“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
-Robert Louis Stevenson
“There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.”
This article from The Lewicki Agency’s website (http://thelewickiagency.com/uppercase-art-and-lowercase-art/) has the words to help explain the muse and the need for expression that I have passion for. I love bringing those expressions to fruition here on Sweet Breathing’s blog/website. It is purely personal. It may never be read or seen. It’s simply what I have in my be-ing that day as I connect inside and outside with the world – especially nature’s world.
My expressions in photography and words are not Art (although the quotes that I often pair with my offerings from the masters that speak to me about these wonders often are). My photos and words are certainly not “Fine” nor the “Uppercase Art” this article discusses. But they are indeed “lowercase art” in the very way this article describes.
This blog truly is an honest and raw dialogue, in pictures and words, about my world, my life, and my experience – my constant thread to wonder. It IS freeing, creative and often does (as the author writes) “reveal another dimension of my understanding.”
lowercase art.
Yes, it explains it pretty well. Thanks Andrea.
from Andrea Lewicki:
“There’s a difference between Art and what I call ‘lowercase art.’
Both are forms of creative expression.
Both are dialogues about our world, our lives, our experience.
Uppercase Art is fine art. It’s created in awareness of a particular domain of expression.
Uppercase Art has lineage.
The most important distinction of Uppercase Art is that its dialogue includes an external audience. Uppercase Art has a life outside the artist.
Lowercase art is created more in the insulated awareness of an individual’s life. It has a certain wild individuality. Lowercase art is an internal dialogue, within the artist. It’s personal, deeply individual. You invent the rules, the traditions, the standards.
You create and take apart and recreate all within the privacy of your own experience.
Both Uppercase Art and lowercase art are about creating meaning. Both can be inventive and radically new. In both Uppercase Art and lowercase art, you learn to improvise through obstacles, solve the unique problems that arise from your inventions, and reveal another dimension of your understanding.
But lowercase art is primarily for you. It’s your creative playground. What starts in lowercase art sometimes ends in Uppercase Art, but it doesn’t have to. Lowercase art can be messy and incomplete and still make perfect sense to you.
When you create lowercase art, you create your own creative shorthand.
Lowercase art is liberating, an activity of pure freedom, safe from external judgement.
It’s yours. It’s where you can be most freely you. There’s courage and connection here.
Lowercase art is good for your overall wellbeing.”
“Inspiration isn’t delivered on a silver platter to an idle or distracted muse. Inspiration is received by open eyes, open mind, & open heart.”
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
-Albert Einstein
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
“Each and every atom produces a particular sound on account of its movement, its rhythm or vibration. All these sounds and vibrations form a universal harmony.”
~ Pythagoras
“You can look at disease as a form of disharmony. And there’s no organ system in the body that’s not affected by sound and music and vibration.”
~Mitchell Gaynor
Sound, music and vibration are available to provide a healing balm, an encapsulating immersion, a communion and connection.
The more base our thoughts and vibration the more stuck in lowly muck we may stay. As vibration moves to the higher realms, a lovely sweet level of universal harmony may be found.
So raise it up! Vibrate in the higher qualities using nature, sound, and music to help in the elevating process. The harmony of the universe is waiting.
“Get out into the sunlight — out where everything is — with a vibration that is so dominant that those who annoy you; those who don’t agree with you; those who make your life feel uncomfortable don’t come into your experience, because your vibration — through your practice — has become so clear, so pure, so clean, so in keeping with what you want, that the world that revolves around you just feels like that. That’s what you planned.”
-Abraham
“To enter into the initiation of sound, of vibration and mindfulness, is to take a giant step toward consciously knowing the soul. We need the courage to enter into ourselves with the great respect and mystery that combines the faith of a child, the abandon of a mystic, and the true wisdom of an old shaman.”
“Somehow, by some outrageous grace, a new day has been given. There is no greater miracle than this. Allow yourself to receive the benediction of pure presence, for it is your birthright. It is wired inside you and yearning to erupt from your totally untamed wildness. For when it does, an avalanche of clear beauty is unleashed, sending love stories, wild music, and sweet poetry into the stars and supernovas, seeding the galaxies with your unique light.”
-Matt Licata
Those words are so stunningly beautiful. I too want to “erupt into untamed wildness, and unleash an avalanche of clear beauty” just as Matt Licata writes. May you too feel the avalanche of “love stories, wild music, and sweet poetry” moving “into the stars and supernovas, seeding the galaxies with your unique light.”
Oh my goodness yes, I wish this for you, for me, for all our relations!
don Miguel Ruiz’s four agreements provide a path for deepening into the simple life that is clear, uncluttered and transformational. On the road of life’s journey these are simple tenants of being in the world that can be life changing and enhancing when expressed in each moment. There is ease and comfort here. Remembering.
Ruiz creates an invitation of exploration. What could living this life road look like? Feel like? Although simple, these four agreements require a constancy and attention. Truth in action. Awareness.
1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.
Simple.
Life changing.
I believe the first tenant, “be impeccable with your word”, means not just spoken words but thoughts too… keeping it true and right in thought and word – impeccable. A tenant to aspire to.
Ruiz’s little book, The Four Agreements, explains the tenants further, but each person can evaluate the truths hidden within each one for themselves. There’s a tiny pocket version too – perfect to slip in your purse or backpack.
I love that this Ancient Toltec wisdom is still with us in 2014 and can be slipped into a backpack in tiny book form….. continuing to help us become wise, wild and free!
“Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use your power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”
“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally… Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.”
“If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.”
“Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.”
“To be Toltec is a way of life. It is a way of life where there are no leaders and no followers, where you have your own truth and live your own truth. A Toltec becomes wise, becomes wild, and becomes free again.”
Is there anything more peaceful and powerful to the soul’s experience than the rhythm and power of surging, moving water? Torrents of water are falling from the sides of mountains everywhere now. Where the water narrows into smaller and smaller spaces the intensity builds to a crescendo of power and music.
Negatively charged ions are showering us when near this powerful movement of water. This is a good thing!!
From the article “Ions and Consciousness” in the magazine “Whole Self”:
Technically speaking: “Ions are charged particles in the air that are formed in nature when enough energy acts upon a molecule such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, or nitrogen to eject an electron from the molecule leaving a positively charged Ion. The displaced electron attaches itself to a nearby molecule, which then becomes a negatively charged Ion. It is the negative ion of oxygen that affects us the most.”
I also read from Comtech Research: “the normal ion count in fresh country air is 2,000 to 4,000 negative Ions per cubic centimeter (about the size of a sugar cube). At Yosemite Falls, you’ll experience over 100,000 negative Ions per cubic centimeter. On the other hand, the level is far below 100 per cubic centimeter on the Los Angeles freeways during rush hour.”
So, get out to the rushing, moving water! Feel the positive energy all ’round and Breathe!
“As many raindrops join to form a great river of water,
many souls join their highest intent to form
the river of evolved consciousness.”
– Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
don Miguel Ruiz’s four agreements provide a path for deepening into the simple life that is clear, uncluttered and transformational. On the road of life’s journey these are simple tenants of being in the world that can be life changing and enhancing when expressed in each moment. There is ease and comfort here. Remembering.
