Namaste was my favorite painting in 2013.The concept of thepainting started when I was at a friends house watching a video of Thich Na Hanh talking about emptiness.The next morning I experienced a connection of understanding about my self and our natural environment.I have recognized that when I am alone usually walking in the woods that I always have this sense of calm and I realized I was having a connection with the environment like a sense oneness. I also realized that we have distanced ourselves from this connection with our busy lives.Simultaneously along with the realization that we have also become disconnected from our own personal nature with our busy lives along with the realization of other influences that have pushed us further form that connection with our own true nature.I started to imagine that if I could unlearn everything that I had ever been taught, my fears, doctrines taught or influenced by other people ,take away all of my envy and wants and be free from all influence there might be a chanceto have a glimpse of who I really am not whoeverybody taught me to be and connect with my true nature.Through our entire lives we gather influence and fear from people with their own agendas and , we distance our selves from our true nature and coincidently at the same time I started to see a parallel of how we have also distanced our selves from our natural environment on this planet. For the most part we spend the beginning of our life in schools then spend the rest of them pursuing careers or just working to survive meanwhile becoming so consumed with this process we don't spend time outside connecting with the natural environment of this beautiful planet whiledistancing ourselves from our own true nature that is buried deep below everything we have learned since the day we were born.Im not saying everything we learned is bad but I do feel we become other peoples agendas I doknow our parents have huge influence on us both good and sometimes misguided too.Then we have teachers in school for 12 to 20 years of influence and religion both good and misguided.Mix that in with media ,advertising projecting perfection that we all desire even though we know impossible.We have our jobs or careers that consume so much time with the desire of make more money and more power that distance ourselves even further with the pursuit of happiness.All of these thing are not bad I actually love my job,I love learning and I love watching movies ,I like to make money so I can provide a nice life for my family .But be careful you might wake up oneday and wonder why you act the way you do and feel really far from any connection to yourself or the world.You might not be who you think you are . there is something that really resonates when you have this experience on your own when you come to realization as if you were the first to discover it .The resonance goes very deep as opposed to something learned in a book or by teacher. My interpretation Namaste “ I greet the divine in you” is about greeting that part of your self that is beautiful truth you originated from.             Justin Gaffrey