The Quietude of Inspiration
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
My goal for the week was to reach the pinnacle of boredom.
My desire was to slow everything down to a pace where my nervous system might relax into the surrounding vistas of red rock, juniper, and pinon.
We all have different ways we recharge our internal life force when we feel depleted.
For some, it’s time spent surrounded by festivities with loved ones and friends. For others it’s solitude. This would be me. More so, when I can completely unplug from gadgets and immerse myself in nature.
This is exactly what I did last week while chasing halos of light in the Piedra Lumbre Plateau of Northern New Mexico, in Ghost Ranch. It was once a dude ranch, now an educational retreat center.
My goal for the week was to reach the pinnacle of boredom. My desire was to slow everything down to a pace where my nervous system might relax into the surrounding vistas of red rock, juniper, and pinon.
These acts seem harder now than at other times in the past. Maybe it’s because I’ve had my foot on the gas for a sustained period, or maybe it’s more collective. Either way, the energy of the world is beginning to remind me of whirling dervishes and I’m becoming dizzy. Some folks seem to thrive in this gradual progression of instant information and connections afforded to us by our phones always being by our sides. I try to keep up, then I ask myself, surely there has to be a middle way.
While at ghost ranch I found it took a certain amount of stamina to reach boredom. I have grown so use to my sustained dopamine hits that my constant companion, a beautiful teal blue apple phone device provides.
But gradually, by day three, I began to feel a slow unwinding that eventually transformed itself into a heightened presence. This occurs while hiking with the blue sky vistas. It started as an echo from afar, then a gentle whisper from within. It was my inner voice calling me back to a cascading state of innocence and wonder.
As the golden yellow leaves of cottonwoods fell upon shades of green juniper, they fell upon the land of red and brown. As the light hit upon Orphan Mesa, creating a solid shining land mass- my thoughts drifted to a quote in the book, Letters to Gwen John, which I had just finished by British painter Celia Paul. It’s a beautiful testimony to the slow observation of life through painting.
“In order to be an artist you need to see the world with the detachment of a child.”
For me, on this glorious fall day, the inspiration and calm I felt merged with a heightened sense of wonder through color. I spent the rest of the afternoon with a clear mind contemplating the tubes of paint I might return home to or collect for a future painting …
ochre yellow- chrome green- venetian red- nickel titanium yellow.
“It's not possible to significantly change your life, for better or for worse, by manipulating the material world. Not by working harder, not by studying longer, not by schmoozing, not by sweating, not by fasting, not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin. But great change is inescapable when you first begin manipulating the world of your thoughts.”
Thank you for reading,
