Peteskibreen's Blog

Getting enough sleep is an important part of your overall well-being. Lack of sleep can make it hard to function. Many people experience feelings of drowsiness and fatigue during the day. Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) makes it hard to stay awake and focused. It can interfere with your ability to work and get through your day. It can be dangerous if you need to drive or operate machinery. Some conditions, such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy, can cause EDS. Medications or other health conditions may also be an underlying reason for fatigue. Sleep hygiene is an important part of improving EDS. Sleep hygiene refers to all the routines and habits that may help you improve your sleep. From how you start your day to the steps you take as it gets closer to bedtime can make a difference in the quality of your sleep. Here are a few steps you can take to achieve the one small step setting a consistent sleep schedule: Wind down before bed Our bodies like routine. It’s smart to try to go to bed around the same time every night. Most people need 7 – 9 hours of sleep. You can figure out your ideal bedtime based on when you need to get up. You’ve probably noticed that if you have a busy day or evening, it can be harder to settle down and fall asleep. It’s smart to take some time before bed to signal to your brain and body that it’s time to wind down. Consider setting a timer for an hour before you want to go to bed as a reminder to start this routine. Do your best to keep this same schedule even if it’s the weekend or you’re on vacation. Have a wind-down plan Once you set that timer and get into the routine of winding down before bed, use that hour wisely. Do things around your space to signal that it’s time to settle down. Consider dimming lights, putting away any devices and turning off the TV. Bright light and blue light from devices may interfere with sleep. This hour is a good time to switch to calmer activities. Try: reading, journaling, knitting, stretching or doing yoga. Prepare your bedroom Along with prepping your body for sleep, there are ways to get your bed and sleeping area ready for you, too. If you’ve ever been to a fancy hotel, you may have had turn-down service. If so, you might know the bliss of sliding into that perfectly prepped space. Your version may not be exactly the same, but it can still set the tone for a good night’s sleep. Turning down your bed can include: removing any clutter on the bed and tidying the area around your bed, smoothing bed sheets and covers, making sure pillows are in the right position, turning off any bright lights, closing blinds and turning on a bedside lamp or night light, cooling the temperature of the room by adjusting the air conditioning, opening a window or turning on a fan. Reduce noise A noisy space can make it hard to settle down. You may not be able to control all noise sources but think of the things you can change. Once you put down your electronic devices for the night, switch them to silent or “do not disturb.” This way, you won’t receive an alert every time a notification comes in. If you live in a busy neighbourhood, the extra noise may interfere with your sleep. Consider using a white-noise machine or earplugs. If you like listening to music or a podcast, turn down the volume in the evening. This can be a nice alternative to watching TV if you want to change your nighttime routine. Have a consistent wakeup time Just as your bedtime routine matters, trying to wake at the same time every day also matters. This means setting the same alarm even on weekends and holidays. As you get more consistent with your sleep routine, the hope is that you will get more quality sleep. You may start to find that you naturally wake around the same time daily. This is a good sign that you are getting enough sleep. Once you are up, don’t forget to make your bed, so it’s ready for turn-down later. Mindfulness & relaxation Mindfulness strategies can be helpful in settling your brain for sleep. It’s common for worries or to-do lists to pop into your head when you’re trying to fall asleep. Mindfulness keeps your brain in the present moment. This can calm your body and brain to prepare for sleep. You can try mindfulness before you get into bed or once you are already in bed. If you have trouble falling asleep, you can also get out of bed and try some of these in a quiet, dark space. Continue until you start to feel tired, then return to bed. One way to try mindfulness is by listening to a guided meditation recording. You can also: Try square breathing: Inhale through your nose for a slow count to 4, hold for 4, breathe out through your mouth for 4, and hold for 4. Keep repeating. Visualize a beautiful place: Focus on all the details that you can see, touch, smell, hear and taste in this setting. Do a body scan: Start with your toes and work your way up to bring awareness to any areas of tension and then release it.

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NOW IS THE TIME

Now is the time for art

for music

for poetry

for angry marks on walls

for silent walks

added to staring under trees

as water drips and lands at our feet.

Now is the time for action

and contemplation

for listening

and hugging children slightly longer

and living in today while today shines.

Now is the time to seek out a story by

an Iranian poet

music by an Ahmenian mystic

prayers by an Irish nun.

Now is the time for planting pumpkins

making bread

spending less

and giving more

enjoying with new eyes

our places, spaces, people.

Now is the time for open doors

welcoming strangers

wondering more

blaming less

being tender

refusing isolation

beginning solitude.

Now as always is this call

this call of grace to climb again the hills of pain

for joy not conquering

for love not winning

for peace not war.

Now is

the time.

Peter Breen

1 of 25 drawings for “I want to tell you” for #45 Soul and Body Berlin Artist Magazine. Charcoal, guache, graphite, gesso, ageing encyclopedia papes, glue on 160 gsm paper.

“I WANT TO TELL YOU”

These 25 works* are my mark making response to I want to tell you, the theme for the second bi-annual Body and Soul Magazine #45 , Berlin for 2025. The invitation to join this project came out of the blue via my Instagram account on_being_isolated and the artist Olesya Dzhurayeva [and publisher Hendrik Liersch] a remarkable lino cut/relief artist and collaborating designer of the magazine. The brief is to create a body of work – 25 original signed A4 pages around the given theme with a 3 cm left side border. Random selected pages from the approximate 20 invited artists will be bound into 25 page books by the publisher of Body and Soul Magazine Berlin and one of these will become each artist’s surprise gift in exchange. Some works and books will be kept to offset the publishers costs. The magazine was founded by the late Schoko Casana Rosso in 2005 while Hendrik Liersch picked up the project as publisher and has continued it into 45 editions. It is an inspiring mark making and international community project that I am excioted to be a part of. I’ve been drawn into this – pun intended – working and re-working and adjusting, following heart and hand since early in 2025.

The weight of I want to tell you is more than it would be in a world that only has the right coffee mix and muffin recipe. This body of work became a poem of introspection and despair added to an attempt to take one of the weights/waits of the world in 2025 – climate change and the 2019 Australian bush fires – and put down marks that respond viscerally at least to that elephant in the room.

As with my 2020 All the bees are [not] dying body of work, I hold that life is a constant and emerges against all odds. Resurrection is always possible. Always. When and how is beyond my very limited clarivouyant or exegetical skills and gifts but I am convinced of the reality of life being the being of all, in all and through all. To delcare and fight for this life to be better and healthier and pristine and beautiful is always right while now it seems to be overwhlemingly hopeless.

While ever a bee or a bacteria or a leaf or blackened tree stump carry life then this is what I want to tell you.

Life always will be.

Peter Breen. June 18, 2025.

*Graphite, ink, charcoal, red pencil, guache, water colour, collage, glue, relief print, monotype, found encyclopedia pages, Daiso Japanese calligraphy paper, anko acid free paper [160gsm]

FOR COLLECTORS.

