Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

Gateway

Here’s a further exploration into representing the gateway to heaven at the top of the Mountain to Heaven. The spiral from the resting Soul connects with it’s higher self in the Ocean of Love and Mercy.

What’s next? How to develop your spiritual side of life in the New Year

Thought for the Week

So you've been reading this blog for a while and hopefully it has made some kind of positive contribution to your life. If you want to take the next step, in developing the spiritual side of your life, there are a few options open to you. 

Your current spiritual path
Put more love and attention on your current spiritual path. All paths have some good core values which come down to love. If we can find the love in our path we have found the real heart of it. If you can’t find the love, then it may be time to move on and find something that has the values, ideals and systems that suit us. If a path, group or religion brings more love into our lives, we should go for it. 

Do something spiritual each day
If you want to go it alone for a while, try to do something spiritual each day. Spend a few minutes each day connecting and recognising the inner part of our lives, the spiritual side of life. If we can spend time contemplating every day, we’ll begin to see and feel the results in a few months. Start with five or ten minutes and work it up to twenty minutes over the next twelve months. The HU song is an excellent place to start.

Favourite Thought for the Week
I asked some friends to select their favourite Thought for the Week from the last year or so. Below is the list, with an introductory paragraph to give you a feel for its content. Choose the ones that feel right for you and click on the headline to read the article.

Spring Clean our Mental Programmes
Sometimes we need to reset the mental programme we use to run our lives. Sometimes we build up habits and routines which are no longer useful to us. It can be a bit like a Spring clean. The trouble with the mental junk we have, is that it all seems to be important. So how do we select the good from the bad?

The Lord's Prayer – a spiritual interpretation for today
Some say the Lord's Prayer was given by Jesus as an example of how to pray. It was not meant to be learned off by heart but that it is a basic outline of how to pray. Let’s have a look at the Lord’s Prayer and see if we can express its sentiments in modern language which we can easily relate to and understand.

Everyone is equal as Soul
From the perspective of Soul, our true selves, we are equal to all other Souls. When you look at our different lives with the overview that we have created our destiny by the choices we've made previously, we begin to see that we are all equal. 

A simple guide to Inner Travel
The key to inner travel is a tool which is often neglected or lost in the busy lives we lead these days. This tool can transport us anywhere in an instant and we won’t have to pay air fares or taxes to get there! This wonderful tool is our imagination. We use it every day to work out simple tasks, ss you read this we are going to try some Inner Travel.

Pay attention to our attention
We need to pay attention to where we put our attention. Wherever we put our attention, we will be drawn to or it will be drawn to us. That means we have to be mindful of our thoughts because whatever we are thinking of, is where we have our attention.

Spiritual Jewels
To get a better understanding of ourselves we need to look at the different parts within us, our spiritual make up or anatomy. With a clearer idea of how we work we can begin to find jewels of wisdom and insight which can help us become a happier person.

Heaven to Earth
We are very aware of our physical bodies and surroundings but our focus on the outer world can blind us to the spiritual beauty that is within us. Soul is in the centre and our physical self can get so rooted in its world that it is often unaware of its connection with Soul.

Seeking to live in the Now
Most of us are searching for something subtle, something to sooth the hunger within. Those of us with that hunger are seekers. Our goal in life is to be happy. We may not know exactly what we are seeking but we have a constant hunger eating at us, making life uncomfortable. It is our desire to reconnect with that spiritual part of ourselves, Soul, which makes us seekers. We are seeking to live in the Now.

The importance of being Hu-man beings
If we can connect with the Life-force within us we can become a lot happier and bring more love into our lives and to those around us. There is a hint to our true make up in the word human. "Hu" is an ancient name for God and "man" is a reference to mind and the physical body of man.

May we have the insight to see all our blessings as we take the next step into the New Year.

*Ed Parkinson

Inspirational Spiritual Life Quotes

“Living can be a joy. It should give us a sense of wonder and love.”
 Harold Klemp

“By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.”
 Albert Schweitzer 

“A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.”
 Thomas Merton

“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”
 Albert Einstein

“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”
 Marianne Williamson

“I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -- would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.”
 Coretta Scott King

“In my travels I have found that those who keep Heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day. If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life.”
 Billy Graham

“Let your whole life be a spiritual song.”
 Sri Sathya Sai Baba

“I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress.”
 Dan Brown

“My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly.”
 Carlos Santana

“Music is mediator between spiritual and sensual life.”
 Ludwig van Beethoven

Gateway

Below is recent development of the picture Gateway. I wanted to develop the girl or Soul into a major element of the piece but this angel isn’t working. She looks like she is about to be sacrificed on some altar. That’s not the message I want to give. So I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. 

