“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Copyright © 2011 Rick Hotton. All Rights Reserved.
Look familiar? Is this how you see reality—only what’s in front of you on your computer screen? Technology may be an extension of our senses to more effectively interact with the world, but it can also be what cuts us off from it. Sometimes we need a little humor to break this mistake of the intellect and make us see the light of day!
Rick Hotton, creator of the award-winning cartoon Holy Molé, opens our hearts and minds with insightful humor. His characters make us laugh and realize there’s more to life than meets the eye.
To find out how Holy Molé was born and to uncover the path of creator Rick Hotton, a dedicated martial artist turned math teacher and now cartoonist, read Behind Holy Molé’s Rick Hotton by Danielle Hope Hier.
Danielle describes the characteristics and spiritual significance of a mole as the main character in Rick’s cartoon and compares it to his outlook on life. She encapsulates his approach in this paragraph:
Through martial arts, math, and Molé, Hotton has captured the essences of working the body, the mind, and the spirit. The quest for knowledge is the thread that ties all three of these forms together, in what might otherwise appear as three completely separate entities.
Danielle asked Rick why he chose a cartoon as a way of expressing elements of his own spiritual journey. I love his answer.
He replied, “But for me, if I could get people to laugh, even if just for a moment…” He paused before rephrasing his next thought: “Being joyful is a state of grace.”
The January 2011 issue of Edge Magazine published an article by Randy Moore on Rick Hotton and the Mindful Art of Holy Molé. It’s interesting to note that both Danielle and Randy are also martial artists and writers.
If you like Rick’s sense of humor, visit www.holymolecartoon.com to sign up and have cartoons delivered to your Inbox. Also follow him on Facebook, Holy Molé Cartoon, to see his photo stream.
Speaking of a common thread that’s invisible to the eye, see William Stafford—The Way It Is. Twenty-five years ago I wrote Seeing Is Being, a poem about a more enlightened way of seeing the world.
This post is very relevant to the theme of how social media cuts us off from the world shown in the Holy Molé cartoon: Two innovative creative videos remind us how social media can destroy not build relationships.
Years later: this cartoon by Bill Bliss (@blisscartoons) of two cats looking at a sunset evokes a similar reaction as the cats in Rick Hutton’s characters above, only it’s what I ask myself after spending hours on my computer scrolling the internet and watching YouTube videos!
Years later I saw a similar quote to The Little Prince from Helen Keller: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
An animated film with an all-star cast was made of that wonderful book. A little girl lives in a very grown-up world with her mother, who tries to prepare her for it. Her neighbor, the Aviator, introduces the girl to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, the world of the Little Prince. See The Little Prince (2015); original title: Le petit prince (1h 48m), available to rent or buy on Amazon.
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
The Uncarved Blog 