Not all those that wander are lost

I wander though books. I wander through Google. Mostly I wander through Pinterest. Each morning I spend an hour or two or sometimes three (!) traveling through space and time looking at icons, artist's icon portfolios, folders of ornaments, and video lessons in iconography. Periodically, I will cull through those I've collected and print an image of the right size on my color printer. I create a paper file folder that will contain a record of everything I will do with a particular icon. In the evening, I will sit at my light table with my icon image taped down, and tracing paper taped down over that, and begin to create my drawing. This work is always soothing and the strokes of the mechanical pencils slow. Yo Yo Ma is playing "The Mission, Gabriel's Oboe from Ennio Morricone" and I am in heaven. One of my favorite parts of the process. The music itself elevates my soul and lifts it toward prayer. This is what we do for one another. This is what art does, not for oneself, but to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for others to follow. There is sadness in the music, and great beauty. It is profound. It makes one feel one is part of something larger than oneself. The microcosm. God's message to us in another format. Again and again in as many ways as it will take us to get it that we are part of something larger and that it is not about us--alone, but it is about us -- together. For me, it is about art, and Gabriel, and you.