The Four Loves

A helpful way to approach 'Love where I am' is to think about it as 4 different loves.

Love Self, Love Others, Love Place and Love what is.

Love Self

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Buddha

How do we accept ourselves as we are, but also seek to be better versions of ourselves each day?

I am no mystic guru, profound philosopher or master of psychology, I just create art. But what I've come to understand is the simple premise of 'I am OK'. I am human not perfect, and that too is ok.

I have found from this simple base of self acceptance I can curiously delve into my darker recesses without shame, judgement or condemnation.

But I fully understand this is easier said than done.

Love Others

"Those who are hardest to love

need it the most" - Socrates

Loving others who are nice, friendly, uncomplicated, beautiful, our offspring, from the same tribe, believe the same things, vote the same way, come from the same place and love us back is easy ....... most of the time.

But where our lives and the world in general struggle is how do we be with those who are not naturally 'our people'?

Through my art I have explored identity a lot. I even set up quite successfully 'The People's Republic of Stroud' many years ago, as a call to post Brexit unity. Trying to find unity through our location rather than division over political alliances.

My conclusion after years of exploring this is: I am Human. That is my and your only real identity. Yes I happen to have been born in New Zealand, yes I presently live in The People's Republic of Stroud, yes I happen to have a penis, and yes I like creating art. But what would happen if I saw beyond my identities of gender, nationality and profession?

I'm wondering if we identified ourselves and each other primarily as human, would it make loving each other as human beings much easier?

Love Place

"If you want to change the world, get a map out, find out where you live and draw a one mile radius around your home. That's where you change the world."

Clay

'Love our Place' can be interpreted in a few ways.

1/ Loving our present moment in time and all it offers

2/ Loving/enjoying the physical place we are situated.

3/ Nurturing/caring for the physical place we are situated, be that home, neighbourhood or planet.

4/ Being love in the physical place we are situated

When we combine our physical location, who we are with and the present moment, we have the potential to have a great impact on our world.

' We change the world where we are'

Love what is

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters"

Epictetus

"It might be cancer" is not really what I was hoping to hear when I entered Specsavers for my annual eye check up. "That spot at the back of your eye could be cancerous and you need to get it checked out asap".

Nothing like a blunt diagnosis from a socially incompetent optician to shake my foundations of thinking I was going to live forever. I distinctly remember walking my dog in the woods that afternoon, with scenarios rushing through my over creative imagination that included blindness, brain tumours and my untimely demise.

'It is what it is' the only consolation I could find. I knew I needed to face the reality of what might be going on in my body, and as more information was revealed deal with it as it came in. Nothing like a trauma to spark creativity. A painting soon followed.

As it transpired over the next few months, and multiple check-ups, I didn't have cancer. Phew. But a lesson was learnt about myself and where I can go when faced with bad news.

Amor Fati, to love ones fate is an ancient Stoic philosophy. To quote Marcus Aurelius "A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it". To accept the reality of what happens to us, the good, the bad and the mostly in-between. All is good. And Carl Jung "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become" Or as the great 80's rap philosopher Young MC sung, "You gotta roll with the punches"

Whilst not believing that we should roll over and admit defeat without a fight, there are some things we cannot change and we only make things worse for ourselves if we either put our heads in the sand and avoid the issue or constantly wish that something else had happened.

My artistic hero Hundertwasser was once asked if his absolutely bonkers buildings were inspired by drugs. His response was "It is better to change reality than ones perception of it" I would personally add, but learn to accept reality when you can't change it.

At the centre of my 'Love where I am' symbol is a black circle. This is meditative in nature but also symbolises the need for us to face the darkness, the void, the traumas we all experience. A wise sage (my wife) often uses the phrase "If we don't face our traumas, we will transmit them".