WORKS FOR SALE.

Prints of # 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 22, 23, 25 will be available after June 30.

Each work will be printed on A4 [ 21 x 29.7cm] gsm Hahnamule photo rag paper. The 3cm left hand book binding space will be removed and each work will have an approx 2-5 mm border around the whole perimeter. [ Prints by Martin Barry at Brisbane Digital Imaging]

$80 each + Post

If you are interested in any of the other non-printed works, I am happy to work up new original duplicates. Prices on application.

Please contact pbreen22@outlook.com

Thankyou in anticipation.

The Prophetic Imagination

The evangelical church has a bucket load of stories attached to its brand. And the use of that word is intentional as apart from its hard right faction of heaven and hell mantra preacher/believers the evangelicals were ambushed by capitalist consumption in the 1950’s under the For Sale slogan : Church Growth. Partly fueled by a handsome white male American preacher and post ww2 world wide colonialism the whole of the “boomer” period ( 1945-1964) was caught up in the excitement of the “growth growth growth” infection fetish. And it continues to burn out and leave out scores of church pastoral leaders whose personas and true selves cannot face the daily Ronald McDonald dress up franchise.

One of the many writers who expounded a road less travelled died last week in the USA at 92 was Walter Breuggemann. I discovered his book “The Prophetic Imagination” about 1992. It was one of those good aha books that has stayed in the disturbing/ comforting parts of my brain. It’s a book about the call to diagnose and call out empire.

An empire can grow from the tiniest of seeds. And be an insidious comforting infection.

Brueggemann looks at prophets in the Old Testament ( and the Jesus figure) as people whose primary calling was to expose empire. Empire is always limiting and exclusive, fuelled by ego and encased grandeurs. Its iterations are multiple. Discernment is a tricky intuitive skill to develop. Making marks on the subway walls is a risky rush.

The role of medical imaging is to expose and join the treatment team on disease and trauma, recovery and growth. It’s not a decorative addition to medicine. It says – look at this and fix it!

The arts at times has some pretty thin decoration only elements particularly under the influence of the growth pandemic but it is from the centre of a person’s prophetic imagination and gift/skill base that the insideous dangers of empire are created, published and experienced. Productivity is not the bastion of such expressions of the imagination.

Radiographers and graffiti artists, improv musicians and comedians.

“ The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls” and experienced in the spaces between.

SPIRITUALITY

Mabo Day/Reconciliation Week, June 3

G20 Mural Project Brisbane

Artist: Guido van Helten

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Jugglers Art Space Inc, Visible Ink, Queensland Rail.

Each year on June 3 since the The High Court of Australia ruled in favour of Eddi Koiki Mabo’s victory in overturning the spurious British law terra nullius, people remember the new day that was brought about by Eddie’s campaign. In the light of this ruling, native title was established in Australia and is known as The Native Title Act, 1993. A national holiday is yet to be legislated in his memory.

Spirituality is not locked up only in the rigorous disciplines of a Thomas Merton in a Gethsemane Monastery, Kentucky, hermitage or in a group retreat at Woodford Folk Festival. First nations’ people in Australia have always listened to country for where the voice’s life is. They have done this for thousands of years circled about and founded on their own mythologies and customs.

Their stories have not been given room and space in the dominant white colonial culture in Australia since the invasion in 1788 but there is a growing evolution of interest and story telling around the nation that is giving these stories and rights room. Devastatingly, racial blindness and deeper racism persists and has gained some ground as the failed 2023 Voice Referendum attests to. A recent decision by the CEO of NRL Melbourne team Storm to not to allow Welcome to Country at an Anzac day game in Melbourne – later reversed after massive public outcry – and the attrocious outspoken neo-nazi attack on an aboriginal elder during the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance Dawn service on ANZAC Day is indicative of a push back post The Voice failure by the white male majority who will not leave their narrow violent racist world views and embrace a better way of being in community in a world that is hungry for justice, grace and kindness. Major health concerns, incarceration and lack of mental fitness persist at an alarming rate in aboriginal communtiies and these have been added to by the failure of The Voice. But theirs is a long and determined walk to see rights and reconciliation alive, maturing and celebrated deeply and widely. Ours – I speak as a white Australian male – is at times only turning on click bait time frames and convenience. I am not, however, either nihilistic or overly optimistic of a better Australia in regards to this in my lifetime.

This poem is my tribute to the paths being forged by aboriginal people particularly in the light of the the decision that Eddie Koiki Mabo campaigned so successfuly for.

Land Rights

He walks

A loud quietness

beginning

another 60,000 floating lifetimes

around the sun

or moon

anchored in country

voices mix

a call with guileless intent

no retribution

just

as

a

thin light on the hill flickers

into thousands of a thousand

sparks aloft

against the winds of resistance

blasted to extinguish.

“We can wait”

echoes down the centuries.

Voices hidden.

Art marks scratched to a possible new obscurity

But we will mark again.

He played it forward with love and determined granite persaverance.

Listening hearts can read the voices

unlocked to heal again, again, again.

He walks a story

as ancient as a new old mountain birthed on country

while welcome warms with cautious glances.

Peter Breen

Love is strong as death

I was in Casino on Monday night, a 3 hour drive south of Brisbane. It is a large beef cattle producing area of New South Wales and along with Rockhampton in North Queensland, is one of the largest in the country.

I drove Harley [ my son ] down as his car was needed for the family and the stand-in car would not make it. We have done this kind of thing a fair bit over the past 23 years of his comedy career for a host of reasons and it was great to be on the road together again.

BEEF WEEK is an annual event in Casino and is a highlight of this small country town’s annual calendar. This specific dinner event during the week is a new initiative around Mental Fitness and Suicide in the farming industry. Farming in Australia has one of the highest rates of suicide in Australia* and it was encouraging to see how well this organisation is attempting to to address it. There were about 100 farmers seated to eat the best steaks in the country while two speakers – Harley and Ben from Sydney mental fitness organisation Gotcha4life – told stories around mental fitness [ health ] and how to better access help from family, friends and local organisations while having a laugh to help the steaks go down. The gender imbalance was about 90% white male while the predicatable Beef Queens contestants was indicative of normal farming make up in Australia.

This venture is indicative of love with unashamedly social responsibility in its sites. One of the highlights of the night – apart from my son’s comedy performance which I had heard scores of times before and still laugh at – was the call by Ben to take our phones and send a text message to someone we hadn’t sent a text to for a long time with the following line : “Love you. Miss you. xoxo” It was a moment in time that will remain fixed in my mind as I witnessed beef cattle farmers awkwardly sitting in that space and sending or maybe not sending the message. I sent the message to two people. A liberating moment for me. WIth immediate responses!

It was not a sentimental moment. The hard hitting talk and then Harley’s own self revealing mental health transparency was about a pratical mental fitness regime . It was about solidarity, companionship and mateship with bite. It was about the community’s responsibility to all its moving parts. People! Humanity!

