Zen and the art thereof

This painting's got nothing to do with the title really; well, not directly. In fact it's four paintings that I have just finished which I have put together his morning and photographed as a whistful reaction to someone I met yesterday.











I met an interesting Zen monk on a seminar in Recanati. He talked about stopping, and reflecting and making a space for life to enter and for creativity to take place. And this in the week when Tony Maestri and Alex King say they want to meet with me for a weekend in Sicily to start to put together the book about 'The Bournemouth Years', i.e. our teaching philosophy which was just exactly based on the few simple words of the gentle Zen monk.... I think, hmmm, serendipity!!!
So, anyway, this Zen monk goes on to tell me that the planet is out of sync and that's why we all feel so rough in the morning because the planet's suffering you see. And what'smore, in the year 2012 (Dec 21st to be precise) the planet will suddenly say enough's enough; shudder and do a complete spin around. Oh great! In the evening before turning in I did a quick check on CNBS news (to check DOW index as I do) and the presenter is telling me not to bother paying bills anymore because the world's coming to an end in 2012. Buy real estate in the sahara he says, everything else will be covered with ice.
Last time it happened, it seems, was 12000 years ago at the time of Noah (of course). Seems there are Chinese reports of that time which mention a catastrophic night where the stars streeked across the sky and were never the same stars again in the night sky, holocausts, volcanic eruptions, all that stuff.
So I guess that's what this painting is about. Just that I didn't know it at the time.
Tell you what though, I didn't sleep to well last night, worrying about what to do about our animals when the day comes.