Peggy Klineman's Meditation Paintings

I am pleased to share with you some of my sister's meditation paintings and her thoughts about creating these pieces.


From Peggy:

"I began doing my meditation paintings as an art making exercise to expand my creativity. Instead of writing daily morning pages after I meditate I decided to try something which spoke more directly to me as a visual artist and more specifically as an abstract painter.

I meditate regularly for 20 to 30 minutes. This is my time to quiet my mind and reach my authentic self. I meditate with no expectation other than following my breath and having as little mind chatter as possible. When I finish I am amazed that it is almost always between 20 to 30 minutes even though I haven't set a timer. I go to my drafting table and begin painting reaching for whatever color feels right. I just start painting shapes, blending colors and scribbling with pencils. Meditation enables me to trust my intuition. I allow myself to be guided by my materials for I am as responsive to the paint, brushes, pencils and whatever other materials I use as they are responsive to my touch. It is a give and take dialogue facilitated by a nonjudgemental quiet mind which allows the painting process to flow freely. An added benefit is that I am finding a new freedom in my studio practice from doing these meditation paintings.

Featured here are three of my favorite works. Additional meditation paintings can be seen at my blog. My personal website where larger paintings and works on paper can be seen is http://www.peggyklineman.com/."

Deficit Reduction Act: A Modest Proposal

We've got to reduce the federal deficit. If interest rates rise even one percent we will be adding $0.14 trillion to the cost of running government. The following is a modest proposal.

First: Reinstate the tax on those whose incomes are over $0.5 million a year. We should address this issue clear of the Bush tax cut extension in which we gave away $100 billion.

Second: Make the tax rate on the income of derivative managers an income tax and not a capital gains tax. This is a tremendous give away to Wall Street who has bought a sizable majority of Congress.

Third: Royalties paid by companies to foreign potentates are currently allowed to offset against the corporate tax under the foreign tax credit. Exxon pays nearly nothing on its billions of earnings because of this credit. We have lost close to a trillion dollars in revenues over the past ten years.

Fourth: Eliminate the requirement that Medicare pay a claim within 2 weeks of a bill being rendered. Fraud has cost Medicare $100 billion in the last five years-particularly in South Florida.

Fifth: Eliminate cold war defense weapons from the Defense Department budget (do we need another nuclear sub, stealth bombers?) $100 million could be cut and no one would know the difference except Boeing and shipbuilders.

Does anyone in Congress have the guts to take on even one of these issues?