I’m thinking about a blend.

My dad is Cajun, my mom is Swiss, and I think those two very distinct backgrounds could account for a lot of my sensibility. It’s easier for me to locate if I look at my grandparents. My parents are too close to get the same wide view, so instead I consider what each of their parents bestowed upon them.

There’s a Thích Nhất Hạnh talk where he describes an exercise he did with children: he gave them each a corn kernel and had them tend to it until it sprouted. He then instructed them to talk to the plant and ask, “My dear little plant of corn, do you remember when you were a tiny seed?” The plant was suspicious in response, its green leaves having no resemblance to the kernel. It needed to be gently reminded that yes, it did come from a seed and that this seed is not dead or gone, but living in all its cells.

Later Thích Nhất Hạnh goes on:

“I’m pouring some tea in my glass. And uh, I’m doing this mindfully. And when I do it mindfully I see that this tea has come from a cloud. Yesterday it was a cloud in the sky but today it is tea. So there is a connection between the cloud and the tea. When you look at the tea and if you don’t see the cloud, you have not really seen the tea. You believe that you have seen the tea, but you have not really seen the tea. You have to see the cloud still alive in the tea. The cloud has not died, it has simply become the tea or the ice or the rain or your ice cream. So next time you eat the ice cream look more deeply to see the cloud in the ice cream. That’s meditation. Meditation allows us to see things that other people cannot see. So when you look into the tea you see a cloud and when you are drinking your tea you are drinking your cloud. There’s already a lot of cloud in yourself. You are made of clouds. Among other things. So I see clouds in me, I see clouds in the tea, and this cloud is going to join other clouds, in my body.”

Monique Mouton is an artist living and working in New York City.