Wishing you love and blessings for the Christmas

Wishing you the best of Christmas Greetings at this time. Depending on where you are in the world and your culture, it may or may not be a time of celebration for you. I still wish you love and blessings today. 

I’ll just say that again, I still wish you love and blessings today. How does that make you feel? Hopefully it adds a little warmth and optimism to you, with the knowledge that love and blessings are available to you.

It’s just a greeting but it does have an impact. It’s the same as any greeting we use when we meet people. Do we greet people with an automatic response or do we put a little thought and feeling into what we say? The automatic response is easy, we do it all the time and it has little or no impact on the people we greet. We can change the affect of our greeting by spending a few seconds thinking about it and adding a little goodwill to complete it. 

Christmas Shopping
I was Christmas shopping yesterday. It was the last Sunday before Christmas, the biggest annual holiday of the year, in Ireland. The shops were packed with people buying gifts for their friends and loved ones. I was looking for a particular gizmo and I had been told they were available in this shop. It sold music, games, movies, DVD box sets, and all the gizmos that go with them. 

The particular gizmo I was looking for wasn’t on any of the shelves or counters. I spotted one of the store staff in his purple t-shirt with the store logo on it. He was about twenty years old, bright eyes and a quick smile. I caught his eye and he bounced over to me. “How can I help you, sir?” he beamed. His big white smile shone bright against his tanned skin. 

I explained the particular gizmo I was looking for. He said they had them in the store and thought they had the particular model I was looking for. He bounced off like a rabbit into the secret warren where the gizmos were stored. He quickly returned and presented me with the thing I was looking for. He then brought me to the checkout and explained to the teller who the gizmo was for. I thanked him for his assistance and he bounced off to help another customer.

The Gizmo Guy
When I say bounced, he did bounce. Not in an obvious fashion. When I saw him the first time, he was about three meters away. When I caught his eye, he bounced over to me in one second. He was able to dodge between people to get to where he wanted to go, quickly. 

When he arrived beside me he smiled, when he brought the gizmo to me, he smiled. He was happy to help the customers, he was happy to be working in this store, he was happy and his happiness greeted me when I met him. His smile was infectious and I had to smile while talking to him. His greeting and his whole sense of joy changed me from a tired weary shopper into a happy appreciative person. 

Spirit of Christmas
The gizmo guy gave me a good lesson in how greetings work. If we are happy within ourselves, thoughtful of the person we are greeting and have a good feeling or enthusiasm for what we have in common, we both benefit from meeting each other.

If I can bring the spirit of Christmas (love, kindness and happiness) into my greetings at this time of year and into the New Year, like the gizmo guy, it’ll be a job well done. 

Wishing you love and blessings for this season and all seasons.


*Ed Parkinson

Inspirational Greetings Quotes

“I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.”
 Fra Giovanni Giocondo

“To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; 
to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; 
to approach my work with a clean mind; 
to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; 
to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; 
to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; 
to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done –
this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.”
 Thomas Dekker

“Hello, Do not greet anybody when the heart is filled with anger distrust etc. Have, instead, a pure hollow from which a whole hearted Hello emanates.”
 Sri Sathya Sai Baba

“The words you speak are an expression of what you are and what you’d like to be”
 Harold Klemp

“And when you are greeted with a greeting, greet with a better (greeting) than it or return it; surely Allah takes account of all things.”
 Quran

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”
 Mary Ellen Chase

“Best of all, Christmas means a spirit of love, a time when the love of God and the love of our fellow men should prevail over all hatred and bitterness, a time when our thoughts and deeds and the spirit of our lives manifest the presence of God.”
Charles Dickens

“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.”
 Jay Leno

“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”
 Shirley Temple.

“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air."  
 W.T. Ellis

“Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.”
 Janice Maeditere

Gateway

The concept for this new picture is a continuation of The Mountain to Heaven. The point of view is now from the top of the mountain looking towards heaven. I will try to paint this gateway to heaven so that you can use your imagination to go there yourself. Hopefully the visual hints and clues I use will spark your imagination and help you get to the heaven which is within us all.

