... one more wish for you ...

May your holidays be filled with joy, peace, connection and delight....and may the new year bring you a wealth of health and happiness.

'Tis The Season

It's a grey, blustering, unseasonably warm day in Montreal today.  I've set aside a good portion of today for gift wrapping. 


While I love shopping downtown at night to enjoy all the glitter and glam of Christmas decorations, have to admit that this year I did a lot of my shopping online.  It's so easy to click that little "Add To Cart" button and wait for the goods to be delivered.  Is it just me or are the shipping fees becoming astronomical?!!!  One purchase I made online was for about $60, and then I learn that the shipping charges are $70!!!  Hmmm - don't think so ...   From New York to Montreal is not that far even if you do cross a border!



The above image was created in Photoshop from a street photograph taken in late summer, in daylight.  With the addition of one of my textures and some digital processing I tried to make it look like a nighttime Christmas shopping scene ...   Hope you like it.



How do you acquire the gifts you want to give at Christmas?  Do you make your own?  Do you brave the traffic and crowds to shop in stores?  Do you let your fingers do the shopping on your keyboard?  A combination of all of the above?   However you proceed, may your holiday gift preparations be as stress-free and joyful as is possible.  :)



If you find yourself feeling a little blue or melancholy during the holiday season, please download my free digital poster file "Strategies To Defeat Depression".  Just click on the image on my sidebar and you will link up with the post offering the download.

A Free Poster On Depression

During this hectic time of year, it is easy to forget that for some of us Christmas is full of memories of things that are gone and can never be again.  Depression is a frequent and unwelcome visitor during the holiday season. 

If that is the case for you, or for someone you love, you might enjoy the free download of my new poster, Strategies To Defeat Depression.  This download and its terms of use can be found at my other blog Pixel Dust Photo Art.

...clutching my map...

I ask myself:

... time, the construct ...

Today we enter the last month of 2011.  I have the sense of time speeding by and observe myself experiencing sadness at its passing.  Must be my ego sensing its demise - yet somewhere inside I know that time is but a construct of the fragile, insecure mind - that if I stop and pause I can reconnect with the eternal present moment. 

Why does my hard-fought-for inner knowing elude the grasp of my everyday mind?  I think I would have to live as a monk - contemplative - no hurry - no worry - present - aware - in order to dwell in the knowing of the eternal moment.  I can always find my way back to that moment, but I cannot claim I abide there ... yet.

When I create art whether with pencil, brush or digital editing I often enjoy a fleeting sense of the eternal.  Here are two variations of a collage of digital edits of a public domain painting by Degas:

 Time and space are but ... colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light.  ~Emerson 

Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, the temporal and the eternal, freedom and necessity.

~Soren Kierkegaard

After a lifelong struggle, I know that what matters is not to learn a new description

but to arrive at the totality of oneself.

~Carlos Castaneda

As I rest in the pure and simple witness, I am no longer moved to follow the bliss and the torture of experiential displays.  Experiences float across my original face like clouds floating across the clear autumn sky, and there is room in me for all.

~Ken Wilber