Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dear Theo

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dear Theo: Around 1978, I read an extraordinary book titled Dear Theo. Dear Theo is a collection of hundreds of letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his b...

Dear Theo

Around 1978, I read an extraordinary book titled Dear Theo. Dear Theo is a collection of hundreds of letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother and closest friend Theo, an art dealer in Amsterdam.  In these letters, Van Gogh told amazing stories of his discoveries of the beauty and wonder of nature and the people that captured his attention, all of which became the subjects for over 900 paintings he made between 1880 and 1890. In 1878 he wrote, “Great art feeds the inner life, as do the works of those who apply themselves with heart, mind, and soul. If one can only remember what one has seen, one is never idle or lonely, and never alone.”

When Van Gogh moved to Paris, his art began to take on a unique style. His daring approach to painting was to fervently apply the colorful paint with thick and bold brushstrokes. He mostly painted outdoors no matter what the weather conditions were to fully capture the emotion and natural state of his subjects.  But, fame would not come to him for many decades following his early death at age 37 in 1890. The tragedy of Van Gogh is that he only sold one painting and this one sale came 4 months before his death. His bouts with depression and rage are well documented but make sense for what he perceived as total rejection by the general public and his Impressionistic colleagues of his artistry.

After Vincent’s death, Theo died just 6 months later and is buried next to his brother. Theo’s wife Johanna inherited all of Vincent’s paintings and dedicated her life to arranging public showings all over the world of his work, thus bringing his remarkable art to the attention of millions. 100 years after his death, 7 of Van Gogh’s paintings sold at auction for a total of 700 million dollars. Today those same paintings are worth over one billion dollars.

People’s perceptions of Van Gogh are that he was a mentally unstable artist, but if you look beyond what you’ve heard and read some of the letters that he wrote to this brother, you will discover that he was a passionate and compassionate artist, a gifted writer, and a profound thinker. At age 25 he wrote, “The best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, whatever you like, but love with a lofty and intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and always try to know deeper, better, and more.”

Vincent Van Gogh was ridiculed in his time for his paintings which were regarded as too bold and too unusual. The fact is he was excited by all the beauty he saw around him and enthusiastically painted what he saw on canvas. In a letter to Theo he wrote, “Try to walk as much as you can and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her.  If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.”

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dance, dance, dance

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dance, dance, dance: Your response to potentially stressful day to day experiences has a major impact on your health and well being. Many medical journals report...

Dance, dance, dance

Your response to potentially stressful day to day experiences has a major impact on your health and well being. Many medical journals report that chronic stress puts us at greater risk for illnesses including cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, and digestive disorders.

Prolonged negative thinking, depression, anger, resentment, and worry are high stress states and are all potentially harmful to the essential mind/body balance. Constantly seeing the glass half empty puts the emotions and body under stress. High stressed individuals produce more of the neurochemicals that impair the immune system: heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, muscles tense, breathing quickens, and stomach acids escalate. If poor sleep is one of your challenges, keep in mind that stress produces more of the hormones that keep you awake and less of the hormones that help you to relax. In addition to poor food choices, stress causes weight gain due to an over production of the adrenal hormone cortisol, resulting in too much belly fat.

Stressors can be minor hassles, major lifestyle changes, or life events that overwhelm us. Being able to identify stressors in your life and releasing the tension they cause are the keys to successfully managing stress. Stressors may include: the death of a friend or loved one; challenges at home with children or your intimate relationship; work overload; ending or starting a new job; being unemployed; money issues and financial concerns; legal problems; uncertainty about the future; and unresolved grief. Loss and grief follow us throughout our life time. When loss is not addressed and worked through, the anticipation of future losses can loom over us distorting our vision for a positive future.

What can we do? Use your creative imagination to play with options and possibilities for changing the stressful situation you find yourself in. Participate in an ongoing meditation group or spiritual group to help move your mind and emotions in more positive and life-enhancing directions. Hike in the red rocks, taking notice of and appreciating the amazing beauty of nature. Learn more about healthy eating from local markets and discover for yourself the relationship between food and stress. Join a grief support group to help heal the anguish of a significant loss. Listen to music at local clubs, watching and feeling the passion of the musicians who play.  Take an art class from a talented local or visiting artist or join an enjoyable singing group. Use self-hypnosis relaxation techniques, including calming breathing processes to help you fall asleep more naturally. Read books that are uplifting and that help you to feel more hopeful. Watch birds soar through the air, seemingly defying time and space.  Work in the garden, planting beautiful flowers and delectable vegetables. Laugh often, smile at others when you make eye contact and dance, dance, dance.