A bird can’t fly with clothes on, silly!

“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is the opening to or receiving the present moment, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.”
–Sylvia Boorstein

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

A bird can’t fly with clothes on, silly! – 3″ x 4″ Watercolor and Sharpie

Having clothes and shoes on has certainly impeded this bird’s ability to fly.  He had to climb up on a ladder to see what other birds see from these heights.

The weekly word on Illustration Friday is Heights, and I’m posting this little fellow over there today, too.  The (naked bird) photo I painted it from was posted by Susan (Surob) at WetCanvas and it is her sister’s Blue Fronted Amazon, Blue. 

Sylvia Boorstein

The anthropologist Margaret Mead said that some people have a “teaching gene” and, if that’s true, I think my father, Harry Schor, had that gene and that I inherited it from him. He loved explaining and demonstrating, and so do I. He taught me to swim, to roller skate, to ride a bike, to solve anagrams and to construct crossword puzzles. He taught me about puns and limericks. He was a mathematics teacher by profession and he taught me algebra and geometry at home, years before I learned them at school. My mother was unique amongst the mothers on our street. She had a job. She drove a car. She had passionately progressive political views and the loudest laugh of anyone I knew. I think I’m just like her.

More about Sylvia Boorstein can be found on her website here.