Happy Birthday to Me!

I took out the book "Simple Abundance" A Daybook of Comfort and of Joy and decided to look at today's reading since it is my birthday.  The quote at the top of the page reads...

Another real thing! I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever.  ~Keri Hulme

I thought it was pretty funny that the first words of the quote were... I'm not dead yet, ha! seeing that it is my birthday. I also enjoyed the fact that the reading uses art as a metaphor for savoring life!  The irony and a great day for me to continue creating the canvas of my life...

Today's reading for February 9, 2011:

A Fresh Canvas Every Twenty-Four Hours

Before a painter begins a new work, she takes preparatory steps to get ready.  She probably made preliminary sketches of the scene she is trying to capture.  She mixes her pigments to achieve the right colors. She has also prepared the canvas with a fixative coating so that the paint will adhere.  All of this takes time. Of course, we don't see the preparations when we look at her completed work.  We only see the entire vision.  An artist once commented, "A picture that is beautiful or that owrks looks as if is was all made in one brushstroke.  I don't like to see the trail of a brushstroke or a drip of paint.

Preparatory steps are necessary in all of the arts.  They are also necessary in life if we want to live authentically.  Every twenty-four hours we are given a fresh canvas to prime, to make ready for the vision.  Quieting our minds in meditation, carving out time to dream and express ourselves with our daily dialogue and illustrated discovery journal, becoming aware of our true preferences, slowing down to concentrate on completing one task at a time-these are the preparatory stepss we need to take if we wish to experience contentment.

But our preparation won't have been in vain.  For when we are in the flow of life, savoring the moment, the brush strokes don't show.

Today, don't rush through your inner preparations as you get ready to set down a piece of your soul to life's canvas.

I always enjoyed having a birthday in February so close to Valentines Day.  I will make my classic cake chocolate on chocolate with cinnamon red-hots for decorations.  Well it might be chocolate on yellow since that is the mix I have in my cupboards.  But I will still use cinnamon red-hots for the decorations.  Lets just hope I don't break any teeth today.  That's an entire posts for another day.  I will have to tell you about that sometime.

Making it a great day!