When you do an image search in google for the word “VOID” you get a plethora of black holes and nasty vortices . “The Void in Art” is even more apocalyptic. It seems to indicate that the idea of “ nothingness” is a scary place to go- that “the space” always needs to be filled… In Art we call it negative space and in music it’s referred to as silence or the pause or the absence of noise. In Meditation its called antar mouna – The stillness of a calm mind. This months’s composer’s choice ‘Sapphire’ is all about the void. Its like musical facets of light and reflections appearing out of white space or silence. I’ve imagined a misty world with nature emerging from the whiteness, much like a chinese calligraphic landscape. In the East – the white background is the negative space or VOID. It is a representation of nothingness or the place from which all forms emerge. Its a way of illustrating a cosmological point of view- as well as simply making a beautiful picture. There is also a rhythm in this composition that refers  to a Shishi Odoshi – a Japanese bamboo garden feature which whenThe VOID in Art, Music and Meditation – by Stephen Fearnley