Touchstone V41

What do we need more of in this world?

Certainly we can all agree that we are surrounded by excesses, and not always the healthiest ones. Our lives are increasingly pre-scheduled. We carry our technology with us wherever we go. News media and advertising are increasingly in our line of sight and inescapable; on our phones, on televisions in public spaces, on large-scale billboards. Our social media, while delightful, has made us hyper-social, salivating like Pavlov's dogs for the latest "like" of our recent postings or keeping track of hundreds of people to whom we'd never dreamed of saying "connected".

So again: What do we need more of in this world?

This is why I found it a bit of a shocking question to be asked by Linda DeHart, this artist I'd connected with many years back who I'd met at her recent opening of a beautiful digital artwork show, a release of a masterpiece of 1,000 watercolor paintings that had been scanned and beautifully animated to musical scores, a DVD called "The Human Journey." That work had captivated me, much in the way we expect to captivate you a bit today.

What do we need MORE of in this word? Shouldn't we be focused on what we need LESS of? But we all know how difficult it is to fight a tide, to slow or stop momentum. Perhaps the questions is about MORE...

But the question hung there in the air for a moment, and we both acknowledged the answer at the same time.

Calm.

Other words followed. Slowness. Meditation. Peace. All resonating on a theme that runs counter to the ragged, frenetic pace we find ourselves on from the moment we wake up every day to the moment we lay down, exhausted.

This notion of more calm became an increasingly intoxicating thought to me. My own world is filled with the opposite. I am a digital artist myself who builds large LED displays in Times Square. Calm is the last thing on the minds of most of the people who hire me, in the face-paced world of digital marketing where you gain attention from being faster, brighter, and louder than your competition.

... and yet, we see first hand what it does to people. Like me, you may have watched people change their course through a room to avoid a loud television. I've watched people learn to ignore a large digital sign in their periphery that's blaring a loop of advertising. Our gut reaction to this is to fight for LESS, and yet I can tell you first hand, these platforms aren't going away anytime soon.

So how do we bring MORE of this calm to a rapidly growing number of surfaces in our lives seemingly designed to add to our acceleration?

Back to that first night when I experienced The Human Journey, Linda's flagship project. I've never been in a room with 100 or so people who's very beings became seeming synchronized; heartbeats, breathing, all in rapt silence taking in this beauty of color, light, motion and sound. It wasn't until after I'd left the show and was riding the subway home that I realized the true impact of the work.

The world had become transformed. Or rather, I... had become transformed. The city had quieted to a dull roar. Colors were brighter. Thoughts were clearer. And I realized that for the first time in months, I'd had the opportunity to switch one part of my brain off and just let it play. And dance. And remember. And forget.

I wanted to know more. I wanted to be a part of this. So I reconnected with Linda, and the journey of Colors In Motion that was already underway continued.

Something to know about Linda: if you were to ask anyone to paint you a picture of Linda, they'd illustrate a beautiful swirling, spiral galaxy of flowing color and light, drawing in a community of people all around her. New friends, old friends, artists, poets, painters, sculptors, and most of all... healers. Because she herself is a transformational healer, always asking that question: what is needed here?

So we decided to continue the work that the Human Journey had started, and developed our first piece with an award-winning composer, Joshua Hummel, whom Linda had recently met and who also had had a similar experience to mine, having been initially exposed to the work. He too, wanted to play, sensing the power of the work.

We share with you that piece now: Taking Flight.

We decided to start making one of these new pieces every month from the substantial catalog of work Linda had in addition to her 1,000 watercolors. "Prolific" is an understatement to describe the body of work Linda has created.

Others began to join our team, contributing their own original artforms. Poet and writer Jeff Volk, who wrote "Element of Life" which we started with today. Dancer Meg Brooker, who Linda had known for years who was also intrigued by what we were doing.

We worked with another healer and friend in our circle, Andree Cordella, who helped us develop a persona for this thing that seemed to be building. It has been a tremendously valuable element to return to as we move forward, always making sure that our work and these collaborations stay true to this mission.

A reverent, serene, and unconditionally loving citizen of the world who speaks all languages and understands all cultures.

Dedicated to bringing beauty and centered calm into our busy lives.

One who is ever present, selfless, and uniquely seeking to engage us — to remind us of what truly unites us all... our humanity.

But why were we doing this? We did not have any direct connections to people who were seeking this work, there was not identified "market" for this as a product or business per se... but the response was so clearly positive. So clearly NEEDED. It was as if we had a calling; however we could do it, we needed to move this work out into the world.

So we played, we experimented, and once a month, we created something new. We found new visual artists who also wanted to play: photographers, sculptors, sound healers. For years, sending out each new piece on a growing list through email. With each piece, more people expressed interest. Mainly for one reason. They also experienced the same transformational healing we had in witnessing the work, simply by taking a moment to quiet, calm, and slow down. It's as if we've all been out there with the same ache, the same need, just no way to easily express it or find others with the same feeling. And when we see it, we point and all say the same thing, which we've heard time and again: "I get it. I understand what you're doing."

We can point to lots of reasons as to why we find ourselves so challenged by the ragged pace of day to day life.

We perceive that others are keeping up with the pace just fine. So why shouldn't we be able to as well?
We are an adaptable species, and therefore we're expected to adapt.
There are "new normals" to our what is expected of us, in life and at our jobs.
Yet sleep, downtown, bodies are limiters, and we try to survive on as little as possible.
Our tools continue to get faster, and thus, so do we.

