Updated: Jun 21, 2021
Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. New York Times best-selling author and professor Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful and inspiring conversation on how to cultivate courage, compassion, and connection to embrace your imperfections and to recognize that you are enough.
Why read this book?
How does perfectionism keep you from fully expressing yourself through your art? Like me, do you feel like you and your work just don’t measure up? Each day we face a barrage of images and messages from society and the media telling us who, what, and how we should be. We are led to believe that if we could only look perfect and lead perfect lives, we'd no longer feel inadequate.
Join Lark Keeler and me for a discussion on July 22, 2021, at 6:30 pm on Zoom.
Tickets are $10 and available on Eventbrite at this link:
In June we have the extraordinary opportunity to combine reading with the direct experience of scientist Iwasaki Tsuneo’s art.
Little known during his lifetime, the Japanese biologist and artist Iwasaki Tsuneo (1917-2002) created a strikingly original and exquisitely intricate body of modern Buddhist artwork. His paintings depict themes ranging from classical Buddhist iconography to majestic views of our universe as revealed by science--all created with the use of painstakingly rendered miniature calligraphies of the Heart Sutra, one of the most important scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism.
The exhibition “Painting Enlightenment - Experiencing Wisdom and Compassion through Art and Science” is on display at the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach from May 8 through September 19, 2021. We will meet there to view the exhibition and have lunch on Friday, June 11 at 11:00 (entry fee not included).
Our book discussion will be held on Thursday, June 17 at 6:30 pm on Zoom
and
Friday June 11, 2021 at 11:00 am at the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach (lunch and museum entry not included)
Our book choice “Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra” is a stunningly beautiful, full-color book of Buddhist paintings by twentieth-century Japanese artist Iwasaki Tsuneo, interpreted by Buddhist scholar Paula Arai. In this groundbreaking book, Paula Arai presents over fifty of Iwasaki's paintings, elucidating their Buddhist contexts and meanings as well as their intimate connections to Iwasaki's life as a war survivor, teacher, scientist, and devout Buddhist practitioner.
“Iwasaki’s luminous calligraphies, set in striking paintings both traditional and contemporary, are a remarkable gift to meditators, Buddhists, artists, and scientists of the contemporary age. Paula Arai is uniquely qualified to bring these paintings to a larger audience, given her mastery of Japanese language, culture, and religion, the trust bestowed on her by Iwasaki’s family, and her own Buddhist practice. Given the universal appeal of the Heart Sutra and its calligraphy, this book is destined to become a timeless treasure returned to again and again for its inspiration and sheer beauty.”—Judith Simmer-Brown, author of Dakini’s Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism
Book Discussion Thursday, June 17 at 6:30 pm on Zoom
and
Friday June 11, 2021 at 11:00 am at the Morikami Museum
Please RSVP by email to SusanConvery.Art@gmail.com if you are interested in joining us on June 11th for lunch & the exhibition at the Morikami. We will sit together and visit the exhibition together, but if you cannot make this date or time please take the opportunity to visit and experience the art on your own. It is well worth the time and effort. (Lunch & Museum entry not included)
Tickets are $10 for the Zoom discussion and available on Eventbrite at this link:
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Does something in your life call you into generosity - into a space larger than your own “play small” story? Can you give yourself permission to move slowly and release your artistic fruit when it is ripe and perfect? Can you create beauty without attachment to who receives it? Like me, you were born to create beauty, to give generously, live abundantly, and appreciate the blessings waiting all around you for you to notice their presence. Teaching beauty is what I have to offer and I’m blessed when I share what I know with you.
Every June I am abundantly blessed. Daily I am reminded of what it means to have more than you need, to be presented with an opulent overflow of scent, taste, color, and beauty. My backyard hosts a majestic 40-foot tall mango tree. She is my teacher. She does not ask for my collaboration, for my effort, or even my prayers. She asks only for appreciation from me. In her slow and patient fashion, she transmutes the Florida sun and rain into a gift of a thousand wondrous golden fruits, each one sweeter than honey, each one dressed in the colors of the sunset. From early June to late September I step onto the wet grass each morning to gather my blessings waiting for me like fat red and orange Easter eggs. Each one is a spectacle of color; glazed in red, orange, pink, purple, yellow, and many shades of green. Slice one open and inside is the embodiment of golden sunlight, a smell so sweet it attracts families of birds, lizards, and fish to feed on any bruised or imperfect fruits.
Some days there are more than 40 mangos waiting to be collected in my basket and displayed in my kitchen window. The abundance is so great that I must reach out to others and share with my friends, my colleagues, and even my dog. All year long I collect grocery bags so I can deliver this abundance to everyone I know. Long absent friends just happen to drop by and leave laden with fruit for smoothies, chutney pickles, and fruit salad, and neighbors receive anonymous gifts on their doorsteps, even my accountant has taken to calling me the “Mango Queen”. All winter long, frozen mango supplies drinks for visitors, spicy chutney, and sweet, golden smoothies to light up my blue days. I have a personal core “story” that: “I am not enough, I don’t have enough, and I don’t do enough” to deserve unearned blessings. Whenever I am down it is connected to the smallness of this feeling. For more than 10 years this tree has been teaching me a different lesson - one of abundance and generosity. Generosity blesses the giver and the receiver. The tree gives generously and asks for nothing in return. She creates because creating is what she was born to do and I imagine her joy in what she produces. She works slowly and patiently, and for many months it appears she is doing nothing, just resting and sleeping. Yet every year she supplies more and more beautiful mangos than the year before. Each mango is delivered in its own time, each one as large and as perfect as mango can be. And she shares just as generously with the iguanas as she does with her most ardent admirers. I am truly grateful for her example and for the way she moves me into the space of grounding and gratitude as I step into her shade each morning.
Reach out if you would like guidance on creating more abundantly.
With Love & Creative Blessings, Susan Convery
