art, proportion, and psychology

I was trained in stress and health, not in clinical psychology. The whole idea was that there are some special techniques that reduce stress, in human systems, such that physical health is also improved. I was only trained to teach, not to actually help anyone. I helped people all the time when i wasn't trying to; but when i tried, i just locked up.

What i just didn't appreciate at the time is that less stress really isn't the mecca anyway. Less unnecessary stress is more like it. Some algorithm of stress vs. meaning. For whatever reason, after 9-11 and a few other cataclysmic picnics, i found that deep breathing wasn't enough - although for sure, it beats NOT deep breathing.

Is it just me, or what? Why didn't anyone tell me about art? In six years of real and committed study, not one article mentioned art as a stress reliever. Why not? Now, I'm a bit of a zealot, like any good convert.

Try putting a glaze on your kitchen wall. Or tear out a few hundred bits of colored paper and glue them onto - well, something else. Or - most subversive - break some plates and put the pieces, along with anything else you want, onto a plywood board until you have something else. Sing, a lot, and imagine, and paint, and draw. Notice things. When I began to draw, i noticed things that seven years of science wouldn't begin to touch. Shades, shadow, contour, depth, beauty. My favorite experience to date has been to post, then take down, from my idea wall dozens of upsetting photos from the NY Times, just to remind me of the plight of the world. In their place, i stuck up one pretty piece that i did at an afternoon course in sacred architecture. Ah, much better.