Yesterday I just finished designing and developing my new web site. It was an exhausting process that consumed me towards the end. Late in the afternoon, unshaven and bleary-eyed, I uploaded the files to my server and, like wizardry, the site went live.

I sat here at my desk and raised my arms in triumph. Save a few style glitches that were easily fixed, everything worked. I wanted so badly to share the experience with someone. But, as it was for pretty much the entire creative process, I was alone. Just me. I most often like it that way. Creativity is a precious, mysterious, and private thing. Once one starts talking and socializing and sharing, the process changes. The energy migrates to the collective.

Vastness can only be experienced alone. There is a connection that only connects when there is quiet. Once ego and opinion become the motivation, the creative process changes into something less-charged. Ask any artist who is working on a commissioned piece; having a client or preconceived, finished piece in mind is one of the most difficult things to work through to completed art. Art is best when it is left alone to be itself.

But…there are these moments. The life of an artist can be so solitary that it can be unnerving. Melancholy sets in. Suddenly, it isn't so much fun being alone anymore. It hit me yesterday after my arms came slowly down from their triumphant thrust into the air. I wanted to share this with someone. And it was just me and the blasted web site.

Today's image is of one of my dearest friends as he walked to edge of the abyss on the South Kaibab Trail in Grand Canyon. There he was, a tiny speck in vast container of space and time.