Heaven to Earth

Thought for the Week

In this picture I’m trying to illustrate the joy of Soul and the struggle of our physical side to reach that joy. We are very aware of our physical bodies and surroundings but our focus on the outer world can blind us to the spiritual heaven that is within us.

Joy comes to us like a bird
Soul is in the centre and our physical self is the tree. While the tree is a part of Soul and Soul can easily see that, the tree is so rooted in its world that it is often unaware of its connection with Soul. The tree may struggle in its world but Soul is happy to look on and learn the lessons which come from its experiences in the physical world. It knows it can learn a lot through its physical life. The lessons are often hard but because of that we learn them well and make progress. Its physical embodiment struggles constantly to be reunited with itself, Soul. We are aware of this through our constant seeking for truth, love and happiness.

Once we get rooted in our physical life it can be difficult to see the spiritual side of things. We can spend our time chasing happiness in our outer worlds. Joy comes to us like a bird landing in our branches but it only stays a while. If we seek joy in the outer world it will only visit us occasionally.

Go with the flow
If we can find our joy within ourselves, we will have an ongoing source of happiness available to us. This will show like blossoms in Spring time and fruit in the Summer and Autumn. To keep our balance and avoid depending on these outer goods, we go through a Winter where we leave the beauty and things of this world for a while. It keeps us balanced and in tune with life around us. 

There is a force, a power which holds all our worlds and those worlds around us in place. If we can connect with that force and with Soul we can go with the flow of life. The sparkles or stars represent that life-force which is all around us and connects our physical selves to our inner, true, loving and happy self, Soul.

Reconnect
How do we reconnect with the life force or our spiritual side or better still, with Soul? There are a few methods:
Non directed prayer,
Regular contemplation,
Singing the HU Song.
For further reading, click on the titles above and you’ll open the article on that subject .

Wishing you joy in all the seasons of your life.

*Ed Parkinson

P.S. Click on the image below to enlarge it.

Art Fair at the Nora Dunne Gallery, Kimmage, Dublin 12.

News

Last weekend I was exhibiting at The Art Fair, curated by Karen Harper, the renowned arts and crafts mentor. There were about 60 artists exhibiting with a lot of people buying Christmas presents. Below is a video of the fair.

Inspirational Heaven and Earth Quotes

“If the Lord should bring a wicked man to heaven, heaven would be hell to him; for he who loves not grace upon earth will never love it in heaven”
 Christopher Love

“My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through earth's loveliness”
 Michelangelo 

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”
 Ayn Rand

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
 C.S. Lewis

“When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.”
 Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

“What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!”
 Anatole France

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”
 Abraham Lincoln

“The ''kingdom of Heaven'' is a condition of the heart -not something that comes ''upon the earth'' or ''after death.''
 Friedrich Nietzsche

“An aged Christian, with the snow of time upon his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest to heaven.”
 Edwin Hubbel Chapin

“We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.”
 Plato

“The window of heaven is what all truth seekers are trying to open.”
 Harold Klemp

Heaven to Earth

This picture is just about finished. There may be a few details to tidy up and adjust but for now I’m happy with the way it looks. The sparkles or stars are represent the life-force or Holy Spirit which is all around us and connects our physical selves to our inner, true and happy self, Soul.

Is life more than bread, bills, beer and bed?

I met a guy during the week who is sure that life is just about making bread (money), paying bills, dinking beer and sleeping in bed. How do you show the bright sunshine of the spiritual side of life to those who are lost in the shadows of the physical life. Just because we have our back to the sun and we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

There are two sides to life, the outer, mainly physical side and the inner, where our feelings, thoughts and dreams exist. While the bread, bills, beer and bed philosophy seems to relate to our outer physical life it can also relate to our inner spiritual side.

Making bread
Making bread or money is a definite requirement in most cultures. If we want to have a reasonably comfortable physical existence we need some money to get by. Once we've made the money we can buy the bread and eat it. It's all part of our physical life and if we are happy doing that, then that's fine. As a member of our community, society, country and culture we need to play our part. 

