1.15.24

Thought

If any of my kids ever asked me that question, the answer would have to be:

“What I do is composition.” I just happen to use material other than notes for the pieces.

Composition is a process of organization, very much like architecture. As long as you can conceptualize what that organizational process is, you can be a “composer” - in any medium you want.

You can be a "video composer,” a “film composer," a “choreography composer,” social engineering composer" - whatever. Just give me some stuff, and I'll organize it for you. That’s what I do.

— Frank Zappa. All About Music – Creators on Creating.

Quote

Chinese Philosopher Zhuangzi on life:

Leap into the boundless and make it your home.

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for the long weekend spent painting.

What are you grateful for? 

Happy Monday,

Val

1.8.24

Thought

Forty years experience as a bacterial geneticist have taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus…. My own work on transposable elements revealed multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. [Studies] show that bacteria utilize sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of “higher” plants and animals to meet their own basic needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognize that even the smallest cells are sentient beings.

— Stephen Harrod Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.  

Quote

Author Paulo Coelho on life:

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for a wonderful start to the new year.

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val

1.1.24

Thought

…water tends to form into spheres… even when moving it attempts to retain this spherical principle through circulation. Moving along spiraling surfaces, which glide past one another in manifold winding and curving forms, it expresses the conflict between its own natural inclination to the sphere and the force of gravity acting upon it. The current with its rhythmical arrangement in space is subject to greater or lesser rhythms in time, often according to very strict laws. A few examples from the world of living creatures will further illustrate this inner propensity of water.

Every living creature, in the act of bringing forth its visible shape out of its archetypal idea, passes through a liquid phase. Some creatures remain in this liquid state or solidify only slightly; others leave the world of water, densify, and fall to a greater or lesser degree under the dominion of the earth element. All reveal in their shapes that at one time they passed through a liquid phase.

The question however arises: Do the shapes of the living organisms merely betray the character of the watery phase through which they have passed, or is it that the water itself, impressionable as it is, is subject to living, formative forces and creative ideas of which it is but the visible expression?

— Theodor Schwenk. Sensitive Chaos.

Quote

Artist Pablo Picasso on life:

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

Intention of the Day

My intention is to stay calm and centered as I make conscious choices today.

Happy Monday,

Val

12.25.23

Thought

I was made a revolutionary in spite of myself. Now, revolutionary outbreaks are never completely spontaneous. There are clever people who bring about revolutions with malice aforethought.... It is always necessary to guard against being misrepresented by those who impute to you an intention that is not your own. For myself, I never hear anyone talk about revolution without thinking of the conversation that G. K. Chesterton tells us he had, on landing in France, with a Calais innkeeper. The innkeeper complained bitterly of the harshness of life and increasing lack of freedom: “‘It’s hardly worthwhile,’ concluded the innkeeper, ‘to have had three revolutions only to end up every time just where you started.”’ Whereupon Chesterton pointed out to him that a revolution, in the true sense of the word, was the movement of an object in motion that described a closed curve, and thus always returned to the point from where it had started.

— Igor Stravinsky. Poetics of Music – Creators on Creating.

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Poet Rumi on existence:

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.

Moment of Gratitude 

I’m grateful for all of the experiences I have day to day that feed my creativity and growth.

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday and to all who celebrate, Merry Christmas,

Val

12.18.23

Thought

Once you know there’s no place to hide then anyway you wonder who are you hiding from? There’s a sikh story about a holy man who gave two men each a chicken and said: “Go kill them where no one can see.”

One guy went behind the fence and killed the chicken.

The other guy walked around for two days and came back with the chicken.

The holy man said: You didn’t kill the chicken?”

The guy said: “Well, everywhere I go, the chicken sees.”

— Ram Dass. Be Here Now.

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Astronomer Carl Sagan on our nature:

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

Moment of Gratitude 

I’m grateful for everyone who sent love and showed up to my exhibition last weekend. It was the most beautiful night!

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val

12.11.23

Thought

A work of art is not an end point in itself.

It’s a station on a journey.

A chapter in our lives.

We acknowledge these transitions

by documenting each of them.

— Rick Rubin. The Creative Act.

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Spiritual teacher Alan Watts on power and security:

You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

Gratitude Practice 

A few prompts to start your gratitude practice if you’re having trouble -  

·     I’m grateful for these family members:

·     I’m grateful for these foods:

·     I’m grateful for these experiences:

Happy Monday,

Val

12.4.23

Thought 

It is because we don’t know who we are, because we are unaware [what] is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been.  

— Aldous Huxley. The Perennial Philosophy.

Quote 

Spiritual teacher Ram Dass on attachment:

The most exquisite paradox...as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.  

Intention of the Day

My intention is to master flexibility and move through life with joy.

Happy Monday,

Val

11.27.23

Thought  

Do not believe those who try to persuade you that composition is only a cold exercise of the intellect. The only music capable of moving and touching us is that which flows from the depths of a composer’s soul when he is stirred by inspiration. There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic.

— Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. Composing a Symphony – Creators on Creating

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Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius on happiness:

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for all of the great thinkers and creators who have left behind wonderful legacies for us to study to better understand the world.  

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val