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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Shadow meditation

Your Emotional Colour Palette

Dear Integral Meditators,

What makes a colour beautiful? The answer is a bit deeper than first glance. Similarly with our emotions, it is not always the bright, shiny ones that are of the most value, or even the most beautiful.

Yours in the spirit of emotional depth and beauty,

Toby


Your Emotional Colour Palette

As some of you may know my original training was as an artist (which I still practice actively), and I often think about the development of the mind, emotion and consciousness in terms of colour and texture.
One of the observations that I have taken from my work as a painter is that whether a colour is beautiful or ugly, harmonious or jarring has as much to do with the colours next to it as the colour itself. For example we may think of grey as a very plain boring (even depressing) colour; but if you watch the way a grey sky can give depth and vibrancy to the green leaves of a tree, or give new definition to the foam on the waves of the sea, then we start to realize that grey has its place.
Similarly the dark browns and blacks of soil give background to the beauty of vibrantly coloured flowers, the early nights and darkness of the winter evenings gives context to the vibrancy and buzz of the long sunny summer ones. As a painter if you can grasp this concept, then you will become a much better painter; you will get to know your greys and blacks and browns s well as your yellows, oranges and bright blues. You will understand how to put them together in your picture to produce a beauty that has true depth, texture and nuance.

You can see the first picture I have posted with this article by Ben Nicholson above (one of my favourites) that shows a good example of this in a sea landscape. The greys, blues and blacks provide a context for the brighter yellows, blues and reds to come alive. The second picture below is a cityscape by my daughter Sasha. I think you can really see in this one how the dark grey building in the center really gives substance to the bright yellow and pink buildings on either side. Without the grey the bright colours would look anaemic.

So, when we think about the landscape of our emotions, it can be wise to get to know the grey, brown and black ones as well as the bright cheery, pretty ones. If we are prepared to look at them all together, without favoring one over the other, we may discover that each emotion, the sad ones as well as the happy ones all have their place in our life, all have their own beauty, and their own gifts to offer us.

As a mindfulness or meditation practitioner, it can be a nice exercise to simply sit and open to our emotions and moods, benevolently embracing them all as we find them, and then consciously learning to wisely weave them into a beautiful painting (or song) each day, a painting that includes browns, blacks and greys as well as red, yellow and blue.


© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 

Categories
A Mind of Ease creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Art Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Body-Mountain, Cloud-Thought, Sky-Mind

Dear Integral Meditators,

The context in which you experience your thoughts and feelings determines how much significance and power they have over you. The article below explains a simple way of re-contextualizing your thoughts in a way that makes it easier to enjoy their ups and downs, their comings and goings with a greater sense of stability and clarity.

Final reminder of the Language of the shadow workshop this coming Sunday, click on the link below for full details…

Yours in the spirit of mountains and sky,

Toby


Body-Mountain, Cloud-Thought, Sky-Mind

Here’s an image to use in meditation; Experience your body as being like a mountain, your thoughts and associated feelings as being like clouds and your mind or consciousness itself as being like the sky.

Often the thoughts and associated feelings that we have in our mind are the dominant factor in our experience of personal stability or instabilty during our day. They take us away from the stability of our physical body and make us forgetful of the clear and spacious nature of our consciousness itself.

How does a mountain experience clouds? It is completely unbothered by them; whether the sky is clear around it or it is surrounded by thunderclouds, wind and rain, a mountain remains stable, solid and calm. By relating to the solidity of your body as being like a mountain you can re-contextualize the way you experience your thoughts and feelings. Being less easily swayed and manipulated by them, you bring solidity to your experience of the present moment.

How does the sky experience clouds and weather? It allows them to come and go with ease.  At all times the sky remains open and spacious, even when it contains clouds, wind and rain. Indeed, if it was not spacious the clouds could not even be there. If we become used to relating to our mind, or to our consciousness itself as being like the sky; even in the midst of mental chaos and emotional stress we will be able to retain a connection to an experience of spaciousness, openness and clarity, just like the sky itself.

