“Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience?”

This art show has been a very religious or spiritual experience because it has been full of human stuff. I have watched attachment arise inside me in regards to letting go of paintings, as well as clinging to positive feedback. I've seen expectation arise in regards to expecting certain people to come and being disappointed when they don't. I saw anger arise inside me at the party over the sound level, I watched it express itself through subtle actions and words, (very different from when I was a child) and I watched my awareness of the anger or the reactions to the noise change and happen as if they were on autopilot, and I watched my awareness of the anger grow and becomes sharp, and I watched an embracing current of soft opening presence touch the feeling of anger and let it be inside its awareness or being, let it be there and then pass. A part of me let the anger be born and even birthed it, accepted it and loved it as an integral part of itself. The midwife of my anger and the womb and the heat are the love, are the presence, are the body.

Ask yourself this question: “Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience?”

Anyway, also, I have sold a few of the paintings and drawings and it is an interesting experience loosing them forever. I am so clingy. I have boxes of saved letters and pictures of people. I have so many books. I hold onto things. And people. And paintings. Letting a painting go is a big moment in my relationship with my grasping, because the painting is like a friend of mine, a friend that I have spent many hours being with and listening to, and in a moment, I will never see them again. A very good opportunity to practice non-attachment. My friend Eli teachers me this virtue of non-attachment everyday. Specifically, one of the pieces I put in the show was a picture of a drawing I sent him that had been changed by rainwater. He sent it back to me transformed. I loved it, and I framed it in an expensive frame with the intention of never letting it go but instead giving it to my future son and having it stay in the family forever. Until one of my friends here wanted to buy it. At first I said “Sorry, its not for sale.” But then I thought about Eli. I thought, “Hey, Eli gave it up. He could have kept this frikn awesome piece of art for himself, but he gave it up and sent it to me. He could detach. And if he can do it, so can I.” My friend was so happy I decided to sell it to him. maybe the picture speaks to him, whispers some secret, some sacred song that he wants to listen to again and again and now he can. Thank you Eli, again, for helping me be more free.