For many years I struggled with the idea of my work being an art form. But when I boiled down the idea of art and found it to be my expressions rooted in knowledge, practice and experience, my very existence here, my very left in this physical realm ends up being an art form all on its own. Every heart beat I experience is a brush stroke on a canvas that gets hung in the Spiritual Realm for all to see. What painting do I want to display?

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Eugenio Zampighi [Public domain]

With my recent illness, I started taking stock of what I've done that constitutes as an art form. For sure my Martial Arts training is a widely recognized art form by millions around the world. So too is my writing as I've authored many papers, books and blog posts over the years. But what other art forms do I engage in that is not so well known?

The first that comes to my mind would be the Pacem Arts, a term I created to reflect the art form of Peace that I work so hard to practice. It requires a great deal of knowledge, practice and experience to become proficient at this art form. Sadly it is not practiced by many but it is my hope that this art form will find prevalence in the coming years. It also requires that I am already proficient at other art forms before I can even contemplate practicing it!

I would also have to conclude that our off-grid life style is also an art form. The amount of knowledge that is required is astounding. Ironically though, that knowledge comes from jumping in, making mistakes and practicing over and over to gain the experience. Is that not the foundational principles that constitute art? The amazing part is that the more I learn the less I know. Every time I open a door to explore a new idea or concept, it opens a whole new realm of possibilities that are endless. Learning how to live off the land and not be dependent on any fictional constructs is the most challenging art form I've tackled.

I've never considered myself an artist, until now. My art forms are vast, interwoven and complex. But let's not stop there. There are a few more art forms that I'm learning.

Politics! While most people may dismiss this one at first, I've found that it is a core and critical component. To be clear, politics is the science of government. While most people would automatically assume the centralized authority of the state as 'government', to me it is about governance or more specifically, self governance! In order for me to learn how to govern myself, I had to learn about how the state governs too. Sadly most people don't want to learn politics and as such, they refuse to learn about self-governance as well. That is unfortunate as we are all here to learn how to govern ourselves. If we don't learn politics, we fail to grasp the full scope of our relationships with other people as we explore how to command our vessels. The issues are complex, but the solutions are simple. Hard to implement, but simple! For sure, this is one of the most challenging art forms to master as well, but we are all working on it, whether we realize it or not. While I was taught as a kid to not talk politics or religion, it seems that is all I talk about these days. But it is an art form!!!

Out of the darkest days of my life arose an art form that I will cherish and work on for ever. That art form covers relationships; whether that be my relationship with myself, my vessel, Creator or others. If we can master this art form while we are here and obtain Christ level of consciousness, then we can graduate and move onto other art forms that I suspect are more challenging and interesting. Of all the art forms I practice, this one is by far the most important for me. This art form is the core of all the others as it is the foundation upon which the other art forms depend upon. One cannot master the other art forms until they master this one FIRST!!! Don't be fooled by people who claim to be masters of the other art forms but still resort to violence or coercion. If they do that, they have failed at this art form and only resort to violence to control or intimidate others. That is the dark side of politics and we must be aware of these characters too!

I cannot express enough how important it is that we embrace these art forms and work hard to master them. We can allow the distractions of consumerism to drive our lives or we can find ways to live minimally on this planet as we spend the time here exploring, learning, experiencing and mastering the whole point of this physical existence; relationships.

Every art form we participate in ALL boils down to relationships. We are all artists and we can help each other out tremendously if we can at least acknowledge this and dedicate our lives to the study of the arts and help others with their studies as well, no matter the art form they are working on today. Every moment of every day is art; beautiful, sacred and precious beyond belief.

I love you. I ask for forgiveness. I forgive myself. I love me.

I AM that I AM