The still movement of forest forms
She was not mad at all , much less in any case than everyone supposed. She made belive. She had been cured for a long time. She cured herself by the process which consists in ceasing to fight against the illness and undertaking on the contrary to cultivate it , to make use of it , to wonder at it , to turn it into an exciting reason for living.
Jean Debuffett on Henrich Anton Miller (1865–1930) John Maizels “ Raw Creation”
In the Quiet of the Wild
The forest form which has resided here for decades now for this year made my approach a lot easier than it did last year : There is a sense of home coming when i return to this place , that we intimately know each other now , a trust and a common intention.
It begins with sitting in stillness , perhaps a cup of coffee and just being in the forests presence. Then i may look for a while and feel its movement , its mood and what is it saying to me. A response is two way , how i feel filters what is made. Mindfulness plays a part in noticing myself , am i trying too hard ? am i attached to an outcome of being liked or success of the encounter ? or am i just like the forest , serene , playful and my mind still ?
The less my thoughts are involved the more i feel connected to how i respond , beginning with grounding my instinct on palette , deciding how i should wet the paper and then letting the dance begin as if it was incidental. It is the dance which creates the magic for me , i become the up-turned root , a feel the moss holding onto me , and i let myself follow the rhythm with my own marks. I let the water disperse the colours into fade and then deepen as if that colour is a growing entity , the form unfolds before me which then i may respond : Sometimes that response is pencil following the movement catching blobs of paint and carrying them along mingling together everything , just like its the forest. Sometimes it feels that i need to add another colour , i do not question the impulse but obey with faith that my higher self understands itself. There is no deciding , i know which colour without uttering words . Then , sometimes i leave it alone but with all i place it on the forest floor as a ritual offering.
I feel i have to exhaust myself with my process until i am ready to experiment and for a while everything feels disconnected , discombobulated and uncertain. I have no way to see it and that plays deeply with my doubt , my mind tells me i have no right to paint and through that turmoil comes something : it feels like the forest forms themselves , broken , upside down and left for dead. But they are not , mother tree supports it , moss covers its wounds and the light beckons its roots as if they were branches until it becomes integrated into the whole.
A simple moment of silence
be the stillness
in the presence of allowing
do nothing
wait without preference
let the marks emerge
from your body
in its own time
be those marks
let the paper observe
and let go
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Christopher Evans
Small Encounters | Small Responses
Larger Responses | Felt Sense
Fragments of Nature | Embodied Nature
A thousand sorrows , an
unfathomable well of
sadness
released as i surrender
to paper
christopher evans
Transformation | Embodied Nature | Seeking Autumns Red
When you seek love with all your heart you shall find its echo in the universe.
Rumi
