Playing music professionally and with friends around a song circle brings me some of the greatest sense of joy. I have come to the understanding that that deep joy comes primarily from one main thing: being fully present to the moment.
When I play alone, especially if I am writing or composing, I can feel it too. When I play music with others in the same room, I feel it even more. It’s the energy of creating with other people, being in the flow with others, that gives me a strong sense of being alive and my true, authentic self. Playing with other musicians who “get it” is an invitation to stay open, to pivot and turn and dance of the waves of the music that is unfolding. None of us knows exactly where the next moment will go. And that’s what makes it so compelling.
It’s not like we are completely doing our own thing. There is a framework we have agreed upon, whether it’s a song, an arrangement, or simply a willingness to stay within the same key and rhythm so chaos doesn’t take over. I know there are folks who can even rise above that, but for me, give me a safe landing place where I know I can let go and that simple structure brings a sense of freedom of creating. It is in that freedom that presence awakens.
What surprises me about intuitive painting is that I find that same presence here, even though there is less structure to hold onto. The structure comes from the safety of the “space” we create together. The guidelines; No Judgement, No Criticism, No Comparison, and the knowledge that what happens for each of us in that space is held in sacred confidentiality.
When we paint together, there is no shared song. No one agrees on what we're painting or where it's headed. Each person follows their own brush. And yet something forms in the room. An energy builds when each of us get in our own flow and presence. And that is an energy that we share. The studio becomes a sacred, safe space. Inside it, a quiet aliveness wakes up in me. I'm not planning or judging. I'm simply here, with the color, the page, and the people around me.
Presence is often what's missing in our lives today. We live in our heads, pulled in every direction by information and demands. So many of us are being led, by our intuition, I believe, to find places and ways to build more presence in our lives. The future is rocky and we all feel it. We can’t plan where it or we will go and trying to just causes more stress. But when we are present we can respond to life and with an awakened intuition, or inner voice, we can feel a sense of security in the choices we make.
But we have to practice that. That’s one reason I believe that we call meditation, and yoga and prayer our “practices.” I have seen over the years that what we practice becomes stronger in our lives. Live athletes, we have to build the muscles for those things, whether it’s patience, or a sense of peace or frankly just an acceptance of who we are where we are! Watching my parents pass over, I have also learned that what we “practice” in life is often the greatest indicator of how we will be able to accept the challenges that aging and illness and death and loss bring us. And because we cannot avoid those things, practicing for their arrival seems like a wise and helpful thing to do.
In my exploration of where I can bring presence into my life, where I can practice it more, I’ve discovered that safe creative spaces can offer it ,too. Whether it's a song we've agreed to play or a blank paper with paint and brush and no plan at all, the invitation is much the same: listen, stay open, and let the moment lead.
I’m learning everyday how to provide those safe places. The work I am studying has that as a primary foundation because we recognize how rare they are and just how refreshing that safe place to play, create and be ourselves is. Being in such a space, where we can come into present awareness with ourselves is one of the greatest gifts I've found in this work of offering a place to paint and play. Period.
And that is what I hope to offer at Wondering Path Studio. You don't need to be a professional painter or musician. You only need to be willing to show up and be here with an open mind and heart, listening for something beyond your ego and following the ground rules that accompany this work. No Judgement, No Criticism, No Comparison.