C.S.Lewis of Narnia fame wrote about the 4 loves in his book of the same name. I have often reflected on this work in the challenges of living in relationships, in a world full of injustice and in my own struggles around feeling loved and making sure I am other centred. And wondering how to know what love is. My friend Dave Andrews wrote “Not Religion But Love” a reflection and suggested way of thinking and living as he navigated his own and his wife Ange’s lives in their work in India and in the Waiter’s Union in in Brisbane with a life of being with those left behind. We are exposed to public declarations of religious interest by political leaders who espouse far less focus on the collapse of social justice than they do in their attempt to win crowd support for their policies and decisions: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and now Anthony Albanese. One of those who has a different presence on the public stage is the Irish President Michael D. Higgins who has repeatedly made very clear what his view is on the genocide in Gaza. It is not like any of other three. Compassion, action, declaration, end the war immediately,

Lewis writes about the four Greek words for love: Eros, Storge, Philia and Agape suggesting that at any one time there will be a need to take on board agape love if we are to find our best humanity. This is the love that is totally self-giving while not focussed on the self’s reward for loving the other. Eros [ Romantic/Sexual love] Storge [family love] and Philia [friendship/common interest love] all come to an end of themselves amidst the demands of a world where agape seems to have been sidelined but not and never lost.

To be a lover of the other for the other’s sake needs a book of suggestions and stories for us to find our way. But such initiatives at Gotcha 4 Life is one group that is a love light on the hill for those who may be slipping into despair.

http://www.gotcha4life.org

NOTES:

*In November 2021, the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) presented findings from their Australian-first farmer suicide desktop study at the Australian Rural a

nd Remote Mental Health Symposium. 

The study found that between 2009 and 2018, there were 370 farmer suicides reported, which equates to one farmer taking their own life every 10 days in Australia. 

This study explored farmer suicides using data from the National Coronial Information System, Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and data from Australian institute of Health and Welfare’s National Mortality Database. 

Between 2009 and 2018, the average suicide rate for farmers (18.3 per 100,000) was almost 60 per cent higher than non-farmers (11.5 per 100,000). The suicide rate for farmers has trended upwards in this time, increasing to 22.2 per 100,000 in 2018, which is 94 per cent higher than non-farmers.

Farmers with certain demographic characteristics had higher suicide rates, including males, those who have separated from their spouse, and young and middle-aged farmers.

REF: Life in Mind, Australia. 2022.

ART.Love.Spirituality.Oneness

what art does – an unfinished theory

BRIAN ENO AND BETTE A. Faber, 2025.

“Brian Eno is a British artist, musician and activist. He has made music and visual art for five decades as a composer, producer, collaborator and individual artist. He is a founding member of EarthPercent, a trustee of Client Earth, and co-founder of HardArt.

Bette A.*is a Dutch artist, novelist and art school teacher. Her previous books include Rus Like Everyone Else and What’s Mine. She is co-founder of the Heroines!Movement. “

*Bette Adriaanse

I have just had this book delivered and I was surprised. I thought it was, being a Brian Eno book [ I don’t know Bette A. ] bound to be a big tome. It is tiny. Hard back pink and white and tiny. It’s easy to pick up and read. It’s not a compendium of Oxfordesque art definitiions and endless philosophical pontificiations.

Is it like Eno’s music?

It’s growing on me.

It celebrates all art and that art is everywhere.

“making art seems to be a universal human activity. All over the world, people can be found creating and wearing elaborate costumes pretending to be something else : a dangerous animal, a king, someone from the spirit world.

All over the world people decorate themselves and their surroundings with patterns, shapes and colours, and construct references to places, people and events that aren’t now and here. We don’t know of any human group that doesn’t do art in some form or another, and usually in many different forms.

We could say that art is one of the key attributes of being human, like language. It’s easy to understand why langauge is so universal, but we don’t seem to have a very clear picture of why art should also be.” p2, 3.

Recommended.

LOVE

Looking after yourself after an unexpected loss

Life has a way of throwing unexpected challenges our way, sometimes hitting us in places we least expect. Emotional setbacks—whether personal or professional—can shake our sense of stability, drain our energy and leave us questioning how to move forward. They come in many forms: a career disappointment, the loss of a loved one or a personal health struggle. Here are five strategies to help navigate emotional setbacks and rebuild strength when life feels overwhelming:   1. Acknowledge the Loss, but Don’t Get Stuck in It It’s natural to grieve when something we’ve invested in—whether a dream, a relationship, or years of hard work—falls apart. Ignoring emotions doesn’t make them disappear; it often prolongs the struggle. Give yourself permission to feel the loss, frustration, or sadness. Journal, talk to a friend, or simply sit with your emotions. Just don’t let them define your next steps. Recognizing what has happened is the first step in finding a way forward.   2. Shift Your Focus to What You Can Control After an emotional setback, it’s easy to fixate on what’s been lost. But focusing on what remains—and what is within your control—helps shift the narrative. In my case, I can’t bring back the trees, but I can decide how to restore my land over time. In the workplace, if you’ve faced a setback like a missed promotion or an unsuccessful project, look at the areas where you still have influence. Where can you take action? What next steps can you pursue?   3. Pace Yourself—Recovery Takes Time Resilience isn’t about pushing through at full speed; it’s about sustaining yourself for the long haul. Emotional setbacks take energy, and if you don’t give yourself time to recover, burnout is inevitable. Whether it’s a personal or professional challenge, recognize that healing happens in stages. Take breaks, get outside, lean on support systems, and allow space for rest. You don’t have to rebuild everything overnight.   4. Reframe the Challenge as an Opportunity for Growth Setbacks, as painful as they are, often hold unexpected lessons. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? How can I use this experience to grow? When a project at work fails, it can highlight areas for development. When life throws a personal hardship your way, it can reinforce what truly matters. Even in loss, there’s the potential for renewal.   5. Find Strength in Small Wins Moving forward after an emotional setback doesn’t happen in giant leaps—it happens in small steps. Celebrate small wins, whether that’s making progress on a new goal, handling a tough situation with more grace, or simply getting through a difficult day. Each small step builds confidence and resilience. Sometimes, just taking the next right step is enough.

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ART

What is art?

I’ve started asking that again now.

And my art work stuckness

Has a lot to do with that internal question.

But there is an art theme in Australia.

One of the Jugglers Art Space highlights

was being offered the big old

Shed on the river in 2012.

It was a remarkable gift for Studios.

The Government agency wanted us to have it

for a Peppercorn Lease – for 3 years.

“And we would like you to paint the door.”

“The big, big, doors.”

I asked international artist and Jugglers’ friend

Guido van Helten if he would design

And paint it.

He did – two massive welcoming hands on the old

ship building building.

The bureaucrat response:

“Take that down. It’s too frightening for the children.”

Two hands!

The kids were there once a year!

On secluded industrial land!

