Mist fills the valley and hugs the side of cliff-face and my heart as lights starts to creep into our day. I am not going to take us to this moment though but to another. It is the one where we have already been in the brightness of the dawn on the first day of 2013.

The sun has not quite broken over Saturna Island and the sky is washed in tangerine and cotton candy. I sit waiting for its arrival next to these palm-size clusters of stones being slowly released by the rain and the sea from their sandstone and clay beds. At this moment, it seems, Time is infinite, the sun will never burn out and I shall live forever.

Where are we is often a question I ask without a satisfying answer.

However, John Daido Loori‘s work and writing in The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life has certainly taken me further in my exploration in this musing.

“There is no place to search for the truth. Though it’s right beneath your feet, it can’t be found.” – John Daido Loori.

Yet we want to know – the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Instead we must settle for fragments, interpretations and inadequate translations of specifics that will forever escape or fevered inquiring grasp.

Possibly, it is this stumbling to understand that is the appeal of simple mathematics. There is one sun in our solar system. There is one earth. There is one me.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

I wonder if he too was trying to unravel the mystery of existence? Could it be it is the driving question of creative beings which is then only veiled in texture, hue, shape and expression?

“Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein

Which brings us to the idea of “suchness” or “thusness” defined in Zen literature as “a truth, reality, or experince that is impossible to express in words.” John Diado Loori describes it as follows:

It refers to the “that”, “what,” or “it” that is self-evident and does not need explanation. It is essentially being as it is, the all-inclusive reality that is manifested in as a sense of presence… Thusness is the points of two arrows meeting in midair. It is a quality of being that is nondual and does not fall into either side… Suchness is not something added from outside. It is being itself. It is in living life itself. It is the “isness” of a thing, indeed, the isness of existence itself… To bring that sense of thusness into a painting, poem, or piece of music gives it a vitality that is easily experienced, although difficult to pinpoint. It may be only an istant in time, a moment out of the constant flow of life. But to sense thusness and to be able to express it brings it into our own reality.  (p. 141 – 142)

This is the inspiration for my latest large painting ” Even and the Arbutus Tree” which is to wet to share the finished work from yesterday. However, here is an image from an earlier stage for our musing.

May the moments in your day whisper their presence to you because as we know, the whisper is the easiest to hear.

© 2013 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Related articles

• Doing a Henri Matisse in three new paintings (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
• William Klein + Daido Moriyama at the Tate Modern (ilkadickens.com)
• Looking back over 2012 at The Tate Galleries – Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst and More (selectism.com)