Paying bills
Whatever we do in this world will usually require some sort of payment at some time. It is one of the basic lessons of life, we get what we pay for and we pay for what we get. Whether we pay with money, deeds, emotions or karma, we do pay some way or other. If we look at the spiritual side of making bread, it is being responsible for ourselves, paying our bills, and making a contribution to our society. 

Despite the fact that we may have a full stomach, there is often an inner hunger still eating at us. We get to the point where we need more from life, a good reason to continue our existence here and we wonder what life as all about. At this point we often turn to beer for the solution.

Drinking beer
Why does beer drinking come as one of basic needs of life, on this list? We need an escape from the problems, pain and to make the most of the occasional pleasure, in life. Beer, alcohol or drugs help move us into our inner and usually our emotional selves. For most people they bring some relief and a short trip to a more tolerable place. Unfortunately there is usually a price to pay by way of a hangover, sore head and/or a major down. 

The beer from the pub is an easy instant escape to a wished for happier place. It is an instant fix to our problems which we have come to expect in our world of immediate gratification. It works for a lot of people but for those of us who wish to avoid the hangover and find a more lasting solution, we go looking for ideas from the spiritual side of life. This usually leads us to something like meditation or contemplation. These don't usually provide an instant answer but over the long term the results can be lasting and significant.

Time in bed
Most of our time in bed is spent sleeping. It's an essential part of maintaining our well being and health on all levels including, physical, emotional and mental. It allows us time to reconnect with our inner selves. It's a time where we can dream, explore and search for solutions to the challenges of life. 

Sleeping, for a lot of people, is the only time they get to spend time in the spiritual sunshine. Their physical side is temporarily dead, so they can ramble around their inner worlds for a number of hours. In the morning they are usually refreshed, often happier and sometimes have a solution or a better understanding to an issue in their life.

So how do we bring sunshine to the lives of those lost in the shadows? If we start preaching and brow beating people into our way of thinking, they will run deeper into the shadows. It would be like shining a torch in someone’s eyes who’s been in the darkness for a long time. We’d blind them and probably hurt them.

Being ourselves

Being ourselves is probably the best way of guiding people into the spiritual sunshine. If we are in their lives, we are there for a reason. If we have a bright spiritual outlook on life, that light will shine through. People will notice the brightness, maybe not consciously but on a subtle inner level. They may get a glimmer of the sunshine which shines through us and then see that there is a sunnier side to life. 

How do we bring the spiritual sunshine into our lives? Love. Love what we do, love our families, love our friends, love our work, love our lives.

Wishing you Love and spiritual sunshine.

*Ed Parkinson

The Art Fair, this coming weekend

The National Craft and Design Fair 2009
The Craft Fair was a well attended and a busy place over the last five days. It was a great to meet old friends, make new ones and sell a few pictures too. Below is a 2 minute YouTube video of the Fair area around my stand.




The Art Fair

Another exhibition I’ll be showing at will be the Art Fair at the Nora Dunne Gallery, in Kimmage, Dublin 12.

This is a quality exhibition curated by Karen Harper, the renowned arts and crafts mentor. There will about 60 artists exhibiting over the second weekend in December. If you are looking for good quality, affordable art, this is the place to go.

Thursday 10th December 6 – 9 pm
Friday 11th December 11 – 7pm

Saturday 12th December 11 – 7pm

Sunday 13th December 11 – 6pm

Inspirational Love Sunshine Quotes

“Perhaps it will seem to you that the sunshine is brighter and that everything has a new charm. At least, I believe this is always the result of a deep love, and it is a beautiful thing. And I believe people who think love prevents one from thinking clearly are wrong; for then one thinks very clearly and is more active than before. And love is something eternal--the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and it was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and in that way, one is more fit for one's work.”
 Vincent van Gogh

“Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.”
 Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine,
But O, he lives in the moony light!
I thought to find Love in the heat of day,
But sweet Love is the comforter of night.”
 William Blake

“After awhile you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises.
And you begin to accept your defeats with you head up and your eyes open.
With the grace of maturity, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build all your roads on
Today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans, 
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong
And that you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn and learn ....
With every goodbye you learn.”
 Veronica A. Shoffstall

“Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons.”
 Kahlil Gibran

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” 
Victor Hugo 

“Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you've got to let it grow.”
 John Lennon

“God’s love is always working to help Soul find Its way back home.”
 Harold Klemp