They had us paint instead:

THE SHED

An article today in from Hart Youth* and posted on Face Book is symptomotic.

And the high profile Creative Australia’s

Recent reversal of the Venice Bienalle Selection.

Khaled Sabsabi, the Lebanese-Australian artist dumped as Australia’s representative at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has spoken publicly for the first time since Creative Australia withdrew his highly prized commission.

Khaled Sabsabi

What is art?

What is art in Australia

Careful…

Careful…

Careful…

Peter Breen, May 7, 2025.

McArthur Avenue, Hamilton, Brisbane with Juggers “The Shed”

WHERE HOPE SITS

by Matilda Emmerich

“With the weight of a world upon his wings, an Angel took a breath and sat back. 

If it weren’t for the bloody ruins, he might even look relaxed. 

Death sat upon one shoulder, Power upon the other.

Any kindness Death showed, Power would smother. 

With one last look across a broken world, he lay down like a wounded deer,

while Death held his hand, Power whispered in his ear
“At least we’ll have Mars.”

And though he was dying, the angel did laugh. 

And laugh

and laugh. 

Until Death cut through the violence, then replaced the loud silence, and took its turn to whisper

“When you don’t make the trip to Mars and you don’t drive one of those flashy cars; when your prayers aren’t answered —not by Jesus or Buddha; not even the Pope—there’s something you will always have,”

and that thing is called hope.“

Sixteen-year-old HART Youth Ambassador, Matilda Emmerich was initially told her painting could not be included in the Open Art Category of the Hawkesbury Show because it was too heavy to hang. When she questioned the decision—given the painting’s not-unusual weight and the absence of a weight limit in the Show’s Rules and Regulations—she was then informed the content was inappropriate.
The oil painting, created specifically for the Show, features a young, wounded angel surrounded by the torn flags of countries currently in conflict. Titled ‘Where Hope Sits’ a poem is included within the frame emphasising the piece as a message of hope in a time of global uncertainty.
The painting was ultimately rejected on the grounds of being a security concern, with organisers stating that it could potentially upset viewers to the point of provoking a violent response toward the artwork or others nearby.
While respecting the organisers’ commitment to public safety and their right to curate entries, it raises an important question:
Where should a work like this—created by a teenager in regional NSW as a heartfelt expression for her community—be seen and shared?
For next year’s competition, Matilda was encouraged to

try painting a landscape. [!!!]

https://www.hartyouth.com/art?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExOHIyNHNENFJ4NmZzdktZdgEegrMq4uA_YqjK0CZ7FBgaDEsEF7aFgzcazAe65ZzNgVvTQn1Z86cPDMIIQeU_aem_qWLDSNekuAQe_Ddkwv1ZRw

Another symptom and symbol of the non-importance of art for the whole community is the Liberals focus and the underfunding by the ALP. The Greens are the best and most passionate about art.

ONENESS

In the opening chapter of John Berger’s important book of the BBC film series “Ways of Seeing” [ Pelican, 1972] he introduces us to the observed effect photographic reproduction has on how we see great works of art.

“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain the world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and we know is never settled. The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.“

How we see the world and construct world views that affect how we relate to the physical world and the people in it and political decisions in our small and bigger world are first given to us by our parents and then expanded in education and community but increasingly how we see is now influenced by the speed of what we are experiencing via all kinds of media. How we see the world we live in for our few short years will always affect our experience of and engagement or non-engagement in community. Oneness is a poetic almost romanitc notional description of unity but it strikes a chord with me. Is my keen interest in and pursuit of humanity’s oneness/harmony/unity in family and community out dated? Can we survive in our own heads and in a digital media fed head space apart from and separate from “real” community, especially if we are just plain sick of living in community along with the busyness of what feels like an endless spinning wheel of fortune seeking?

It is quite obvious that excluvisist tribalism is on the acendancy, not unity, oneness or community. There are positive examples of hard work in all kinds of places where oneness is being fostered and built but the tribal gods are flexing.

I have long held the view that the United Nations, since its inception in 1948, is one of the best expressions of a range of the best of really good community building – or rebuilding – echoing some religious teachings about cooperative peace making and restorative justice as these words : “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.” Peace making is not peace-keeping which does not build oneness but only separation from conflict – a necessary essential in domestic violence and escalating war scenarios. To work with others in respectful listening and active collaboration to “build a better world” rather than just being a “self-made success story” is according to this scripture tantamount to what being “children of God” is – not holding to some kind of belief system. It is higher affirmation than a bulging bank account. The push back from globalisation by the new American President is in stark contrast to the late Pope Francis’s work with the poor and his determination to build at least the Catholic church’s greater inclusion of a broader racial representation and oneness.

It is not easy to foster unity, collaboration or oneness. My experience and observation is that individualism is the easiest and seems the most rewarding – for me or the individual – but from there the slope can be steep and disastrous in terms of building oneness if modes of communication are immature. The frightening impact of social media on narcissism and stunted relationship development is the current pandemic.

Oneness is not the neglect of one’s self or the death of the imagination and the intellect. It is the engaging of the fullest and best of the self to bring about the never ending vision of a maturing oneness with those we live, work and love with. It is in fact the greatest challenge to set aside a self-serving agenda and bring constant contributions to a wider conversation in order to come to some new understanding and agreement that will feel as if we belong to each other. Sometimes this is in the flow of congeniality or it can be in the hardest of envirnoments when our values and world views are suddenly under the spotlight and at times found wanting. Change is at the core of maturing evolutionary development within society, in relationships, marriages, friendships, clubs, political parties and religions. To resist change is to stagnate and be fooled into tribal blindness. The whole world is an evolving ecosystem, including social groupings.

The impact of social media on building oneness has validity. But as with Berger’s assessement that photographic reproduction of original art work works against what happens when we view the original art work even though it is a way of seeing, opting out of real engagement with partner, friend or other social groups to be immersed in a small unaccountable self serving world and a digital media world will not help build healthy evolving microcosms of oneness. We are, as humans, meant to be in maturing healthier communities where new ways of inclusion for a healthier oneness is the norm.

God knows the world currently needs more “children of god” who are determined peacemaker pilgrims.

Peter Breen, April 23, 2025

The gathering at an open farm tour day, Echol Valley Farm, Goomburra, SE Queensland.

SPIRITUALITY

I find it difficult to describe or explain spirituality.

It feels a bit like this work by Peter Kozak [ Winner of the Jugglers Art Space Marie Ellis OAM Prize for Drawing in 2012]. The words don’t satisfy and a description is impossible. The puzzled look and my own confusion continue to draw me back into reclusion, meditation, drawing and silence.

I recently watched a U-Tube clip of an interview with psychoanalyst Carl Jung towards the end of his life where the interviewer asked him if he believed in God. Jung came from a religious background where his father was a village pastor in Switzerland but in answering this question he paused and responded with: “…do I believe in God now? Difficult to answer. I don’t need to believe…I know…I know.” I resonate with the sentiment and would hand the interviewer a copy of Kozak’s drawing while never being as erudite or sure as Jung.

