Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

Razor’s Edge

Picture:
It’s been Christmas around here for the last week, which has not been good for producing work. Below is a detail from Razor’s Edge as someone mentioned they hadn’t seen the figure in the images on the previous posts.

Why, to Who, When, and How, to say Thank You

Thought for the Week -

Saying thank You gives a person respect, appreciation and gratitude. It gives a little love in repayment of a service or gift. It brightens a person’s heart. It tells someone they are loved. 

Why Say Thank You
We should say Thank You to for ...
…the gifts in our lives, 
...the people who are our friends, 
...our pets, 
...our health, 
...our home, 
...our food.
…the problems we have,
…the lessons we're learning,
…the challenges we face which will make us stronger, when we get through them.

When do we say Thank You
We should say Thank You when...
…we receive the gift or service,
…when the thought crosses our mind. If it is on your mind, it is probably on the other person’s mind as well,
…

To Who do we say Thank You
We should say Thank You to the people who...
 …serve us in shops,
...cooked or served your meal,
...help us stay healthy,
...smiled at us,
...let us go ahead of them in a queue or traffic,
...spend time with us,
...listen to us,
...gave us a gift,
...make us laugh or smile.

How do we say thanks?
We can say Thanks by…
…saying Thank You, Thanks, Go Raibh Maith Agat (Irish), Gracias (Spanish), Danke (German), Merci (French), Спасибо (Russian), etc. ,
…a smile,
…dong a similar favour for someone else,
…doing something the other person will appreciate,
…giving them a gift,
…send a note on a card,
…send an email,
…give them a hug or kiss.

This is only the starting point for Thank You ideas. Let me know what ideas you have by clicking on ‘Comments’ below.

Thanks for your comments and for reading this.

*Ed P 

Inspirational Quote:

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will be enough.”
 Meister Eckhart 

Razor’s Edge

I’ve done some work on the details of Razor’s Edge during the week. 

Love is our gift

Thought for the Week -
In this season of giving, love is our gift. Love is a gift we can give to our family and friends. In giving love we share in the happiness and joy that love brings. 

There are a few types of love, warm love, unconditional love and compassion or non judgmental love.

Warm Love
Warm love, we give to our family and friends and those close to us. This love often requires energy of us to become involved with the people we love. For this reason we only have a limited amount of it. We need to be aware of what we can handle and not burn ourselves out. 

For example if we have a spouse or parent we care for, we will treat them in a caring and thoughtful manner. We will do favours, chores and work for them. We do these out of love for them, without expecting them to repay us but we do expect respect and kindness from them in return. 

This type of warm love can be ‘conditional’. That is, there are conditions attached to the love we give. If we do a job for a person we expect something in return. This is normal in a marriage or close relationship. Where one person may do a lot of the heavy, physical work and the other does the lighter jobs. One person goes out to work to earn money while the other looks after the family and household. 

Unconditional Love
Unconditional love has no conditions. That is, if we do something for a person, we don’t expect anything in return. We do it because the joy in giving or the happiness the task beings is reward enough for us. Sometimes it can be like acting as a secret agent for love. We do things which bring a benefit but nobody ever sees the how it happens. 

For example, as we walk through a shop and notice an item has fallen off its shelf, we replace it. There is a friend I know who does random acts of kindness. He sometimes cleans bathrooms or toilets. His attitude is to leave a place better than when he went into it.

Compassion or non judgmental love
This kind of love often involves just being nice and courteous to the people we meet in our daily lives. It also involves our attitude to people. How do we regard people? If we see a person begging on the street do we assume they are alcoholics, drug users or outcasts of society? If we have the attitude of seeing that person as someone going through a few hard lessons at the moment, we can be a little compassionate towards them. We all have our lessons to learn, at times some people have tougher times than others in their lives. 

