The roots of compassion

I don't expect you to like this painting -- I don't like it all that much myself, and I'm sure I'll be painting over it before too long.

But I post it here as a reminder that a)not every visit to your studio will be a success, and b)however pleasant the life we've built for ourselves may be, it's impossible not to be influenced by the world outside our little bubbles.

It's happened before, of course -- I still haven't painted over the one I did after the tornado in Oklahoma. And there were those paintings I did during the wildfires, the ones that ended up at our local fire station.

This one was a response to worries about our friends and family living in Florida; I call it Storm Surge. And I'm glad to learn, this morning, that Irma died down quite a bit in the night, and that the devastation was not as bad as might have been predicted.

But the facts remain irrefutable: though we may live in relative isolation, either geographically, or in our little corner of like-minded facebook friends, our world is actually considerably larger than it appears, and what touches others touches us as well. However that shows up in your life may vary from person to person, but when we begin to acknowledge that connection -- those are the roots of compassion.