Kumula.
It’s almost dark.
The tiny tangle of trees on the sandy cay is hot property.
The frigate birds wheel and turn in ever decreasing spirals, descending in their thousands into the dark folds of the mangroves.
Home.
It’s silent, eerie and mesmerising.
Hypnotic.
It seems unreal, and demands your silence.
In your silence there are the sounds of the water lapping.
We sit in awe and then in the darkness we turn to our home.
Kumula.
Face pressed to the window.
I never get sick of this.
This small aircraft represents something wonderful.
It's noisy and cramped. I'm going somewhere special.
Coral, sand, water, and colours impossible to describe.
An endless chaos of greens.
Life.
And the people.
I well up tears of beauty.
People with nothing, laughing, singing, and a hint of mischief behind their eyes.
Generous and giving.
These people.
This jewel of a planet, so precious.
It never ceases to amaze.
What’s the point?
What’s the point of sitting quietly in nature?
Or on a city street - quietly watching the machinations of people and planet?
What’s the point of taking paint and a brush, and standing for hours, scraping them over surfaces until some indefinable point is reached?
Perhaps there’s no point.
Maybe that is the point.
My paintings are not pretty pictures.
They are subversive.
They can bring down walls.
In the world of busy, in the world of goals, of strivings, my paintings say “stop”.
Stop.
Be still.
And see the magnificence of existence.
Another day wrung dry.
Tired.
Sore.
Muscles used.
Body worked.
Minor collateral damage assessed, and then ignored.
The price of being alive.
The gift of being able and willing to dance the dance of life.
Another day ending.
Tired.
Sore.
Content.
Smiling.
Memories.
Everything you know will fall apart.
The car you have.
The job you go to, and the people you love.
They will disassemble, collapse, and eventually return to the stars.
Leaving you with
memories.
Make them good my friends.
My paintings are superficial.
How can they not be?
Shallow manipulations of paint, and brushes.
Simply colour, and material moved around on fabric.
Meaningless representations of objects that have been assembled over billions of years, by forces unimaginable, and time scales incomprehensible.
Sunshine, rain, a tree, and dirt.
And you.
Objects.
Seen in awe, painted in wonder, and mesmerised by existence.
And just paintings.
It’s shown to me, the miracle of a dog wagging its tail.
Of love, alive and adoring, to the stranger and friend alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Simply aware. And curious.
I saw a baby one day.
It was a miracle.
A smile full of love, alive and adoring, to friend and stranger alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Aware. Simple and curious.
I see me some days. Smiling, full of love.
Alive and adoring friends and strangers alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Simply aware, and curious.
Aspiration.
Limited Edition Archival Print “Freedom” by Mark Waller
To be alive is a wondrous thing.
To be able to see a sunrise, a dog wag its tail, or dew on a leaf.
To be able to hear anything is incredible.
A bird singing, water moving, soft voices in the distance.
And to feel skin against skin, salt spray on your face, grass under foot, or love.
And then to smell freshly cooked food, a bakery early in the morning, or a baby.
To be alive is a wondrous thing.
But to be consciously alive…..
Is rapturous
Your mind is not always kind.
It will find flaws.
In you, in others, in life.
Perhaps there’s wisdom in sitting in front of a flower and watching it sing to a bee.
Maybe there is something in quietly losing yourself, engrossed.
Lost in watching the ocean.
Perhaps in those moments you have left the mind behind.
And your mind may then find the place to be kind.
To everything, and everyone.
Including you.
“Solomon’s Sunrise Study” by Mark Waller