Do you Tangle?

Lots of my artist friends are into Zentangles.  I thought it was just called doodling, but there's a whole website devoted to teaching you how to do it and letting you hook up with teachers who will come and do workshops.  On the one hand, I think it's kind of neat, because it seems to be raising the humble doodle to a whole new level, but on the other hand, it's still just doodling.

Anyway, I guess I don't really do Zentangles, because I'm not into the whole relax and focus on your strokes kind of thing.  I do Prayer-tangles instead, and most likely the nice folks at the Zentangles site would say this is just fine :-)  I choose not to focus on the strokes themselves, but rather to focus on the things that I need to talk with God about.  In fact, if I do find myself thinking about the pen strokes, it's a signal to nudge my thoughts back in the proper direction. 

I like to make mine inside of a circle.  They are also a bit bigger than the standard tangles, and might be done over several days instead of at one sitting.  To me, the circle is more an image of completeness and the infinite, so it just works better for me. 

I would definitely encourage you to visit their site and see what other folks are doing, but mostly I'd like to encourage you to see if some form of Prayer-tangles or Zentangles fit into your prayer and thought life!  I was dealing with a couple of thorny problems when I made these two, and I think you can see that in the shapes and colors :-)

Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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