I don’t usually display the pastel paintings in my art blog since I have a separate site for those, “John’s pastel Drawings.” However, I had promised to display this one in my July 20th entry. It is finally finished, and I’ve moved on to two smaller drawings. As a reminder, it is titled “The Perfect Day,” and it is based on the feelings I had when walking on the Beach in South Florida back in March when the sky, water, and weather conspired together to create a day like no other. I felt as thoroughly a part of the universe and God on that day as is possible for me to feel, calm and at peace with a sense of well being literally percolating through my person. At the same time, worldly concerns vanished, so this seascape is devoid of all evidence of human habitation.* It is the ocean and beach as it was before human kind, and as it will be after we pass, as perfect and close to the eternal as is possible on this one white, blue, brown and green marble. In other words it was as though I wasn’t present. Instead there was on the beach that day a sense of wellbeing and happiness.*2 That is all. Nothing more.
* To my mind, "The Eight Worldly Concerns of Buddhism" - all "motivation," "external behavior," - those behaviors that are learned from the culture - a baby's mind at birth is a clean slate - it is the original mind just arrived in the world from God. It has no worldly concerns. Sometimes, as an adult I am able to arrive at a spiritual state close to God when I am able to relieve my mind of most of its cultural training and come close to that original state of mind, that clean slate.
*2 I define happiness in this context as that sense of fullness one feels deep at the center of the chest. It is that simple. There is no more to it.
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