Value

V A L U E

such an enormous word....covering so much territory

a few weeks ago I entered into the 'value' lesson with my home school art students...it was a wonderful class...the concept of 'value in color' was introduced in the simplest of terms..increasing value by adding black and decreasing value by adding white..we did a really fun demo together up on the board...working with a primary to see how many shades we could create of higher value..and then moved towards lesser value..going as far down the scale as we could until the value was so very low that you could barely discern it from white...

Then they chose their own color to use and did the same project on their own...each with varying results of course but some of the value studies that came out of it were really beautiful..

I recently posted about this annual 'fall epiphany' that hits me ...the need for change ..for return to the path...a get back to 'walk your talk' .  I have been hard at it..bringing things back into my life over the past few weeks that i had let slip and giving the proverbial boot to some things that I had let gain footing...

During this process I have been plagued with a very serious ' holy shit what is my purpose in life'...or rather what are the many purposes of me?  Am I fulfilling them?  Do I have any choice in these?  Are there others that I need to add to the queue?

And so I return you to

VALUE

How is it that we gauge the value of self?

By occupation
By Proof of formal Education
By our failures
By the spectrum of our life experiences
By our physical appearance
By Income
By our successes
By the value of our partners (who are also gauging themselves)
By our position in the community
By peace of mind
By philanthropic gesture
By our friendships
By the nature of our children

or maybe

more simply

By what we feel like when we wake up each morning and as we fall asleep each night.

Like all of those beautiful and so varied colors created by the kids in their value studies our estimate of personal value  will change day by day, hour by hour and sometimes moment by moment. 

Fluctuations of our own colors as we move through our lives with gargantuan effort to do the right, walk the talk, leave our mark with clear conscious, full soul and hearts content