There are two benefits to this kind of compassion. If we can change our attitude towards people from negative to something positive. The person who we are regarding will pick up on a sub conscious level your positive thoughts and they’ll see life a little brighter. For us, we will not have a negative attitude within ourselves and will be happier with the positive attitude.

Love is our gift
So the love we have for our family and friends, as well as the people we casually meet in our daily lives, is a gift for them and us. All the people in our lives, give us an opportunity to use our gift of love.

May Love be your gift for Christmas.

*Ed P

News:

LUAS Art Competition Runner Up
During the week I received a letter from the RPA,(Railway Procurement Agency) to say that I was a runner up in the LUAS Art Competition. In the letter they mention that the piece will be in the LUAS Calendar and on their web sites. There is a launch programme in January. It should be an interesting event. 
Below is the piece entered in to the LUAS Art Competition. It is based on Spirals but with the LUAS added in and the colouring changed.

Below is a detail which explains why it is called LUAS Spirals.

Inspirational Quote:

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

 Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Razor’s Edge

The concept for this picture came to me in that period between sleep and waking. I was thinking about a friend who was going through some challenging times. He was on a difficult path and the further along he went, the narrower it got. 

There comes a time when we have to make a decision and just jump for it. We hope we land on solid ground but we won’t know until we do it. The path we are on seems like a razor’s edge, we’ve come this far, we may as well go for it.

How bright ideas turn to confusion

Thought for the Week -
Have you ever noticed how bright ideas turn into confusion? It has happened to us all. We get what seems like a wonderful idea but after thinking about it, the idea seems difficult to do or there are a number of things to be considered before we can proceed with it.

This often happens when we're chatting with friends or at a meeting and a new wonderful idea presents itself. We are all enthusiastic about it and can’t wait to get into it and get it working, but after thinking about it, a lot of complications arise and soon it seems impossible to complete.

What’s happening?
If we understand how the process works we can see what is happening. In our search for an idea, the most creative part of our self, Soul, presents an idea to us. As this is the highest aspect of us, which is communicating with our lower self, the physical body, it has a number of other inner parts to go through. Here’s how our inner self is composed, from the top down:

Soul, the true inner and most creative part of our selves. Our imagination gets a lot of input from Soul.
Intuition, or sub-conscious which translates Soul’s messages into ideas and concepts we can understand.
The Mind, is the computer which runs on logic and is great at working out logical problems, like maths, crosswords and putting things together.
Memories, this is our filing system of all the events in our lives. A huge album of everything we’ve gone throughout our lives.
Emotions, our feelings which make us happy or sad, angry or calm, etc. They are often influenced by what the Mind and Memories present to us.
Physical body, which we use as we go through our physical life. When we first get our body, it is just a baby and we use it until it grows old and when it can no longer function, we leave it.

So that's the structure we have within ourselves. Our ideas and inspiration come from Soul. They arrive into our sub conscious as a bright idea. If we put our attention on the idea, the Mind then takes a good look at it and applies all its logical systems and criteria to it. This is where the confusion starts. The mind looks at the idea in a systematic manner and makes a few decisions based on logic. It doesn't have the same high view point as Soul, which sees our lives as it fits with our destiny and the flow of life. 

The mind produces a number of logical options to the original idea. The trouble with these options is that they all make sense. Why wouldn't they, they're logical. However they don't have the overview Soul has on our current situation. 

These options are passed on to our memories, which may recall similar concepts from the past. 
Then our emotions add in their current and past feelings about the ideas.

We now have the original idea, obscured by options from the mind along with memories of past events and our emotional response to all of this. It's no wonder we get confused.

How do we overcome the confusion?
The best way of eliminating the confusion is to grab the idea when it is presented by our Intuition. Take the idea and go with it without allowing the Mind to think about it. Here’s what I said in a previous post on Intuition:
“Stay alert for the first though or idea that comes to you. Write it down if it helps you remember it. Now watch how you get another suggestion, and another, and another. Check these out, let your mind have its say. Now, say to yourself and your mind, “I’ve looked at all the options and despite the fact that my first thought or intuition seems completely wrong, I’m going in that direction.” This will quieten the mind so that you can proceed without it nagging you with worries about the ‘right and logical’ way.”

