Tangled as in ZenTangle, not as in the movie, which I did see over the holidays. Fantastic movie, highly recomend it. I even cried at during the scene of the floating lights. It was just so so beautiful. Disney and it has me crying. Who would have thought.
Anyways, on to the tangles. I came across this yesterday when I was over at Marsha Neil's blog. I was just so intrigued by this whole concept that I spent a delightful hour just looking around the web at zen tangles and doodles. I used to spend countless hours doing doodles during boring meetings making aimless patterns just to distract myself from the tedium. I had no idea that this whole practice had been legitimized. OK, this concept is a little more purpose driven than my scribbles at inappropriate times.
I can't even pretend to know much about this practice but you can find out more by searching the web or flickr for zen tangles. There is a website zentangles.com that can give you some background. It's something of an art form 'where anyone can create beautiful images using repetitive patterns.' Marsha had a link to a blog by Laura Harms where she's hosting a weekly zen tangle challange. This week is the 'Eyes Wide Shut' challange where you start by drawing on your tile (paper) with your eyes closed. So in my full on procrastinating mode, I decided this was absolutely the thing I needed to do right now! That photo up there is just a snippet of the final 4 inch by 4 inch 'drawing' I ended up with.
This photo is my starting point. I'm telling you when I had my eyes closed, I felt like I had this squiggle out to edges of the paper. I looked at it completely baffled. Where do I start? What do I do? How do I make this into something? Oh wait, that's not really the point is it?
Curiously, when I just let my mind empty, the pattern just flowed from my pen. I can't even see where the starting point is in this final drawing. There is no beginning, no end, it just is. And this was like a vacation from the everyday.
This was fun. It was like a little bit of meditation with a pen.
