It's All Connected, Somehow...

I remember the first time I realized this--I was a freshman at Michigan State, and something that one professor said just made everything click into place, and I could see--I could actually see in my mind--all the connections between everything I'd ever learned, both in and out of school, in my whole life.

It was a marvelous feeling, somehow larger than life. I remember walking home from class that day, my brain simply fizzing away, zipping back and forth between seemingly unrelated bits of information, and the dawning of this huge revelation that it was all related. All of it.  Everything. And, for a short, magical while, I could see all the tenuous threads that held everything--every thing, every one, all of it--together.

The feeling diminished over the next few days, as marvelous feelings often do, but every now and again I bump into some paler version of it when seemingly disparate items reveal an unforeseen connection. It happened this past week.. Somehow, while making zentangles and doing contour drawings for The Big Draw and looking at my drawing books and working with the high school kids I had an aha! moment. Texture, pattern, contour, light, dark, shadows, reality and imagination all somehow connected in my brain. It's both more complex and more simple than words can express, but that connectedness still gives me a jolt of pleasure, and I think that it's probably one of the most profound truths of all. I know that if I could only retain that incredible feeling of connection to every thing and to every one all the time, I would be a better, wiser, more complete and kinder person.

Here's hoping that all of us experience more of those amazing moments...