If we’ve been running our life based on what our mind says, it won’t be easy catching the first though coming from Soul as an intuition, but it can be done. It just takes practices and time. We’ll get to a point where we catch the initial message and can make a clear decision to go with it, if we choose.

By catching the thoughts and messages from Soul as they arrive we bypass the Mind, Memories and Emotions, thereby eliminating the confusion they cause. Using this method, our ideas can stay bright without the added confusion often contributed by our other inner elements. 

Inspirational Quote

“Therefore, as always, make of this voice what you choose to make of it. Make of me what you choose to make of me, but recognize within yourselves the vitality of your being. And look to no man or no idea or no woman or no dogma, but the vitality of your own being, and trust it. And that which offends your soul, turn away from, but trust yourself.”

 Jane Roberts 

Sacred City - Fountain

I’ve done a bit fine tuning on the fountain this week…

Spiritual Tools - What would Love do?

Thought for the Week -

What would Love do? It is a great question to ask ourselves when we're not sure what to do next. It works very well when the decision has to do with people in our lives.

Washing up dishes or doing chores around the house or in the office can often bring up a bit of discontent. Here are some thoughts we may find running through our minds as we do these chores...
"Why do I have to do this?" 
"I didn't make the mess." 
"They should clean it up themselves."

These little issues are kept in mind every time we are reminded of the offending issue. Each time we are reminded, the issue becomes bigger in our mind. Soon we are at the point of anger whenever we think of it.

Making Snowballs
What's happening here? The issue is rolling around in our mind like a snowball. Every time we see it, we roll it around again and it gets bigger. The person who is the "cause" of the issue is probably unaware of any problem at all. If we get to the point of our anger exploding, they are usually surprised by our outburst. 

Then, one day, we throw this snowball at them. They thought things between us were fine and sunny. Suddenly they get hit with this snowball and the atmosphere suddenly turns icy. It's not a nice place for them and it’s not a nice place for us, either.

What would Love do?
When the issue arrived at first, had we asked the question "What would Love do?" the answer may have been...
"Clean it up now."
"Put the things in their proper place,"
or "Do it now, it'll only take a few minutes."

These answers get the offending issue out of the way immediately. The issue melts away and is forgotten. We don't carry a cold, angry, snowball around causing a frosty mental attitude within us. If the issue keeps coming up and it is someone else’s responsibility, it is much easier to bring it to the attention of the person involved with a statement like "This issue keeps repeating and I have been dealing with it recently, can you take care of it in future, as it is your responsibility?" 

Love is the reason
One of the reasons we are here in this life, is to learn about love and how to use it. By asking “What would Love do?” we tune into that higher force. We begin to see how Love works in life. We become more aware of Love and we bring more Love into our world. 

Bear in mind that Love doesn't have strings attached to it. If we do a deed but expect to get something in return, we are attaching strings and conditions. That’s not true, divine Love. Divine Love just does things for Love, expecting nothing in return. We benefit as Love flows through us, our world becomes more loving. People may not notice the deeds we do, but on a subtle level they will feel the Love and be touched by it, making their world a little warmer.

What would Love do? Love would say “Thank you for reading this, and thank you for bring more Love into the world. Thank you.”

Inspirational Quote:

"Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver." 
Barbara De Angelis

News

Journey of Soul, radio interview

On Sunday evening I was on the radio show, Irish Tarot Live with David O'Reilly. We spoke about some of the pictures in the Journey of Soul folder. I hope to have a recording of the show here on the blog soon. Here’s a PDF file of the file of the Journey of Soul folder. Please bear in mind this is a low resolution file but the printed sheets are professionally printed.