Clouds come in many shapes and forms. If we are the mountain and the sky we can enjoy all forms of clouds, all forms of weather with a sense of solidity, calmness and clarity underlying the experience.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Shadow meditation

The Wisdom of Age, the Shadow of Time

Dear Integral Meditators,

In the same why that thee is a child within all of us, there is also an old man or an old woman. The article below explores this theme, it may be considered in some ways a companion to my previous article on the shadow child.
The old wo/man and the child self are examples of two themes that we will be exploring in the upcoming “Meditations for Developing the Language of the Shadow Self“.

Yours in the spirit of aged brightness,

Toby


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

JULY
Sunday July 27th, 9.30am-12.30pm –  Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self – A Three Hour Workshop 

AUGUST
Call of the Wild: Meditating with Animal Guides and Familiars

Through to end August: Special offer on 1:1 Coaching at Integral Meditation Asia


The Wisdom of Age, the Shadow of Time

The four stages of life
From the perspective of the seasons and the ‘wheel of life’ according to nature spirituality you have four stages to your life: Birth and childhood corresponding to spring, your youth and young adulthood corresponding to summer, mature adulthood/parenthood (the age of responsibility) corresponding to autumn, and old age/death corresponding to winter.

These four stages of life are literal, physical stages that we go through, but they are also perspectives that we can take on our life at any time. For example if we are in middle age physically we can still consider what our child self might think of any situation we are experiencing, as well as our old or wise self.

At which stage are you the wisest?
Each stage of these four life stages has its own particular wisdom and perspectives, but generally you would say that old age would represent the greatest opportunity for wisdom because it looks back upon the previous three stages using those life experiences to glean wise conclusions. Would you agree? Optimally then, the greatest opportunity for wisdom comes from considering our life from the end and looking back – from the perspective of ourself in old age.

Which stage do we tend to resist and avoid the most?
So if we assess our life from the perspective of old age and death, even if there is currently quite a long way for us to go before we reach that literal physical stage, there is much wisdom and benefit to be gained.
However, if you are like the vast majority of people then you will avoid thinking about old age, and when you do you will do so with feelings of discomfort, displeasure and even at times outright fear. The bottom line is we cling to our youth and fear aging. What is more society and culture seem to worship youth increasingly, making old age an even less appealing topic for contemplation.

The dark shadow of frail old age
Close your eyes now and see a picture of yourself in old age; bent, frail, youthful looks faded. Sense your resistance to this image of yourself, even as the signs of aging are present within your physical body right now. Open to this image of yourself as a frail old person, note and be aware of your resistances to it, your fears, perhaps even your disgust and anger. Try and open to, acknowledge and accept these resistances as deeply as you can.

The bright shadow of wise old age
Now look a bit deeper at this image of yourself. Perhaps you may find yourself looking into the eyes of your old self and see the wisdom of a life lived for many years. Sense the wisdom arising from suffering and the wisdom arising from joy that lives within the body, mind and soul of your old self; perhaps also the humor and kindness of your old self. You may even discover bright qualities within your old self that you absolutely did not expect.
Open as deeply as you can to the wisdom of your old self, his strengths, his knowledge and quiet inner fire.

Opening to aging and its bright counsel
Think of a situation in your life right now that you may be struggling with. Perhaps you might like to ask your old self for her perspective on what is going on. If you opened your heart and explain your desires and fears to your old self, it is possible that you might find a new experience of self-compassion and kindness. Maybe there is even a wily-ness and worldly wisdom that your old self has that can help you get what you want at the same time as satisfying the other people involved as well?

If we have the courage to pass through our resistance to our old-self, there is a bright and unexpected reward that lies on the other side.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 


Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Art Meditation techniques

The Dance of Being and Becoming

Dear Integral Meditators,

The last official Integral Meditations newsletter for 2013. As I look back on the year one thing emerging for me has been a sense of the ongoing dance of being and becoming in life, and that is what this weeks article is about; how to begin working with this idea through image, contemplation and meditation.

 

Yours in the spirit of being and becoming,

Toby


The Dance of Being and Becoming

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

One simple way of understanding meditation is that it is any practice that enables us to rest, focus within our sense of being-ness and prevent us from being stuck in “doing” mode all the time.
Done well, meditation will not only enhance our sense of being-ness whilst we are sitting, it will also give rise to greater fluency and creativity when we do actually get up and start doing something or becoming someone.
Ideally meditational awareness creates a complementary dance between the experience of stillness and the experience of activity/becoming in our life; stillness enhances and emboldens our becoming, and the activity of becoming enriches and informs our stillness.

