The Universe Likes Speed and Time is Relative

Patience. How do we balance patience with speed?

Let's put it into perspective. That helps me.

Since I am a stone sculptor, let's use art as an example. Sculpting has been a great teacher for me. It has definitely taught me patience.

When I first started art school, I was a print maker. I really loved it--and I probably still would. I liked making multiple copies of something. I liked seeing results fairly quickly.

Then I was exposed to stone sculpting. I was carving in an abandoned limestone quarry in southern France. I was hit with the bug big time. I was in the quarry every minute not required by my many other studies. I even carved by moonlight. The sculpting was much slower than printmaking, but so rewarding and tactile. I was in love! I learned to be patient at the release of each piece. Not patient enough, it turns out. I carved so much and so many pieces that my hands were frozen shut until I pried them open every morning.

Over the years, my hands got worse. I had thought it was just muscles not used to such activity. Instead, it turned out I gave myself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Two surgeries and a lot of physical therapy later I was told I couldn't carve any more.

I was devestated. I tried other types of sculpture but none gave me the satisfaction that I had with stone.

I stopped carving completely for more than 10 years. Then, I finally decided enough was enough. Once I made the decision, it seemed like things fell into place. This is where speed comes in! I went to New Zealand, carved with artists there and refell in love.

Once back home in Colorado I tried to figure out ways to make a 1940s house have a dust proof studio. Since that wasn't possible, I moved and now have a studio where I can work in my own home. This didn't happen overnight, but in the scheme of things, it has been fast. Our lives are like a blink of the eye for the universe...even when as kids we are lounging bored waiting for summer to speed by more quickly so we can see all our friends again.

The thing that I have learned is to act. But don't force it. Don't expect it to take a single day, week or even a year--unless it does, in which case that is fantastic! Act, none the less. For if we don't act (the speed part) then nothing changes and we will just be older and ultimately die without having done the things that we really wanted to but that would "take too long". Every day, take one little step...write one page...paint one color...and by the end of the year you have a book a painting, a sculpture, what ever it is. A baby may be conceived in an instant, but it takes more than 9 months for it to emerge.

One day, one stone at a time.