Spirituality and art have a long history. I would suggest that they are inseparable and always have been. I am not a fan of categorising the creative impulses that labels artists as “creatives” so that it immediately becomes local lingo and art colleges now award a Bachelor of Creative Industries – as if art was an industry. Of course that is the case in capitalism’s consumerist value base, living off a productivity commission’s research recommendations.

But creativity is descriptive of the core of what it means to be human, as is spirituality. Art has been and continues to be a way of attempting to find a way of making sense of the self and experience, of the world and it’s endless complexities. It is no wonder poetry is near the best form of finding some kind of meaning in the necessary dive into the dark spaces between, while somewhat inexplicalby linked to spirituality.

#untitled Ink, charcoal on paper. Artist: Peter Breen

As with art and consumerism, spiritualithy has been ambushed by religion and the church so that as with Jung, one has to move out from belief to the floating fog of knowing/unknowing.

Richard Rohr

“In his 2016 book The Divine Dance, [Fransican Priest Richard] Rohr suggests that the top-down hierarchy of Western Christianity since Emperor Constantine has held ecumenical traditions back for centuries and that the future of people of faith will have to involve a bottom-up approach.Rohr maintains what he would call prophetic positions, on the “edge of the inside” of a church that he sees as failing to transform people, and thus increasingly irrelevant. Rohr explains:

To live on the edge of the inside is different than being an insider, a “company man” or a dues paying member. Yes, you have learned the rules and you understand and honor the system as far as it goes, but you do not need to protect it, defend it or promote it. It has served its initial and helpful function. You have learned the rules well enough to know how to “break the rules” without really breaking them at all. “Not to abolish the law but to complete it” as Jesus rightly puts it (Matthew 5:17). A doorkeeper must love both the inside and the outside of his or her group, and know how to move between these two loves.” Richard Rohr, Wikipedia.

As you know I took time out of the inside of “my group” in 2002 and have been an outisder outsider ever since, exploring spirituality and creativity as an arts administrator, a late beginner artist and a very irreverent reverend . I now find panentheism a very helpful overarching description to use to make some sense of what I was and what I am now becoming as a mystic lover and wanderer around unknown metaphysical geographies.

“In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Rohr says he is a panentheist. He goes on to state that panentheism is the true position of Jesus and Paul:

But Paul merely took incarnationalism to its universal and logical conclusions. We see that in his bold exclamation, “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11). If I were to write that today, people would call me a pantheist (the universe is God), whereas I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), exactly like both Jesus and Paul.” Richard Rohr, Wikipedia.

White Silence – Queensland Univiersity of Technology, Southbank, 2015.

I am currently reading “The Creative Act: A Way of Living” by Rick Rubin. Canongate, 2023. It’s the kind of book that makes sense of spirituality and art in a way that a systematic theologian could never do. I’m sure Jung would “get this.”

“Awareness

In most of our daily activities we choose the agenda and develop a strategy to achieve the goal at hand. We create the program. Awareness moves differently. The program is happening around us. The world is the doer and we are the witness. We have little or no control over the content. The gift of awareness allows us to notice what’s going on around and inside ourselves in the present moment. And to do so without attachment or involvement. We may observe bodily sensations, passing thoughts and feelings, sounds or visual cues, smells and tastes. Through detached noticing, awareness allows an observed flower to reveal more of itself without our intervention. This is true of all things. Awareness is not a state you force. There is little effort involved, though persistence is the key. It’s something you actively allow to happen. It’s a presence with, and acceptance of, what is happening is the eternal now.

As soon as you label an aspect of Source, you’re no longer noticing, you’re studying. This holds true of any thought that takes you out of presence with the object of your awareness, whether analysis or simply becoming aware that you’re aware. Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of our attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it. “

Artist and film maker the late David Lynch suggested that if we get an idea for a drawing or a film or a photo or a poem that we must write it down as we will soon forget it. This is being strongly linked to awareness.

How can we cultivate awareness and reduce analysis?

Peter Breen, April 16, 2025.

LOVE

“But I’m not like that, this conduct is not part of my character, nor of my ethics.Minds that seek revenge destroy states, while those that seek reconciliation build nations. Walking out the door to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave all the anger, hatred and resentment behind me, I would still be a prisoner.” Nelson Mandella.

We are currently immersed in a world that suddenly feels like a full blown tantrum, because it is. Comparing Nelson Mandela with the current president of the United States seems as stark a difference as any moment in history. There have been countless research projects, books written, films made and millions murdered over the years around similar political leaders – Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Augusto Pinochet and Benjamin Netanyahu and a host more. It’s no surprise that the gender gap here is largely in favour of the male species. There will be more to come on Donald Trump if we all survive. The cautionary tale here is how critical parental training and education is in developing universal mature ethics and responsible public morality for the common good. These matters raise the possibility of selfless love and compassion being foundational in a maturing and adult society where generosity, kindness and listening with presence are experienced and respected more than male individualistic bravado and apparent heroism.

The character of a leader is what makes a leader a positive change agent while love finds its expression in the public domain with how the leader sees and acts towards issues of social justice for the marginalised. It will always be the litmus test. I am wearing a T-Shirt that celebrates the 60th anniversary of The Wayside Chapel in Sydney, founded by the former Methodist minister the late Ted Noffs and on the back of the shirt are the words: 60 Years Creating Community With No Us and Them.

My sibblings and I were raised in a fundamentalist Christian home but we were also raised in a home where the Wayside Chapel values were espoused and lived. Love was always seen as welcome, as affirmation and as addressing social injustice. It was not a perfect mix but it was strong and all of us have continued to attempt to live out those values in our lives professionally, in society and with our own families.

Capitalism is not the friend of social justice. It might mask it with the crumbs from the table and tax deductable donations to charities but in general the capitalism we are now immersed in is in over drive racing at a mad stampede pace to prop up the increasing class divide, loveless communities and super consumerism as a mark of reward for skewed work values.

How should we then live and be is a question more and more of us are asking if only as a momentary response to the collapse of the share market and our superannuation funds. Love in daily life I am finding is a value habit to be revisited through meditation and action. Children love as part of being alive. So do some adults. But love as a choice, as a value that is in our hearts and souls is to be cultivated and it is possible to love too much. This apparent contradiction is merely an invitation to take time out not abandoning love to be replaced with narcissitic self-indulgence and entitled consumerism.

What is a difficult choice you have had to make in your work place in respect of social justice towards a work colleague?

Recommended site:

http://www.eapassist.com.au

Peter Breen, April 9, 2025.

Photo Credit: Ring of Kerry, Eire, Public Domain.

A.L.S.O.

