This morning I was thinking about thought before it becomes a thought.
Not a thought about something.
Just thought.
Maybe a kind of energy. Something undifferentiated, before it gets a name or a meaning or a story attached to it.
Like ice cream before the flavor is added.
It is still ice cream. Milk and sugar and whatever else makes it ice cream. But it hasn’t become chocolate or vanilla or strawberry yet.
Then something happens.
A little flavor gets added.
And suddenly it is chocolate.
Another thought comes along and it becomes something else.
Maybe happiness. Maybe sadness. Maybe fear. Maybe a memory. Maybe an old reaction that has been sitting around for years waiting for something to wake it up.
The underlying stuff may not have changed that much. But now it has a flavor.
I was also thinking about a garbage truck.
Everything gets thrown into it. Things that have already served their purpose. Things that are broken down. Things that are no longer needed.
But inside the truck, it is all just material.
Then it gets sorted.
Broken apart.
Separated.
Some tiny pieces fall through little openings. Other pieces stay behind.
And somehow the material gets used again.
Maybe that’s what happens with thought.
Something enters awareness and the mind starts sorting it.
This belongs over here.
This reminds me of that.
This is good.
This is bad.
This is me.
This isn’t me.
And before long, something that started as almost nothing has become a very definite thought.
A feeling.
A reaction.
A story.
But maybe underneath all of that there is still the original material.
Before the flavor.
Before the sorting.
Before the name.
Before I know what it is.
I wonder if meditation gives me a chance to notice that.
Not to stop thought.
Not to get rid of the garbage.
But to see the process.
A sound happens.
Something moves inside me.
The pencil moves.
And for just a moment I don’t know what I’m drawing.
Then it becomes something.
And then something else.
The thought has been flavored.
The material has been differentiated.
And now I can follow it.
Maybe that’s what Sketch Stretching is doing.
Not just drawing what I think.
But watching thought become what I think.
And maybe even watching it become something else again.
Like the end of a symphony.
The instruments don’t suddenly disappear.
The sound simply becomes softer.
And softer.
Until there is nothing left to distinguish.
No melody.
No instrument.
No separate note.
Just silence.
And somehow the silence was there all along.
Even inside the garbage truck.
