The Universe...

It's good to take stock. I've been looking back at this year to consider what I've achieved. I've had two art exhibitions: Aut(o)ptics(o)ma (digital images of self) and The Body and The City (photographs of others) completed 14 acrylic paintings and 8 mix-media artworks in my collaboration with Mark McDean. I've also made digital artworks not yet exhibited. I wrote my rare book Strange Blood Sport (10,000 words) and gave it to close friends. I've seen 9 films at the cinema and written reviews of them on this blog. I've tutored, supervised a PhD project, read numerous academic books and texts and attended art exhibitions. And, phew, apart from usual day to day things like cooking, cleaning, baking, gardening, and sometimes swimming and exercising, I've made hundreds of blog posts. In between I've seen people I care about and had some interesting conversations. Like many people I also struggled with some health issues, which continue to affect my quality of life. Believe it or not I spend much of my time alone, but am nurtured in various ways by different people and have to say that I am inspired by Steve Middleton's intuitive artistic responses to Nietzsche'S Ubermensh, found here on this blog under the Zarathustra label.

I have no New Year's resolutions and if you asked me what I have planned for the future I'd have to say that I rarely fix my plans in concrete, for the unknown variables of life have a way of intruding and throwing things off balance. It's better sometimes to just go with the flow. But that doesn't mean that I don't have intent in the chaotic universe that surrounds me. I intend to continue doing what I do and maybe even try something I've never done before, but again, I have nothing in mind. Perhaps whatever it is will present itself to me. I'm open to the possibilities.

Over the past few days, whilst I've been sick I've read all of Louise L. Hayes You Can Heal Your Life. I don't know why I didn't read it in the 80s when it was published, since back then I was certainly into New Age Philosophy. It was a good read, which places emphasis on the power we each have  within us to instigate change in our lives. My only criticism is that although it places responsibility on the individual for their own life choices and ultimately their good psychology and health it rarely takes into account the impact of the world outside the self that greatly impacts upon us. However, having said that, I do believe that the universe provides. It may not always give us what we want, but it does give us what we need. Almost everyday I remember to say: The Universe is conspiring in my favor - and it IS!