The Journey of Soul is produced as a folder which holds the 12 A4 size digital prints and the explanatory text. If you’d like to buy a copy of the folder (€30), please click on ‘Comments’ below and post me a note or email me (edp at edp-art.com) and I’ll email you a payment request through PayPal. This will allow you to pay by credit card or PayPal. Please include your email address and your delivery address. As soon as the payment goes through we’ll send you the folder.

If you are in the Dun Laoghaire area of Dublin, Ireland, you can get The Journey of Soul folder in The Angel Shop, in the Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre. They have it as a Special Offer at €20.

Sacred City

There is still a lot of building work going on in the Sacred City. More new buildings have sprung up during the week. There is no sign of a building recession here.

Spiritual Tools - Coincidences

Thought for the Week -

Coincidences are often something amusing which arrive in our lives without any logical explanation. If we change our perception of them from one of mild curiosity to one of wonder, we can learn a lot. A good question to ask when coincidences arrive in our lives is “What is life trying to tell or show me?”

By being aware of coincidences we can use them as a spiritual tool. When a coincidence happens we can take note. Life has organised these coincidences as part of the flow of our lives.

On the other hand when things are not going according to plan, then it is a time for us to check our plan and motives. Why isn't it working, what do I need to learn here? Why am I not going with the flow of life?

Frosty Fireworks

For example, I woke early one morning during the week at 5.30 am. This was a bit of a pain, as I needed to get up at 7.00 am. There wasn't any prospect of me going back to sleep, so I decided to do my contemplation in bed.

The bedroom looks out on to the back gardens of our neighbouring houses and the electric cable of the Luas, our tram system, which runs along the end of the gardens. It was a frosty morning and soon the first tram of the morning came along. The frost had covered the electric cable, as the tram's connector glided along the cable, the frost caused it to bounce away and create a spark. Some sparks were bigger than others, so I was treated to a mini fireworks display as the Luas travelled along the line. The sparks flashed like lightning revealing the trees and houses which were hiding in the darkness.

Happy Coincidence

This was a happy coincidence. I was awake early enough to see the frosty fireworks. As soon as the third Luas came along the line, the sparks had been reduced to the size of a sparkler. The frost had been melted away. It took a little time to reveal the ‘coincidence’ or reason why I woke so early.

I wasn't too happy when I woke up but I would have missed the fireworks. If instead of grumbling about waking early, I had asked the question “Why am I awake so early? What is life trying to show me?” it would have been an even more pleasant experience. What I thought was going to be a dark restless time turned out to be a fireworks display.

Coincidences are really the events in our lives synchronised. When we recognise the coincidences, it is a sign we are getting in line with the flow of our lives. It can feel like we are a hero in a film. Things happen to be in the right place at the right time.

What is life trying to show me?

These ‘coincidences’ are happening all the time, we just need to be aware of them. Probably the best way of becoming aware of them when we see something inconvenient arrive in our lives is to ask the question “What is life trying to show me?” We may get the answer straight away but it may take a little time to reveal itself. Patience is another tool we can use to help us understand the events that flow through our lives.

In a short while when something awkward or messy arrives into our day, instead of moaning about it, let’s try and ask “What is life trying to show me?”

News

Nora Dunne Gallery opening

The Nora Dunne Gallery had their official opening on Saturday evening (29th November). There was a great turn out and a number of pieces were sold. The gallery is good to its word and giving good value on all the pieces it sells. It is well worth a visit, you may even find a nice Christmas gift there. Below is a panoramic photo of the gallery during the opening night.

Marlay Craft Fair

Over fifty art and crafts people were showing and selling their work at the Marlay Craft Fair, in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, over the weekend. It is an annual event where Marley House, an old Victorian house is filled with arts and crafts. It had a lovely friendly, Christmas atmosphere. Of all the pieces I had on show at the fair, Sacred Place was the favourite of a lot of visitors. probably because the original scene I based it on is about 100 meters from Marlay House in the surrounding park.

Inspirational Quote:

“A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous.” Anon