The Gift

Today is my birthday. Lucky for me I have lived to this age and seen a lot of things…. Yet I know so little. 10 years ago for my 50th birthday I raised funds to go to Dharamsala and to Lhasa. I planned to come back and make a Public Artwork based on Prayer Wheels and a global ethic…links to things we all hold close regardless of our political, religious or cultural background.

‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is whats known as the Golden Rule and has common threads across most of the major religions and is core to our system of social order.

I researched, I met with craftsmen and women, I explored other religions, held community meetings and made plans. Then life got in the way as it does. Thoughts of the prayer wheel project have never left my mind.

Today 10 years later news drifts in about wars, crimes to humanity to the planet. I ask myself what can I do? This is my one precious life as the Dalai Lama said.

As an artist my greatest achievement is if people engaging with my work have an aha moment or shifts perspective in any way. As a cultural worker that is also the goal.

Today as the wheel of life turns, as I prepare for my exhibition In Consideration of Trees I am mindful of that opportunity 10 years ago to go to Tibet and India to meet the Dalai Lama and his words to me then and his reminder of appreciation of this one precious life.

“Every day, think as you wake up: Today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.” Dalai Lama