New Painting: Embracing The Solitude

"Embracing The Solitude"
11x14
Tabetha Landt Hastings
acrylic on canvase

"There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. " ~Colette

Usually solitude is more along the lines of an intoxicating freedom to me. I don't get enough of it. I think few people do in this society. Even in those rare times when we're alone, we have our computers, cell phones or tv's to keep us company. I was waiting for the elevator in a high-rise the other day, and they actually had a television in the hallway! It's no wonder we have the attention spans of gnats. 

We are seldom alone with our thoughts, and I think that most people like it that way. We're afraid the solitude will be that poison that will make us beat our head against the wall. Or we might be forced to know ourselves (yikes!). Afraid of what we'll find in the dark, we run away by keeping our brains constantly occupied. 

I'm guilty of it myself. If you know me you know that I'm pretty darn plugged into my mac and my iphone. But I do take time to embrace the solitude. Normally I do it by painting, but lately I've been dabbling meditation, and I've always been a fan of just sitting in the sun, or the shade, or the moonlight and simply being.

Do you embrace the solitude? If so... how?