Ever read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards? The reason people do not draw well is that they look at things with the left side of their brains, which labels things. Consequently they no longer really see what they are looking at.

Edwards developed a method for teaching people to access the right side of their brains in order to teach them to connect with really seeing what they are looking at. How simple. All it takes to be able to draw well is to really see what you are looking at. Really see it as it is, not as you are perceiving it. Not as you are labeling it. Not as you are judging it.

I know it works because I used it to teach a class of five-year-old children to draw an extremely complicated line drawing in ONE class session. Their parents all thought they had art savants for children.

Labels in general, though handy, are not only self-limiting but limit our ability to see others as they really are, and ultimately cause us to limit them. Labels cause us to separate from each other, when in reality we are not separated except by our own arbitrary choices.

We are meant to explore, to experiment, to travel, to learn, and to try new things for the whole of our lives, not just for some period of time called youth. The real test of holiness, or wholeness, or enlightenment, or spirituality, or whatever you want to call it, is whether one can live it in a meaningful way in this real world–the PHYSICAL world.

Without labels, or titles, or privileges … without class, religious, racial, gender, sexual preference, and gender identity divisions … down in the muck of the physicality of life … can we be whole, and present, and compassionate, and open, and–more than tolerant–embracing, loving, giving, sharing, empathetic?

THAT takes REAL spiritual practice.