Silver Linings

I featured a cropped and rotated detail from the work I posted yesterday. These details change the essence of the work. Not only is it a square format, but only a portion of it is shown within the square and it is an entirely different angle.

When we examine a portion of our lives, and delve into it from different angles, we begin to see new perspectives of it that we had previously missed. Viewed from this perspective this art does not reveal the interconnectedness of the view shown in the previous post. Instead, it reflects more of a sense of balloons drifting through the cosmos, illustrating the concept of serendipity: floating about, connecting at times with like minded individuals, disconnecting with others. Some experiences leave us feeling deflated with pain and others lighten our hearts. In some instances we feel that we have missed some chances that we wish we had grabbed onto more tightly to see where that ride would have taken us. At times, our lives take us into new and untethered territory, beautiful but unnerving. In these moments, we have to re-assess our priorities and belief systems to learn, once more, how to navigate confidently to prevent ourselves from being burned, like Icarus, and come crashing to the ground.

If we focus too much upon one facet of our lives, we get can get lost in it, giving ourselves over to be personified within the memory, living it over and over and over. Day to day life passes us by while we are stuck in the past, examining it, repeatedly, trying to detect some small detail of what we could have done differently to have changed its outcome to create a better future for ourselves. While immersed in living in the past, we are unable to see and appreciate the beauty of the big picture. We are unable to own the power of the person that we have become because we are still nurturing the person that "should have been" or "could have been". We lose altitude, diminishing our momentum within the present and become diconnected form the fullness of our lives.

Like the hearts in this picture, each moment of our lives, regardless of its content, has a silver lining. Each experience has a gift, though sometimes not evident at first. The gift may be that of discernment to prevent us from seeking similar experiences again. It may be a smile, or a supportive word or phrase said to us that we will carry with us forever, to retrieve from our memory bank from time to time to elevate us when our resolve is dwindling. The gift may be, quite simply, but quite profoundly, love, in some form that we fail to recognize.

Look around your life. Where has love abounded? Where does it abound now? What silver linings have graced your life? Are you living in the present or waiting for your past to catch up with you? What lives are reaching out to touch you that you may have ignored? What cords can you cut and allow to float free from you?