We received a letter from our granddaughter. The first grader combines writing with drawing and depicts the house in which the family lives and lists all the names that fit inside the painted house. Drawing and depicting one's own environment is a basic need. Then I remember the texts about the development of the human brain - both individually in a person's life and socially in terms of cultural history. I have read a lot of exciting things about it and I am happy to have discovered the parallels between cave paintings that are said to have anticipated battle scenes with mammoths and the creative process involved in inventing new products. We humans have invented and developed many things through research. And yet it is always fascinating in every child - the need to paint, draw, write, express what surrounds them.
Most of the time, ratings and judgments come in on each of us and a great many stop drawing because what they expect from the result does not match what they have created. Even children stop drawing again. In meditative drawing we go through mindful silence into value-free perception. Yes, someone is panting next to us and yes, maybe someone in the classroom coughs - listen, let go, stay in me. I see the rays of the sun, the grass in the wind or the shadows of the trees. I relate myself to it because I estimate my distance, the mountains or the horizon give me stability - I draw a few lines and let go of what I see. Whether this creates a great drawing that should hang framed in the living room is completely unimportant. I may not even save any of the drawings. But I draw. And when I draw, I keep seeing new things. Sometimes felt, remembered perception mix with the real image around me. What is real?
If we go back to the joy of drawing like the children who are learning and trying to write, we learn a lot for ourselves.
