Stretching the Space Between Thoughts
Discovering what my Sketch Stretching workshop was pointing to all along
This morning I became aware that thoughts were moving through in rapid succession.
Some felt good.
Some felt bad.
Some I liked.
Some I didn’t.
Happy thoughts.
Sad thoughts.
Memories.
Plans.
Commentary.
One after another.
At first, I was simply noticing them.
And then something became obvious.
There were really two different activities happening at once.
The first was just the play-by-play.
A thought appears.
Another thought appears.
Another.
Just noticing.
But then there was something else.
A second voice.
The color commentary.
This one wasn’t simply noticing the thoughts.
It was sorting them.
Good.
Bad.
Keep this.
Don’t like that.
More of this.
Less of that.
And as soon as I saw that…
an old mantra quietly returned:
Let go of the past.
Let go of the future.
Let go of any thought but now.
Don’t build anything.
Don’t take anything apart.
Just rest.
And then, for a brief instant…
the thoughts stopped.
Or maybe more accurately…
the commentary stopped.
And what was left…
was spaciousness.
Just space.
Open.
Quiet.
Unoccupied.
And then almost immediately…
another thought appeared:
Can this space be stretched?
And that’s when something clicked.
That may be what my Sketch Stretching workshop has been about all along.
I don’t even remember exactly why I first chose that name.
It just felt right.
But this morning, it became clear.
Sketching is not simply drawing what appears in the mind.
Sketching slows the movement.
It catches what normally passes too quickly.
It gives shape to what usually flashes by unnoticed.
And in doing so…
it stretches the space between thoughts.
Not by forcing silence.
Not by stopping the mind.
But by slowing the commentary…
long enough
for awareness
to notice itself.
Spiritual Gravity 