Rumpus Round Two

Tangle: Rumpus. Micron PN pen (black), blue Micron 01 pen, gold gellyroll pen, prismacolor pencils in yellow and orange.

This tangle is just too much darned fun to draw!  Once again it went somewhere I couldn't have imagined. 

The Connection Between Zentangle and Traditional Meditation:

I enjoy the way that Zentangle® and my other meditation practice regularly take me where I hadn't expected to go.  There's a nice article in Psychology Today magazine on why Zentangle is so meditative HERE.

If you have ever wanted to meditate, but feel that you can't because "my mind just won't stop!" you are experiencing the #1 fallacy about meditation--that the mind should, or will, stop thinking.  It's the job of the mind to think!  It is certainly not going to stop for meditation...but with experience, you may find that you notice some quieter spaces or times when your thoughts seem to be running on "dim" in the background.  So don't let your noisy mind stop YOU because IT won't stop.  Just the fact that you are noticing the noise is a very good sign--you are not "doing it wrong," you are, in fact, doing it right.

Why am I bringing this up?  Because Zentangle is a form of moving meditation, and often people find it easier to begin with something along those lines rather than plunging into formal meditation.  And you do not need any art talent at all to learn to tangle.  NONE.  Yes, that is true.  If you can sign your name, you can tangle. 

What you'll find as you're tangling is:  Focus.  Attention.  Silence.  Slowing down.  You will even learn to tolerate and handle mistakes; you'll learn not to judge something in the very moment you are creating it, but to stand back and evaluate later.  You'll learn patience--although you will need a lot less of this than you might assume.  You'll be loving the results--but even more, you will truly love the process. 

Gee, that sounds like a lot of learning.  But surprisingly, it comes without effort.  You'll be so focused on the pleasurable process of drawing lines that you won't even notice what you've learned until later.  And--you'll be learning about meditation in that same effortless way.

To find a teacher, just go to the main Zentangle website HERE and look for their list of Certified Zentangle Teachers (also known as "CZTs").  There's a good chance you will find a CZT neaby.  Have fun!