Turning Toward Emptiness

My first art class I was a freshman in high school. I loved my art teacher - also a first. A first crush on an older man - Mr. Brock. He taught be about Zen (claimed he was a Zen Catholic), Hegel's Theory of Dialectics, and drawing. Not just any drawing - beginner's mind drawing. I didn't realize that until I was much older and more immersed in Buddhism and practicing Zen. Those moments in his class 33 years later are as clear and true as if they happened yesterday.

One gorgeous fall day we went outside for class to learn the exercise of drawing negative space. Instead of focusing on the object, we were to draw the shape around it. It took awhile to comprehend what he was saying. It was an exercise in seeing anew. I chose to draw the spaces around the lanky telephone poles and their sagging wires. I looked down rarely as I focused on completely following the lines and letting the idea of what I was seeing fall away in order to really see.

Now, I use words like a pencil, following them around the places where the dead ones used to be. Mom's empty space looks like a coneflower and dad's has taken the shape of fish, a crappie from a Minnesota lake.  Ryan's is here too. Hers is surprisingly large for being so young. Then the one for Grandma Jo is shaped like a rosary. There is a negative space for Marty Brock too. The teacher who sharpened my sight but recently died of a massive heart attack in the middle of his golf game on the 17th hole.

Over the past few years, I've been trying to keep a certain shape to this life of mine by paying attention to what I think I know. Truth is? I know nothing. It's when I focus on what is missing that my life has shape. It's new and I don't fully recognize it, but as long as I put one foot in front of the other it's slowly coming into view.