Getting stuck in either extreme
To engage in the dance of being and becoming means avoiding two extremes:

  • Becoming over-attached to stillness and tranquility, as some meditators do
  • Becoming over-attached and even addicted to over-activity like much of the rest of the world does!

If the being and becoming in our life is to become a beautiful dance, then our being and becoming need to become like dance partners; each aware of the other, responding to each other’s energy and mood, working together, not against each other.

Dancing into the new year
As a meditation image over the coming days, you might like to see the sense of being and becoming within you as being like two dance partners. Together they create a beautiful sense of movement and energy in your life, but within the centre of the movement there is always a point of stillness, balance and stability.
In your daily life, see your activity as a dance, a perpetual moving across the ever present landscape of stillness and being-ness.

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

January Workshops (Below are the dates, times and titles, click on the link for full details)

Saturday 11th January, 10am-12pm – Get your meditation practice started now! – A Short Meditation Workshop for Beginners

Sunday 12th January, 9am-1pm  Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing – A Four Hour Workshop

Beginning Sunday 19th January,  – Meditation and Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention – A 5 week online course

Wednesday 22nd 7.30-8.30pm – Meditation training session for advanced/intermediate practitioners with Toby

 


Special Coaching offer at Integral Meditation Asia for December 2013-January 2014!

Sign up for three 1:1 coaching sessions with Toby (either MeditationStress Transformation or Shadow coaching) for only Sing$435! (Usual price Sing$600).

This is a great opportunity to get some very personally focused coaching for a great price. The only condition is that the three sessions must be completed in the month that they start, so start in December the sessions must be completed in December, likewise start in January the three sessions must be completed in January.

Categories
creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Art Meditation techniques

Getting Wet in the Rain (Meditation and Images)

Dear Integral Meditators,

We all know the expression “A picture paints a thousand words”, sometimes this can be particularly true when trying to explain meditation as it is fundamentally an inner state of mind that cannot be seen or described directly. This weeks meditation article describes one such image that I have been working with this week in my own practice.

I am sending this weeks newsletter out a day early because on Sunday evening at 7pm the price for the upcoming online course: Get Yours Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Class Ever will be going up from Sing$30 to Sing $60. So, if you want to get this course at the very reasonable price of $30, you have until Sunday evening Singapore time!
For those participating in the course, you will be sent a link and password to the course content on the 18th of July, and then you can listen to and download the course content onto your computer anytime you want. As well as the 45 min course itself there are 4 short studio meditation recordings for you to use on a daily basis.

Yours in the spirit of peace and flow,
Toby


Upcoming Classes at Integral Meditation Asia:

Get Yours Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Class Ever


Getting Wet in the Rain (Meditation and Images)

We all know the expression “A picture paints a thousand words”, sometimes this can be particularly true when trying to explain meditation as it is fundamentally an inner state of mind that cannot be seen or described directly.
One of the images that I have been using this week as a way of connecting to a peaceful and flowing state of mind whilst being busy with many things is that of raindrops. I was walking down the street a few days ago and it started raining lightly. As it did so I thought about how each drop of rain falling on me and around me was like a task in my life, and how there seem to be getting more and more of them, like gradually heavier and heavier rain.
I then thought about how trying to get everything done when life is busy is like trying to catch each of the raindrops in a cup before they fall on me; I am constantly moving, adjusting, looking, catching. This is ok up to a point, but then after a while it gets tiring and confusing.
So then I thought about the act of meditating as being like temporarily stopping to try and catch all the raindrops, and just let them fall. Let them fall on me and let them fall around me, just relax and “get wet”.
I would then sit with this image for a while as a way of putting down all the activity and movement in my life, rest in this state of peace and flow for a while, and then when I felt refreshed I would then pick up the next task that I had to do and carry on.

The next time you are feeling super busy and feeling a bit confused by all the activity, you may like to use this image as a way of taking small breaks to rest, recharge and deal with the challenge in a more peaceful and centred way. Spend short periods of time just letting yourself get wet!