Art – George Gittoes

“The Preacher” – George Gittoes

Art has impact. It comes from and takes us to the spaces between life’s linear sameness. Giftedness? I think there could be but determination, practice, focus, people, failures and opportunities all end up in the parabolic tensions of growth. My own mark making has evolved into the spaces between while considering how far to move away from the avalanches of amazing artists like George. How does one make a mark with their own mark? I am learning this: mark making must be honed from concept, dream and intuitive hints. And never ending actual mark work in the studio. And wherever.

George Gittoes is a unique and outstanding artist in Australia who is well known as a painter and film maker and for his remarkable Yellow House in Kabul and more recently his work in Kyiv, Ukraine. “Gittoes [has an]unflinching belief in the power of art to counteract war.”

I found the following story by Elizabeth Fortescue deeply moving.

Image Courtesy George Gittoes – Hazelhurst Sutherland Shire

“This painting is called ‘The Preacher’, by the Australian artist George Gittoes. It depicts that moment when the preacher was urging peace and strength on his flock, just before they were all hacked to death in the Kibeho Massacre, an infamous event in the history of Rwanda. Gittoes witnessed the horrors of the massacre as it unfolded over several days. This preacher, who was calming his flock just before they were all hacked to death, remains to this day a symbol of calm and dignity in the midst of the unthinkable. Now in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the painting has just gone on view to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the massacre. 
Gittoes wrote: “In the midst of [the massacre], I heard the most beautiful choral singing. I followed the sound and there was a preacher holding a bible up and leading his congregation in song. It was incredibly moving. He had restored their dignity. They would not die like frightened animals but with their inner pride in place. I asked him if he thought that if I stayed with them they might not be killed. He said: ‘It is more likely George, as they do not want witnesses and you have documented their crimes’. He then showed me four young boys whose parents had been killed in the night and asked me if I could try to get them to safety. Reluctantly, I agreed. I used my best magic and got the boys out safely past the killers who were beheading anyone who tried to escape. I put them under a UN truck and they lived. When I returned, the whole congregation were dead on the ground among their possessions. I could only find the preacher’s blood-stained yellow coat. I never found his body”.

By Elizabeth Fortescue
#gittoesartist
#Australianarthistory
#artnotwar
#georgegittoes

Original Post/Source: Facebook.

Does pretty art or art with an aesthetic appeal have a place in our lives?

How does art act as a signpost in our lives, influencing decisions and futures?

Peter Breen, April 2, 2025.

“George Gittoes is an eyewitness in the world’s contact zones. Visiting the battle- and killing-fields of Rwanda, Iraq, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Bosnia and Afghanistan, Gittoescaptures the atrocities and attacks on basic human rights. He produces poignant, rare images of the aftermath of terror, shock and death on the edge of human experience.

Gittoes is described simultaneously as a figurative painter, a modernist, a postmodernist, a social realist, a pop artist and an expressionist. His painting The Preacher, winner of the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1995, was completed following his visit to Rwanda in 1995 with the Australian peacekeeping forces.

Also an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, several feature films covering the war on terror have been released by Gittoes since 2004. 
Gittoes acknowledges his journey is one into the heart of human darkness: “I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself.”

Gittoes has received significant critical acclaim and is widely published, with a monologue on the artist’s career released by Gavin Fry in 2003. His work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum, the State Library of NSW, the Queensland Art Gallery and the Museum & Art Gallery of NT, as well as in regional Galleries throughout Australia and private collections in Australia, Germany, the USA, Canada, the UK and Switzerland.

After being awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of NSW in 2008, Gittoes relocated to Berlin in early 2009, working closely with Mayen Beckmann, the distinguished German curator and granddaughter of the iconic German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann. It was in Berlin that Gittoes produced and exhibited his Descendence series (2009–10), before returning to the Tribal Belt of Pakistan.Gittoes’ ongoing endeavour to reveal the horror and complexity of war is unique.”

Ref: http://www.nandahobbs.com

ONENESS

This is a great word for hippies and being at Woodfolk Folk Festival or for elasticity in relationships. It’s great for the personality types who don’t demand and expect none to be given. But a folk festival cannot last forever! In retirement now – technically and officially, just ask Centerlink – I am glad to have minimal time with any other human, to live in my studio with ink and charcoal. But as Nick Cave says in his Red Hand Files today:

The creative urge is a gift not afforded to everyone, and those of us who possess it bear a responsibility to pursue that impulse wholeheartedly. However, there are other duties beyond those at the tip of your brush or nib of my pen – beautiful and sacrificial fidelities. You have committed to your wife and son to offer them more than just the crumbs of yourself, the dregs of what remains of you after a day with the devil in the shed. You are in service to your creative impulses – and by the same token to God – but you are also in service to the world as it presents itself, and to those entrusted to you. This is a point of honour.  It is with a hard-earned understanding, and the most profound regret, that I can tell you that no artistic endeavour, no matter how sublime it may appear, is worth denying your family or sacrificing those in your care. 

Cave has been ripped from his hard earned ego stroking entitled lifestyle by tragedy. His life, art, relationships, world view and mental health have been shocked into multiple new paths of living, being and understanding. Now there is a desperate generosity, kindess and disciplined listening at a staggering level of commitment.

Suffering, surprise and survival.

We are conditioned to hold celebrity, success and achievement as important marks of being human to the detriment of relationships and community, of oneness. A Cave catastrophe, illness, separation or just getting older with more time to seriously reflect can awaken awareness of others to where it should have been. I use “should” advisedly but it is a modal verb that indicates a failure in the past, questionable action or a narrow undeveloped world view. The path to being more at one with a world we are already one with is fraught by dint of the conditioned capitalist systemic sacred cow of individualism. It’s a mind control that velcroes us to our selves and so in the words of Bob Dylan from Rough and Rowdy Ways – “I contain multitudes.” Making the move to a new awareness of being one with humanity and all that is living is not for the faint hearted. But it is essential if for nothing else for the flourishing of life and beauty. There are multiple examples in the world out side of ourselves that demonstrate the ugliness of unrestrained ego.

I Contain#1, Multitudes #2 – Ink, charcoal, collage, graphite, guache, glue on paper. Artist: Peter Breen. 2025.

A strong word for me is intention. It is a word that opens a window on how to be in the demands my relationships and world bring to my lived experience and all part of the oneness I believe in. It does not necessarily determine how well I behave or respond to others or my environment but it tempers harsh judgement, slows panic and dilutes fear. I have found that I am more at one with myself if my intention is to respect and listen to others and to foster observation and understanding. The dark side of intention is burnout or exhaustion but that does not mean abandoning oneness or intention. Self-respect and self-care are disciplines that are necessary elements of a life lived as if oneness is in our DNA. And it is.

What is the hardest aspect of oneness with other people for you in your lived experience?

What is an example of one thing you have you overcome and how are you overcoming it to strengthen oneness?

Peter Breen, March 26, 2025.

