On my wat to the Qi gong retreat I couldn't resist to look in the water again.
Someone asked me what it means to me as I keep taking photo's of it. Of coarse it is something I can't express in words. Approaching it it would be fluidity, transparancy, unlimited, endless, adaptability, fertility, life force, the origin, that what connects us which each other and the planet, purity. 
But it also is just so beautiful and fascinating to observe how it interacts with the different light conditions and the different materials which carry it. 

Egg tempera and Spanish black iron oxide on canvas 50 x 60 cm.

Egg tempera and water mixable oil colours on canvas 50 x 60 cm.

A retreat on Qi gong inspired me to return to painting.
And I am not depressed but I just love black at the moment as it connects me with space and light.

I just spend some days travelling trough Belgium, France, Germany and Switserland. It keeps fascinating me how different the general feeling is in different countries, the difference in landscape, in architecture, in culture in fysical characteristics, in language. They all have a different charm  and all share things which are really ugly. 
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Lately I have become very interested in Taoist nature philosphy. It makes the distinctions between beautiful and ugly, good and bad much less important as it is nature to always move in waves between the opposites and everything carries already the counterpart within. As soon as you categorize something you invoke the opposite as well. Better to stay beyond that, with no names, no judgements at all. This strongly appeals to me.

Oil paintings, 24 x 30 cm.

I am here.
I am in Belgium but I am also still on the island in the big ocean.
I am also where I have been. 
I am still fife years old, a handful with all fingers, like the boy of the neighbours showed me so proudly. I can't wait to become adult and free and finally get some things done whithout all the obstructions a fife year old has. 
I am still a student exploring all the things a young adult can do.
I am still taking care of a farm, cleaning stables and growing vegetables and raising young children.
I am still working in a mad house. 
I am still singing and talking with the trees.
I am in all the places where I have travelled. I see them, I hear them. I smell them. I am still talking to the people I have met. I am European, but I am also in Africa and in Asia and sometimes in Meso America or Canada. Life continues on all those different places and all those different times. It is all now. My mind catches glimpses of all those different realities. When I travel I remember. I recognise the ambiance, the energy of all those places which are supposed to be new and unkown, but they aren't. They are very familiar. 
Life or death doesn't make much of a difference, as the past is still very much part of the present. Is the time difference real or constructed in order to make all those lives more coherent? Like in a painting clear colour differences create a composition, create a something and not an endless blurr of everything mixed up.
There is a manifold of me. Maybe I should say we. 
​We are old and we are young.
We are living many different lives in a multiversum all at the same time.
I am here and also on many places there, no distance, no time.

Our stay on the island did give a kind of reset. Back to basics, back to essentials. It is a place where you naturally sleep a lot and dream a lot. It cleans the mind and brings a big relaxation. Time flies easily away, but it doesn't matter. The air is full of energy and so clean and fresh when there is not one of those ancient cars running by. 

To be there a balance is needed between inside and outward oriented attention. At the right point of balance everything around is extraordinary beautiful, out of balance quite a lot is not at all that attractive.

There was no strong urge to paint this time, tough I did spend some days painting. Working on the same pieces of canvas day after day.  Not much which has not already been photographed. But that gives peace of mind.

Doing my daily Qi gong exercises was very easy and pleasant. And there is a strong desire to learn more about healing processes again as I have done for many years before.

These fotos  evoke some kind of stories for me. Altough it is not all about nature they inspire me. It is te relation between man and ifinity. And the dreams we cherish, which can be modest or big but infinity humbles them all. It is such a relief to feel that.