There were 36 hours this week when my normally plucky self completely derailed. You know, the equivalent of a dozen bad hair days slamming into you all at once.

Thank goodness, when that happens, I have a coach. A smart and compassionate one who doesn’t let me get away with much.

Her first question, when I confessed I’d woken up feeling like a failure, was: When did that start?

Well, of course, the part of me that preferred wallowing to working drew a blank.

I woke up that way, so hey, did it start in my sleep? (heading down dark paths of the psyche brings out my cheeky side)

What followed was a volley of questions (hers) and non-answers (mine). My coach is remarkably patient, or tenacious, depending on how “oh,-I’m-not-feeling-resistant” resistant I’m being.

I still don’t remember the exact moment I gave myself permission to…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a chunk of my lifetime asking, “What do you want?”

I ask my daughters this. I ask my clients. I ask my neighbor.

Tonight, in the kitchen, returning from a date in Northampton (a ton of fun!), I leaned on the counter, hung my head and heard myself ask out loud, What… do… I… want?

I had been pouring myself a glass of water when a weight seemed to drop onto me, out of nowhere, and then…

For a long time now I’ve been intrigued by the many correlations between the visual fine arts and spirituality.

In times past, art was an extension of that uniquely human branch of spirituality: religion. It married the power of vision to the power of institutionalized religion, especially that of the four world super religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Moslem, and Judaism.

A variety of art forms were also core to the traditions and rituals of native cultures – masks, totems, body paint, body adornments, dance, theater, costumes – where spirit was an ever-present reality threaded throughout daily life and initiating or supporting major life transitions, such as birth, death, marriage, life-as-service, and so much more that I can’t even conceive.

When humans shifted the locus of their attention from the tribe, clan, and family–where individuality was invisible under the cloak of the group–to the beginnings of self-awareness.

At this point, the crest of human development used art to pour forth even more testimony to all aspects of the human-as-spirit condition, as envisioned in the private spaces of a single mind and heart, one being at a time.

And with this rise of individuals as aware of self came…

For a community whose currency is imagination, I was surprised I didn’t get a bit more sci fi in the comments last week.

Personally, I can’t imagine anything more exciting than peeking into the future of technology and the visual fine arts. When you look at what’s happened so far, it seems as if the next generation of adventurers and explorers will only be limited by whatever keeps them from expanding the boundaries of imagination.

The other surprise I had last week was when I dropped a big hint that no one took me up on.

From Brave New Art World: Part 1:

I watch iTunes and Pandora bring music to the masses and long for a **visual art venue that would do the same.

I confess to a wee bit of shenanigans here, because…