Spirituality

Well known Fransican priest Richard Rohr suggests that religion in the early days of Christianity was a nurturing space for the healthy growth of spirituality and spiritual inquiry. My experience of Christian religion has rarely fostered that idea but in general it has been around protecting tribal belief systems rather than a very broad and non dualistic spiritual safe place. It could be said that religion looked at from the outside seems exclusive and hardly nurturing though initiatlly welcoming. It seems light on love and listening – particularly the monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Isalm – and strong on proclamation. However, a place and space – as an individual or in a group – where spirituality can be experienced, fostered, explained and shared and has not become cultic I am convinced is possible.

Deciding to write on spirituality on this page as part of my A.L.S.O. acrostic is daunting but spirituality or spiritual inquiry is of the essence in being human, being alive and being part of a living planet. As holocaust survivor and logotherapy founder Viktor Frankl says we need to and want to make some kind of sense and meaning of our lives. He infers that spirituality is part of that. I want to write about how my understanding and experience of spirit/spirituality continues to evolve and hope that in that writing there will be some resonance with readers.

Having been a preacher for 20 years of my life, megaphone style, I realise that declarations are part of the persona. I relished the trust given to me to unpack life, scipture and story but in reflection the spiritual experience of mine and of parishoners was probably best described as light on. And I am not really sure of what it could have become given where I was at when I began my life as a pastor. Intense and determined I was. But being part of a tribe for those years I was obliged to perform and believe while all the time battling with questions of meaning and spiritual reality.

This drawing of mine represesents dissonant tensions. Proclomation, indoctrination, time management and apparent insurmountable blockages in the search for certainty.

I have concluded that certainty is not attainable while mystery and the unknown are safe realms.

How do we live with mystery and the unknown and make sense of them if only for a moment in time?

Is this all in our spiritual wondering? I have no definitive final answers.

Stories including art and film from multiple sources are becoming the frameworks of my endless spiritual inquiry.

Viktor Frankl “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Peter Breen March 18, 2025.

LOVE

Love has multiple interpretations, mulptiple experiences. The romance of it has flourished and been tarnished and lost. It still flourishes, is still tarnished and is still lost….and found. People divorce and separate and try again. Families break up and then creep back together with or without unburdening the hurt of years, mistakes, abuses or misundertandings.

“Love is strong as death.”

In the public domain the shop steward on the factory floor – a diminishing figure for years now – could be said to be living out love in his/her solidarity and action with and for the legislated and hard fought rights of the workers against capitalist greed.

The 3 year old embraces and cries, laughs and plays with everyone in the playground without judgement. The ageing nursing home resident finally says after years of moving on and distancing friends and family who are different: “We just need to accept each other.”

Nelson Mendela after his release from 27 years of incarceration tells this story of love: ….”After I became president, I asked my escort to go to a restaurant for lunch. We sat down and each of us asked what we wanted.On the front table, there was a man waiting to be served. When he was served, I said to one of my soldiers: go and ask that gentleman to join us. The soldier went and conveyed my invitation to him. The man got up, took his plate and sat down right next to me.While he ate his hands trembled constantly and he did not lift his head from his food. When we finished, he said goodbye without looking at me, I shook his hand and he left. The soldier told me: Madiba that man must have been very ill, seeing as his hands didn’t stop shaking while he ate. Absolutely no! the reason for his trembling is another. Then I told him: ….That man was the warden of the prison where I stayed. After he tortured me, I screamed and cried asking for some water and he came humiliated me, laughed at me and instead of giving me water, he urinated in my head.He is not sick, he was afraid that I, now president of South Africa, would send him to prison and do to him what he did to me. But I’m not like that, this conduct is not part of my character, nor of my ethics.Minds that seek revenge destroy states, while those that seek reconciliation build nations. Walking out the door to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave all the anger, hatred and resentment behind me, I would still be a prisoner.”

– Nelson Mandela.

In Julia Baird’s book “Bright Shining – How Grace Changes Everything” she writes in The Callus : On Restorative Justice ” What’s fascinating about restorative justice, experts say, is that the loudest calls for it are coming from survivors, who are pushing for alternatives to a justice system that too often revicitmise and fails the people who have been harmed. Typically, restorative justice works alongside – not in place of – the legal process, and involves bringing victims together with perpetrators in a facilitated environment where they can seek accountability, information and an opportunituy to speak some truths. It aims to give victims a voice, usually denied in court, where they may only get to answer questions or, in some rare cases, when there has been a conviction, give a witness statement. Victims usually want to be heard and believed, and to be sure the person won’t reoffend.

Restorative justice has been used with great effect for decades in juvinile justice, with victims of motoring accidents, and in dealing with a range of other offences, in myrias ways, in Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Northern Ireland, Belgium and the US state of Arizona, and among Navajo, Maori and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander communities. “

Love has this kind of application.

I am finding that I need to take time to sit and let the love imperative take centre stage in my heart, my intention and my planning – immediate and long term. Sitting or on the run, in conflict and in reflection love is the return button. How can I advocate for young offenders under the current conservative government in Queensland’s “Adult Crime, Adult Time” legislation given what Julia Baird writes? What about closer to home in differences in understanding and communication in our 51 year marriage?

“Love is strong as death.”

Peter Breen, March 12, 2025.

What is an experience of love that you would be willing to talk about that has enriched your lived experience?

Next week I will be reflecting with you on Spirituality in the ALSO acronym. This is an evocative term and one that might trigger revulsion from previous bad religious experiences or on the other hand, it might be one you love to consider and immerse yourself in out of your own interest or hunger.

ART is some kind of mark making response to the moment, to the swirling observations, thoughts, emotions, mysteries, traumas, beauty and silences we live immersed in.

More than one friend has said to me “O you’re a bit arty are you?” or “O my wife does that kind of stuff to help her while I’m away” or “Now that I’m retired I’ve decided I will do something arty.”

South African artist William Kentridge describes his art practice: “I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain ending – an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check, and nihilism at bay.” Instagram: @williamkentridgestudio

John O’Dononue suggests convincingly that we are all artists with imagination and so we are all constructing a world from those centres that continue to add to building and breaking. I am convinced that nothing is ever finally built or broken as all existence is in a never ending flow.

“We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty. “We are each an artist”, said the poet, priest, and philosopher John O’Donohue, “We each possess an imagination. Everyone, whether they like it or not, is involved in the construction of the world”. Every action we take and every word we speak builds or breaks the planet.” Nick Cave Red Hand Files Issue #315

Identity Crisis Ink, red pencil, guache, graphite, gesso on found dictionary pages. Artist: Peter Breen 2017

Dried aerosol paint chards on a plinth. Approximately 16 years aging. Jugglers Art Space 2018

The Folly of Certainty – Waste no Time #2 Charcoal, ink, red pencil on paper 2023 Artist: Peter Breen

City Lights – a Mile Up Charcoal on arches paper Artist: Peter Breen 2024

The Near Present Opportunithy Guache, ink, charcoal, gesso on found encyclopedia page. Artist: Peter Breen 2025

All of the above works are an attempt to observe, listen and respond to the life I am immersed in. The moments each work concept arrives, triggering the work as a note in a journal or a list or a mark on a scrap of paper on the bench. Each work is within a moment in time, a response. And then it evolves or is the door latch to a new draft and as Kentridge says that it is the “less good idea” that often gets up!

Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is an installation artist based in Scotland. This work of his was my profile image on Facebook for a couple of years. Evocative of “kicking against the pricks” – a well worn biblical phrase – and for years it communicated a subtle sense of comfort. It seemed to me that this artist was looking out through my eyes into my life’s thorn infested pilgrimage in the flow of living.

Each of my works above evoke memories and further questions. They invite me to sit with them a bit more. To find their soul and mine. And I wonder about Andy Goldsworthy’s inner path to his installation.

What is going on with these works?

The multitudes of possiblities are scratched onto old pages in Identity Crisis, grief’s stamp is on the beauty of 16 years of open graffiti studios, The Folly of Certainty, Waste no Time #2 is a call to find a path in the brambles of overwhelming words and noise, nostalgic reminiscences flying into Narm in City Lights – A Mile Up as I listen spell bound to composer Stuart Greenbaum’s piece of the same name on ABC radio and then under the spell of Russian film maker Andrei Tarkovsky I sit with him and refect on the multitudes of possibiities in The Near Present Opportunity. What do I give myself to? What does existence mean? The honest never ending search for meaning is as open ended as anything can ever be.

These works are autobiographical, narrative chapters in a complex life of complex choices and experiences. Moments caught as marks. Making marks is a human thing, a way of being, acting and acting out and recording. As an artist I spend time, hours and days finding my mark making genre and honing eye hand fluidity. I look foward to the creak of the studio door, the space on the bench, the brush and ink, the charcoal and paper, the guache and pencil, the founation pen. The draws of paper and progress and completed works, collections and books stored away from moisture and moths. The space as a place of home.

Reflection:

Which one of these works would you consider you have some resonance with?

Why?

In the next ALSO – ART essay I will look at Art’s appeal – aesthetics and decor.

Next week: March 12, 2025 The second ALSO word: Love

Peter Breen March 5, 2025.

Artist: William Kentridge “Sunlight on a leaf”

As we wait for cyclone Alfred to land here in Brisbane, “Sunlight on a leaf” has future possibilities.

Art, Love, Spirituality, Oneness

A.L.S.O.

I am keen to continue writing, to explore my world – in my head and outside of it – with stories, images, reflections, opionions and reviews, to share with you, my friends and reading audience.

ALSO is an acrostic outline around the four areas of inquiry – Art, Love, Spirituality and Oneness that came to me in a dream last year and it has anchored me since as a ritual of sorts. It leads to reflections, meditation and mark making in the home studio.

What does art mean and why do I need to make marks?

What is love in good times and bad?

What is spirituality after experiences of religious disillusionment and never ending aggression?

What does human oneness look like when peace seems impossible in families much less in nations?

My life is full and given the state of the world, which in my life time as a privileged white male, has never been so fraught and tentative, I need some kind of framework to enable me to consider what is in and what is out, what I feel impelled to respond to and what to let go as the overwhleming nature of its impact increases.

I hope that this can be of some assistance to readers and friends and I will respond to all replies.

I look foward to some kind of loose community of thinkers and inquirers.

Peter Breen

Guache, collage, glue on paper. 21 x 29.7 cm Artist: Peter Breen

When was the last time that you were able to be still and feel calm in both your body and mind while being still. I bet some of you are saying “never” or “when on earth do I have time to be still and calm”.  The lives we lead today and full of action, deadlines, beeps, buzzes, alarms and just continually being on. Stillness is the absence of movement or sound, and I am wondering if you actually can think of some where you could be that you could actually experience the definition of being “still”. Research has shown that some of the benefits of stillness include: Lowered blood pressure Decreasing heart rate Increase in breath stabilisation Reduced muscle tension Increased focus and cognition Increased feelings of peace Physical and mental rest and reset Some people find stillness very hard to achieve, usually because it is so unfamiliar, but it is like riding a bike or taking up any new skill – it all comes down to practice. Here are some ways that you can begin learning to be still and enjoy the many health benefits it brings, you might even like to teach your family: Focus on our breath – breath into your belly for 3 counts, hold for 3 counts and breath out for 6-8 counts for 1 minute. Practice taking time – during the day before you start a new task just stop for 15 seconds and be still – extend this by 5 seconds every couple of days. Schedule stillness – let others know that you are having time out and again start slowly building up being still and feeling calm about giving yourself that time. Sit or lie in nature – allow yourself to find a special spot to just be, personally I love floating in water be it a pool, bath or the ocean. I am still and calm – you might need to reprogram you brain from being very busy to recognising your stillness time – an affirmation repeated during your stillness practice can help with this process. If your still finding stillness a hard skill then maybe start by trying to be calm and focussed while you listen to a song or read a book, maybe even drawing as a starting point.

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Leitir Fraic, Connemara, Eire Water Colour on paper. Artist: Peter Breen

Grief is a deeply personal experience that affects everyone differently, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a job, or any other significant part of life; the emotional impact can feel overwhelming. Often leaving you feeling lost and unsure of how to move past it. While there is no easy fix, finding ways to cope can ease the burden and help you heal. Here are some key strategies to help you navigate grief: 1.      Allow Yourself to Feel Grief brings a mix of emotions—sadness, anger, guilt, confusion, and even relief—and all of them are valid. Suppressing or denying these feelings can make healing harder, so give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling. 2.      Talk About It Sharing your grief with friends, family, or a therapist can help you process your emotions and combat feelings of isolation. Connecting with others who understand can provide a sense of comfort and support. 3.      Take Care of Your Health Grief impacts both the mind and body. Eating well, sleeping enough, and exercising can help manage stress and maintain emotional resilience. Your physical well-being plays a key role in healing. 4.      Create Rituals or Memorials Honouring the memory of your loss with rituals—like lighting a candle or visiting a special place—can provide comfort and a sense of closure, allowing you to maintain a connection as you move forward. 5.      Give Yourself Time Grief doesn’t have a set timeline. Everyone grieves at their own pace, and it’s important to be patient with yourself. Trust that, over time, the intensity of your pain will lessen. 6.      Practice Mindfulness and Meditation Mindfulness and meditation can calm your mind and help centre your emotions. Techniques like deep breathing or guided meditation can bring moments of peace during turbulent times. 7.      Seek Professional Help if Needed If grief becomes overwhelming, consider seeking professional support from a support group or EAP Assist. These resources offer a safe space to explore your feelings and receive guidance in coping strategies.

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Copyright © 2025 EapAssist, All rights reserved.
Eap Assist Subsribers List

Our mailing address is:

EapAssist

101 Collins Street

Melbourne, Vic 3000

Australia

Used with permission