Crowded spaces, walls, rooms- never work for me.  I see that the best paintings and displays in the museum have spaces around it.  A little emptiness is good not just for things but our lives too.

I have been trying to give away something everyday this year to create a physical emptiness and also cutting back on things I do to create a spiritual space in my life.  This spiritual emptiness (like when children say, “I am bored!”) is especially good for your head and heart.  It is said “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” I disagree- we have to stop and slow down in order to be more productive.  Others agree with me- not only have many ‘slow’ movements sprung up around the world (slow food being a good example); but also websites and books promoting ‘idleness’.

My best ideas come to me when I am still and a little ‘bored’.

Lao Tzu says-

“Thirty spokes on cartwheel

Go inward towards the hub that is the centre

-but look, there is nothing at the centre

and that is precisely why it works!

If you mould a cup

you have to make a hollow

it is the emptiness within it that makes it useful..”