Hello (●'◡'●)🖐 again,
we're back after a break over the summer.
This month's newsletter is on the practice of small rituals: making space.
The schools have started back so for those of you with children maybe you are able to take a bit more time for yourself. This doesn't always feel possible though what with work and life commitments. However, building intentional small rituals into our day can be a way of creating the space we need to tend to ourselves emotionally, spiritually, creatively and physically.
Chances are you have daily routines and habits already but maybe these activities are something you don't give a lot of thought to, and that have become somewhat automatic.
Rituals can be a way of bringing purpose, meaning and fulfilment to our activities and routines. They can help us to mark out one area of our life from another and set the conditions for us to be able to work, create, relax, reflect and organise.
Included below are two videos with speakers who explore how developing habits, practices and rituals can be beneficial to our well-being and how artists and creatives have established their own idiosyncratic rituals and routines to enable them to write, paint, direct, and compose.
A small ritual might be deciding to go for a coffee on a particular day each week, doing breathing exercises each day, arranging certain objects and keepsakes that inspire you or make you happy on your (work) table, using a particular pen and notepad to write with, identifying one of your strengths each morning, saying an affirmation to yourself each day, going for a walk on certain days of the week, taking a bath at night. Below you'll find an activity sheet with creative ideas on how to develop your own meaningful and useful small rituals, along with listings of upcoming events and links to art and health related exhibitions, reading and podcasts.
Wishing everyone well until next month. Take care