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Art Meditation techniques Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Uncategorized

Three Types of Creativity Arising From Mindfulness and Meditation

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article focuses on mindfulness and meditation in relation to our creative capacity, and how we can enhance three types of creative power within ourself through regular mindfulness practice. Enjoy!

Yours integrally,
Toby


Three Types of Creativity Arising From Mindfulness and Meditation

One of the simplest ways to start understanding how mindfulness increases our powers of creativity is to understand that daily mindfulness practice helps us to consciously shift our brainwave patterns from beta waves, which is our normal, wide awake functional state of mind to alpha and theta waves, which are states of mind associated with deep levels of relaxation, reduced levels of conceptual thought and (if used in the right way) greater levels of creativity/improvisational ability.
Learning to consciously enter into the lightly altered states of relaxation and creativity characterized by alpha and theta waves has three types of way in which it contributes to our creative power, which I have termed macro-creativity, micro-creativity and qualitative creativity.

Macro-creativity is the sort of creativity that helps us to think of new ideas, new directions in life and new ways of doing things. It is an overtly creative state of mind and being. We need macro-creativity if our work is inherently demanding of greater degrees of creativity; for example if we are an entrepreneur, designer, artist or such, or simply when life is demanding of us that we think of  really new approaches to long term problems and challenges.

Micro-creativity is a more low-key but in my opinion equally important level of creativity. It is about the small choices that you make each day, for example:

  •  Choosing to adopt the positive perspective on the feedback that we received from a colleague about our work, rather than reacting negatively and defensively
  • Choosing to accept the limitations that family life places upon our freedom with appreciation, rather than unconsciously resenting it.
  • Taking an opportunity to relax, unwind and enjoy a five minute coffee break, rather than spending the entire time we are drinking neurotically worrying about the day’s activities.

So micro-creativity is all about exercising your creative freedom in the small choices you make each day in order to maximise your enjoyment, happiness and appreciation of whatever it is that you are experiencing. It is a kind of “bread and butter” type of creativity that anyone can get in the habit of using and that mindfulness helps to develop.

Qualitative creativity is more like a feeling of creativity and playfulness, rather than an act of creativity per-se. It is simply a feeling of lightness and playfulness that we can take into our life, use to enhance its quality, and counter the excessive seriousness and or rigid states of thinking and acting that are keeping us trapped in a cycle of negativity.

One Minute Mindfulness: Exercise Your Micro-creativity
This exercise involves simply being aware that you always have more than one choice in your approach to whatever is happening to you during the day, and regularly asking yourself the question “Have I been making the right creative choices to my challenges so far today?” If not, exercise your mindful creative ability to choose an approach or adopt a perspective to what is happening that will serve you better.
© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Art Meditation techniques

Meditating on the Music of the Mind

Hi Everyone,

This weeks newsletter article describes a meditation form that I am very fond of; meditating on the inner music of the mind. The basic technique is quite simple, but the practice itself has many different levels, so I hope you enjoy exploring it!

Yours in the spirit of the inner music of the mind,

Toby



Article of the Week:

Meditating on the Music of the Mind

Meditating on the music of the mind, or put another way the contents of the mind as music tone and vibration is a technique and perspective that I find very useful, insightful and relaxing. I find that it helps to open up my intuitive awareness, and give objectivity to thoughts, emotions and images within my mind that I would otherwise struggle to see in a new, fresh and wise way.
The method that I describe below is a simple way that you can begin to explore this type of meditation form for yourself.

Meditating on the contents of your mind as music

Step 1: Tuning into the general vibration of your mind
As you sit in meditation, or simply in a spare moment in between appointments, first ask yourself the question “What is the general mood and tone of my mind and awareness right now, if it were a musical note, how would it sound?”reflecting in this way try and experience your mind and its contents purely in terms of its overall “sound”, vibration and tone.

