Whether you are drawing or painting it can very much be a meditation.

Sitting at a table with cut flowers in vases or plants in pots and the sound of the other students voices, or sitting in the middle of a bog surrounded by curious carnivorous plants and the hum of insects, drawing with a pen or painting with a brush requires the time to sit and connect with your subject. It requires being slow enough to let go of everything in the world except the life in front of you as its image flows out of your pen. You start by looking carefully at your subject. You might have considered several other possible plants to work from before you settle on just this one. What is it that is speaking to you from this particular plant or flower? You listen for a minute or two or longer. It isn't exactly an answer that comes in words. It's more like a feeling or an image. It could be the scent, whether delicate or slightly intoxicating, perhaps it's a vibrant depth of color that is drawing you or a subtle tint. Perhaps it is the shape of the petals or the way they hang from the stem or the way their tendrils reach out and touch its leaves. Every plant has its own charm to reveal. The challenge is to let go of what you think you know about this particular specimen, to simply be there with the plant, and to carefully observe. You then put the pen down and start.

You keep your eye on one line at a time, but there is "that feeling," the wholeness of it that stays in your mind. You watch where the line starts and where it stops. You consider the space between shapes, where one line leaves off and another line begins, where a vein leads to delineate the outside edge of a petal or leaf. Note the length of each petal to the whole flower, the distance of the nodules on the stem. Every plant is so different! Each line must be drawn with conviction. Plants never question whether they are growing or not, they do, and so it is with your lines.

By paying attention to all these small details the plant almost seems to draw itself. It's always a surprise to students, especially those who have never drawn before, that this simple technique of giving oneself over to a plant and focusing on the relationships between lines and shapes can bring such immediately successful results. The real benefit though, is a sense of meditation, a peaceful contentment, which students often report happens while they are communing with plants via pen on paper. Perhaps this is what plants have to teach us, as we scribe their natures.