So what is the antidote? What is the alternative?

We offer these moments to take a break, to release the mind and the body, to divert the focus onto something that requires only as much focus as you want or need to put to it. An open-open eyed meditation if you will.

Seems a good place to take another moment: The next piece is called "Sleep Like a Baby", completed earlier this year with Pianist Eve Kodiak.

Experiencing the work provides one form of healing and transformation. So does creating it.

As mentioned, I work a tremendously stressful job as an executive in a rapidly growing company. The work is fun, but has its unrewarding moments. Colors In Motion is an escape for me, a place where I can play, experiment, and be free creatively and conceptually.

The music and artwork provided by each new set of collaborators is a fresh new set of materials with which to work each time. NOTHING is more exciting to an artist when facing a blank canvas. We set out with an intention and an idea... and time vanishes. Once Linda and I have agreed on a direction with the artists and musicians on a new collaboration, and all the pieces are in place, my compositing effort is almost trancelike: I emerge 5-6 hours later, with little understanding of how much time has passed, but with a new, beautiful piece before me to share.

Linda takes this time of year every year to go away to Maine, Connecticut, and New York to paint, away from the context of her very busy and often stress filled life. It's been wonderful watching her transform herself every summer: slowly morphing into her artist self, emerging as this spectacularly refreshed butterfly at the other end of the summer, sitting in the middle of hundreds of new paintings. Beaming.

Our sessions together are ones of raw creation. Our favorite and sometimes most challenging collaborations are ones where the artists with whom we are working are involved, because they are the most rewarding. New eyes, new minds, new ways of seeing an experiencing visuals and sounds and TIME change with each new piece we create together. The process is very much akin to life: one recent viewer of Colors In Motion expressed that she initially found frustration in wanting certain moments to "hold" longer, but then became open to the idea that they were fleeting, and to simply enjoy being in the present at all times — learning to let go. To live in the present. To accept that the only constant... is change.

Together, we create experiences that are bigger than ourselves, more spectacular than anything we could have conceived of on our own. Each artist with whom we collaborate shares that experience of oneness and inclusion: that the piece of which their work is a part is as much "theirs" as it is "ours." And ultimately, we are out to make sure that it can be shared with as many people as possible.

The last piece we'd like to share is Vivid Echoes. This is a collaboration with photographer and musician Davin Currie, who provides imagery and music on the Kantele, a Finnish Harp, collaborating in an improvisation with jazz musician Stan Strickland. Merging with Linda's watercolors, this piece provides an interplay between the real and the abstract.

We have now created 40 pieces, a growing catalog of new work that continues to expand annually. Though we have reduced how many we release each year, we've increased the time durations of our pieces, so which now extend over 30 minutes in length.

Colors In Motion is starting to make it out into the world. For as many people who "get it", there are many as well who either don't get it or are simply too fearful of slowing down that they resist the opportunity to bring Colors In Motion into their lives or businesses.

But there is a shift in consciousness happening. We feel like we're on the front lines of it.

Medcalm is a company that licenses programming to closed circuit TV systems in hospitals and healthcare facilities that has presently placed some of the work in very high-profile hospitals around the country. Amy, the CEO of Medcalm, definitely "gets it." She at times will ask a healthcare facility that is showing loud and upsetting news shows in a public space why they are showing that programming, and when she gets the common answer back that "it's what people want to watch", she suggests, "Some people want to smoke too, but you don't let them do that in here..." That usually turns some heads and helps shift that thinking.

Sterling Apartments in Philadelphia weaves Colors In Motion into two videos walls they have in their public lobby. Through a bizarre set of circumstances recently, I encountered 2 strangers in Provincetown, MA: after a bit of conversation I learned one knew Linda and the other lived in Philadelphia and was familiar with this installation, because she walks past it on her way to work daily, and often will stop to enjoy it for a few moments before moving on.

We have recently done some programs with Mount Auburn Hospital, the work has been used by the Spiritual Directors International for their annual conference between and supporting sessions. It's been part of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Peabody Essex Museum. It's been featured on Kripalu's website. In Wellness workshops. In meditation sessions at festivals in Mexico and Asia.

We don't know where it goes next, but we're always excited by the potential and the feedback, by those who share "I get it" and those who come to understand it. The way it has crisscrossed the globe, introduced us to new artists, new healers, and found it's way into guiding our own lives has been nothing short of magic.

And that's how I'd like to close, with takeaways from the story of this journey:

Be open to possibility and to what at some times feels like magic. The connections that I, Linda, and our team have made are explainable, but sometimes feel so coincidental that one must start to wonder about other forces at work that also want to see this continue.
Invite people in to participate in something bigger than yourself: The collaborative nature of what we've been doing has been the most rewarding part, as well as what's continue to draw new energy to it constantly.
Learn how to let some things go, and how to stand your ground on others; this is a delicate balance we all go through if many facets of our lives, but is exceptionally challenging with something as subjective as artistic creation.
Be patient with the process of growing something you believe in.... years of patience. We've learned to trust that our efforts to move this work out into the world are starting to bear fruit, and that they healing and transforming people.

Most of all, learn to seek out what gifts within yourself you may be able to bring healing and transformation into the world. Even if that healing and transformation only affects a small community of people. May we all discover that in this lifetime, and may the act of that giving heal and transform you.