Step 2: Observing the tone of individual thoughts
After you have practiced step 1 for a short while, continue to observe your mind, and the coming and going of the thoughts, images and feelings within it. As each thought or image arises, rather than looking at it as a thought or image, relate to it as a tone or musical note. Tuning into your minds vibration in this way, note which thoughts/images/emotions have a healthy, positive, melodious note/vibration, and which seem to have a dissonant, off-key one. Watch your consciousness in this way for a while.
In order to do this you need to learn to ignore the content of the thought, and just focus on its vibration. So for example if you are thinking about a particular person, you do not focus on who it is or why it is appearing, rather you focus on theresonance and the pitch of the image as it appears. This takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have a little familiarity it is not so difficult. It is just training yourself to approach what appears to your mind in a slightly different way.

Step 3: Focusing on the more harmonious “notes”
As you continue to listen to the musical qualities of your mind and its contents, start tofocus your attention more upon the aspects of your consciousness that seem to be producing the most melodious, resonant and harmonious sounds and vibrations. Relax as much as you can into the positive ambience and vibration of these sounds as much as you can, allowing your whole body and being to flow with them.

Step 4: Awareness of the silence that surrounds and contains the music of the mind
The final stage of the meditation on the music of the mind is to spend a period of timebeing aware of the silence that surrounds and contains the vibrations and tones of mind. Let go of the “musical content” of your mind and relax as deeply as you can into the experience of still, silent awareness. Meditating on silence after this form of “musical meditation” is particularly pleasant as the tonal and vibrational quality of stages 1-3 leads the mind naturally into an expansive and open condition of awareness.

Step 5: Awakening to cosmic melodies
A final step or aspect of this meditation is that it may awaken us to more “cosmic” or spiritual dimensions of awareness that we can experience as actual music or melody of incredible beauty. This is an experience that many meditators have periodically, but most often than not it comes and goes without or really having too much conscious control over it. It arises spontaneously without any effort on our part, and it can go away just as easily. Sometimes it can happen, if so we can enjoy it, but stages 1-4 of this meditation is a complete meditation in itself, I just thought I would tag this fifth stage on as an event that sometimes happens!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Please feel free to share this newsletter with people you think may enjoy it. The only thing we ask of you is to please forward the entire newsletter including the contact and copyright information. Thank you.

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Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology

Leveraging More on Your Inner Creativity – Meditating on the Four Stages of Creative Energy Cycles in Your Life

All of us are fundamentally creative, and contain within us the spark of spiritual “Eros” which impels us toward acts of creativity in our life. WHAT we create depends upon the cycles and patterns of creativity that we set up or built as habits. What I want to do in this article is outline the four basic stages of a creative cycle, and then reflect upon how we can go about using this understanding to become more positively creative in our life.

The four stages of a creative cycle

Stage 1 – The activation of latent Eros within ourselves– The first stage of a creative cycle is when the natural creative spiritual energy (Eros) within us becomes activated in some way. At this stage our creative energy has no form, it is pure potentiality that can become any number of things depending upon which way we direct it.

Stage 2 – The formation of images, thoughts and feelings within our creative imagination – The second stage of a creative cycle is when our imagination starts to build structures and images which our creative energy can then energize and animate. Whatever intentions, pictures, thoughts, beliefs perspectives and other mental structures that we habitually hold in our mind become energized by our natural inner creative energy.

Stage 3 – The formation of speech – Based upon the activity of our creative imagination, we then develop a sense of inhabiting a particular type of “reality”. In reality this “reality” is largely an imaginative construct that we project upon our outer world, but it appears to us to be quite real. Based upon this perception of a particular type of reality we then speak in such a way that affirms and confirms that reality. The statements “I can never find happiness” and “I am being challenged by my circumstances to create my own happiness” are both words that affirm a certain imagined reality, and re-enforce that “reality” to the person saying them. Here speech can refer to actual spoken words, or to the content of our daily “inner dialogue” that we have with ourselves in our mind each day.

Stage 4 – The creation of acts in the world– Based upon our imagination and  speech we then engage in actions. These actions are physical articulations of our creative imagination and the content of our speech. We act in accordance with what we imagine, think and say to ourselves and other people.

Positive and Negative Creative Cycles

So, based on our understanding of the above we can see that what we choose to imagine and what we choose to say really determines the direction that our natural creative energy or Eros takes in our life. Negative and paranoid imagination and speech will create a negative and paranoid world. Life-affirming and positively directed imagination and speech will create a positively experienced and life affirming experience.

