Reverberations

Reverberation 1

My friend has been going through hard times. My friend has also stepped foot on an intriguing spiritual path. My friend’s planned event fell through and his deposit was returned.

He discovered a different event. Not for him. He turned around and sent the deposit money for the new event, an icon-painting workshop, to me.

In a million years I’d have never come up with the thought of attending an icon-painting workshop. But I knew before I even finished reading his letter that I would.

When Old Blue and Amazon fell apart in short order and I knew the gods were telling me to change my ways, the thought of doing art was waiting there at the front of my mind.

The thought of doing art is often on my mind, usually in the form of “I should do more art” or “I’m not good enough at art.” This time, thanks to my friend, it was there as a workable possibility, something real to do, a way of expressing the thoughts I’ve always expressed through writing.

Thus the sudden appearance of small, simple pictures on the blog.

Since my friend’s change of plans and generous idea, the icon fund has grown enough for the crazy idea to look like a reality. (Thank you J. and B. and thank you Amazon, whose final Christmas-season payment arrived last week and enabled me to stash a fair bit of that in the fund.)

All because my friend’s plan fell through and he applied creativity to failure on my behalf.

Reverberation 2

My other friend has been going through great times. Wildly successful times. Getting wealthy times. But killing himself with hard work and stress.

Other friends of his were about to hit a giant wall of hard times. Mass unemployment.

He couldn’t hire them himself but he knew someone who might. In bringing the two sets of people together he not only helped his friends, he found himself receiving the kind of offer not many people refuse. The “getting wealthier than you’re already getting” kind of offer. The “getting wealthier than you ever imagined” kind of offer.

Just as sudden setbacks can be a message from the gods, so can sudden opportunity. My friend sat down with his family and re-evaluated where they are now and where the new offer could take them.

Revelation: both courses — the present and the proposed — were wrong for them. The message the “gods” were sending was “none of the above.” They decided to go their own way. Toward less wealth, but also less deadly stress. Toward more freedom.

All because my friend helped his friends. And got an unexpected opportunity that shook him out of business-as-usual mode. Which caused him to apply creativity and analytical thinking and realize that neither the new opportunity nor business as usual was the right path.

This picture, painted in acrylics on a tiny 4×5 board, then scanned and slightly altered with the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is called (unsurprisingly) “Light On Water.” It’s a quick sketch that took an hour. What I like best about it is something we commonly take for granted: you can tell exactly what it is even though there’s not a single “realistic” image there. Just patterns.