Positive & Negative Energy

Zeros, ones, pluses, and minuses are often in my art.  They are graphic representations of positive and negative energy.  Life is full of positive and negative forces which in the end seem to balance each other out.  Peace and balance are synonymous in my view.  The zeros, ones, pluses, and minuses represent positive and negative in the most basic binary terms.  The binary positive and negative symbols appeal to my love of simple graphics.  There is also an appealing element of transformation in those four symbols.  If you look at the 0, 1, +, – then turn them sideways, the zero remains a zero, the one transforms to a minus, the plus remains the same, and the minus becomes a one.  A one represents positive energy while a minus represents negative energy; yet when turned to the side, the positive symbol becomes a negative symbol and the negative symbol becomes a positive.  Positive energy, negative energy, balance, peace, and transformation are all meaningful on my path to peace and is why they are frequently in my art. 

There is a Taoist parable that illustrates that we never really know when an occurrence is ultimately a positive or negative force in our lives.  Rather than repeating the parable here, I will suggest you Google “good bad taoist parable” if you are interested.  Most people can point to something bad that happened in their lives that if that seemingly unfortunate event had not happened, they would not have gone down a path that ultimately led to something positive.  

Rather than thinking of positive and negative in terms of good or bad, I try to think of those energies as pushing or pulling, on or off.  Black holes are negative energy with great pull.  Pulling can be good or bad in our lives depending on the situation.  Negative behavior can have the pull of a black hole or we can be pulled away from danger.  We can be pushed into an unwanted situation or we can be pushed away from danger.  Author and Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön, suggests rather than thinking of something as bad, try thinking of it in terms of unwanted.

The desire to control things seems to be in my genetics.  Ultimately, I am in control of very little.  The best I can do is to influence.  Pushing a situation or opinion is a cause of imbalance.  No one gets through life living every moment in perfect balance.  Suffering happens as does joy.  Both may cause temporary imbalance in our lives but overall they are part of balance.  A river does not try to move the boulder in its path but instead flows around it moving toward balance..  My goal is to be like the river flowing in the direction that is right for me to be in balance and peace rather than wasting energy in feeble attempts to push metaphoric boulders.  Pushing boulders causes suffering and is contrary to my goal of living in peace and balance.