Some Practical Points to Begin Integrating

From the above insights we can see that our habitual imagination and speech play a crucial role in the reality that we sculpt and create from the “raw” creative energy that we have been given by the universe. With this in mind spending a few minutes a day over the next week asking yourself the following questions may be helpful:

1.       What is my imagination building right now with the natural creative energy that it is being fed with from spirit?Is what it is building in my mind helping me or hindering me in my path to happiness and inner wellbeing?
2.      What has my speech (outer or inner) over the last hour or two been showing me about the way I am expressing and manifesting the creative energy in my life?Is what I am saying helping me to bring more energy into my life, or is it limiting me unnecessarily?
3.      How deeply am I aware of the power of my on creativity?In what ways can I begin to value and appreciate my innate creative power more?

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology

Reflecting on the Relationship Between Art and Meditation

Here are three areas and life lessons that meditating and making art both teach:

Close Observation

Most of us think we know what the world looks like, but if we examine this assumption we learn it is not as true as we thought. For example if you try and draw a tree you discover that your idea of what a tree looks like and the way in which it actually exists physically in space are very different, and that in order to get to the “real” tree and draw it accurately you have to let go of your idea of the tree and look closely and clearly with your eyes.
In a similar way we may think that we know ourselves well, we think we know who we are. However, when we start meditating, which is partly the discipline of witnessing and observing our mind and self, we discover that the person we think we are and the person that we actually behave like are actually very different. Meditation teaches us the bitter-sweet art of seeing who we REALLY are and trying to bring our self-image and behavior into an authentic and genuine communion.
Both making art and meditation have made me find simple objects and activities very interesting and fulfilling as there is always endless detail and nuance to observe and enjoy. Last Friday I took a bit of time off and went to sit down in East Coast Park and just look at the sea, listen to the wind in the trees and observe the play of the afternoon sunlight across the landscape. I can’t imagine a much more fulfilling time.

How to See Through Difficult Times

If you have ever tried to create a piece of art work you will know that often (though not always) there is a time when everything about the picture seems horrible, ugly and awful, and where the critical voice in your mind is telling you that you may as well give up and trash the whole thing, and that you also may as well give up art too. After a while as an artist you come to expect this ‘phase’ in your work to complete a piece, and you know that the main thing to do is “keep calm and carry on”, steadily working through this phase. You learn that it is part of a natural cycle, and when it happens it just indicates that you are at a certain stage of the creative process. You don’t panic, after a while it can even be enjoyable in a funny way.
Similarly as a meditator you learn that sometimes your mind just goes through dark phases. Sometimes you know the reason, sometimes not, but either way you come to understand through sitting with these dark phases in meditation that they come and go. They are just a part of the processes of life, like the weather; sometimes sunny, sometimes thunderclouds. Either way there is no need to panic, just be present with it and allow it to work itself through your system in a non-harmful way.

Understanding How Beauty is Both Spontaneously Ever Present, and at the Same Time has to be Worked at and Re-created all the Time

As an artist you learn through observing things from multiple angles and points of view that everything has its own type of beauty. As a result, wherever you look you can appreciate something about what you see. At the same time actually creating a  beautiful and authentic piece of art work is a very demanding endeavor requiring a lot of effort physically, mentally and spiritually of the artist. In this way beauty for the artist is something that s/he can always see in what s/he observes, but at the same time the creation of beauty is always effortful and challenging.
Really with meditation practice it works the same way, after meditating for some time you get to a stage where even if there is pain and confusion in your mind, there is also an ever present stillness and beauty that is available to you at all times, you just have to remember it. However, in another sense the daily process of thinking positive, acting out of integrity, creating harmonious relationships often seem to take just as much work and effort as they always did!
This seems to be the paradox of both outer and inner beauty; they are ever present and yet they demand constant effort to create and recreate. However, being in touch with the ever present aspect of inner and outer beauty (which are really states of being) helps us to keep even-minded amidst the struggles and strains of trying to effort-fully create a beautiful inner and outer life for ourselves and others.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com