"... the time that is given to us ..."

Non-Dominant Hand Tiny Mandala #33 of 50, using various colored pens on 4 x 4 inch high-quality printmaking paper and older work in pencil, colored pencil, gouache and watercolor

勹 bāo — embrace, wrap, hold, enclose

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The word “embrace” brings this song to mind:

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Mandala #33 (click on underlined for a little more on the context of this mandala) from the Fearless and Asymmetrical Mandala Series: Presence and Absence and Always Something Else (2018):

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Imaginary Brother as Witness (1966):

Read here and here for more on this drawing I made as a high school student and chose to embed at the center of Mandala #33, using my Canon printer.

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This poem, written around the same time I did the drawing, appears just before “Imaginary Brother As Witness” in my self-published book, 42 years: a book of changes.

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“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."

— Viktor Frankl

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Thank you everyone for your presence and witness here. It is deeply appreciated.