each day, each moment,
instead of staying the same,
the same me tells myself the same advice,
another winter comes,
soon it’ll be gone,
with spring,
I shall to rise,
this time,
hopefully.
You can hear the cries of the newborn, first
moments on the planet, in anguish
tried of it already, but
you’ll hear the babe quiet down, peaceful
the moment the unbounded love of the mother is felt, warmth
from companionship, yet
we are cold to others, forgetting
the first lesson ever taught to us.
Watch the school children racing back and forth, each
step making them just a little older, little wiser, little more mature, blossom
in front of your eyes,
the little ones grown overnight, watered
by your thoughts, ideas and opinion, both
positive and negative, beware then of what you believe in, otherwise
your seed may turn rotten, never
growing, only folding at the center as it grows older, head
bowed towards the ground, towards hell, the head
you filled with yourself, yet
we are quick to blame the seed, without
reflecting upon our own mistakes.
Life is cyclical if one is aware,
pay attention to your surroundings and all is revealed, those
who are observant need not participate in the dance, others
are stuck, going round and round,
angered by the unexpected,
shocked by the unimagined,
saddened by the roll of dice,
yet you blame fortune for your sorrows, are
you blind? are you deaf? did you not see your sorrows in others? Hear their pain?
Did you not see the hearse go by before?
Is this your first funeral?
why should you be spared when everyone else has suffered?
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We are art,
a crimson stroke from a paintbrush,
casting, waning, flame-like light of the setting sun,
no such thing as silence in nature’s symphony,
Dylan’s raspy voice singing about changing times,
breeze makes the grass sing, the woodpecker pecks, your heart beats,
all together, making nature’s tunes,
knotted roots of ancient trees, your grandfather’s wisdom,
changing times makes the leaves brittle,
your grandmothers caring hands,
all part of the picture which nature paints.
Change is art,
death and dying,
live and living,
both leave an imprint on the portrait like a distinct curl of the pen tip,
human art captures a moment in time,
nature’s art is endless,
like the crashing waves on a shoreline,
in the distance, another wave rises,
nature’s art is never completed,
human art can be destroyed,
burning pages, melting paint, toppled statues,
are all part of the story nature is telling,
and hence, it’s art is immortal,
for as we hold the pen or brush,
nature holds us,
what we create,
nature creates,
our art is part of its art,
A singular piece, perhaps not even the main subject,
for we are part of nature and not a distinct entity,
and with the understanding that we are part of its art,
we are art.
I recently watched Austin Kleon’s TEDx talk in which he summarizes his idea of stealing like an artist. The idea is simple, there is creativity everywhere and as an artist, it is your responsibility to draw from the works of others. In the TEDx talk, Kleon quotes great artists like Igor Stravinsky, Steve Jobs, Pablo Picasso, David Bowe, and T.S Elliot all of whom speak about how they used the creativity of others for their own art. This lead me to read Kleon’s book, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, and the following are the lessons I took away from it.
These were the main points that have stuck with me. I think a lot of people wish to create, to express their needs in a creative manner but fail to do so because of the pressure to be unique. I know I’ve felt it. But in reality, everyone draws from something that has come before. Great art is riddled with references to the works of others if you look deep enough. It is just that if you do it right then your work is considered part of the lineage of the art that has come before it but if you do it wrong, then it is considered stealing.
As Kobe Bryant says:
There isn’t a move that’s a new move.
Learned Living 