Your day can begin like this…
Image by Jon Tyson
Good morning artists. Here are some suggestions to cement and enrich the work we shared together online in our Zoom Workshops, with links to experienced practitioners, most of who you have heard of, and some that may be new to you but very experienced in their field.
Today’s motivation comes from the extraordinary poet John Donne, someone I have read since my undergraduate days:
No man is an Island, entire of it self.
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were…
I relate this to group process and group dynamics and is the main reason why I love the power of group: “Every man [woman and nonbinary person] is…a part of the main”. It is so important for us to turn up for each other, to reflect on what we have learned from each other, as we continue to thicken the space between us, either through face-to-face meetings and contacts or through our virtual Zoom world. We all have a role to play, and in so doing we create a rich tapestry where each of us learns more deeply not only about ourselves but also about the complexity of our beautiful yet wounded world full of interconnectedness, nature, and art.
To begin, let us not forget Gandhi’s “nobody can hurt me without my permission”, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Happiness does not come from the consumption of things”. These two thoughts can guide us through our daily lives so that there is room for our rituals and delightful moments.
Here are some ideas regarding our chosen rituals of practice:
Many of you know of Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist who wrote Hero With A Thousand Faces (Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell).
He defines ritual:
“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consicousness is being reminded of this wisdom of your own life. i think ritual is terribly important. (Joseph Campbell).
The rituals that we partake in our Zoom rooms and rehearsal spaces/studios could be described as the enactment of the artist’s mythic journey. We prepare ourselves each day to do our best work, and at the same time become the best version of ourselves. This requires enormous effort. The rituals we engage in can, if we want them to, awaken the enormous wisdom that sits within us. Ritual heals us. It differs from habit in that it is a deliberate act. What if rituals widened our horizons beyond the ordinary? What if rituals gave us a sense of purpose each day?
For us to turn up daily to our rituals of practice, it may help to be reminded of Stephen Cope’s call to arms.
Stephen Cope (2022) in his book “The Dharma in Difficult Times” asks the important question “To what causes do we feel a sacred duty? …We each have a sacred duty in this life…no exceptions…in every moment of our lives, no matter how difficult, there lies buried deep within our souls a knowledge of this duty-a mystic knowledge”.
A podcast I really enjoyed on The Yoga Hour with Stephen Cope: Stephen Cope talks about dharma in difficult times
I feel that one of my important sacred duties is to create and facilitate experiences that provide opportunities to change and to become aware of what we don’t know we know. . It’s a gentle nudging… participants shift out of their ‘stuck-ed-ness’ of everyday habits and problems by engaging in our simple creative processes to build new pathways forward. At 4change Zoom workshops/rehearsals, we combine art-making, therapeutic frameworks, generative conversations, and yoga (pranayama, meditation, and asanas) to awaken and enrich. We are encouraged to consider what our sacred duties are as we engage with each other in our virtual workshop.
RITUALS OF PRACTICE FOR OUR NEW YEAR
I have provided links to material that can enhance your workshop experience. Although we do not do asanas in our workshops (there is a post on the 3C corner page with a link to chair yoga which you can engage in when you do not have the time or space to do a full practice. Here is a link to a PDF of chair yoga Chair Yoga Sequence
1. YOGA ASANAS: stretching with support is a very strong and safe way to awaken our bodies without too much strain. You can find multiple stretching videos online. One of my teachers, Tamara James, is an experienced physiotherapist and senior yoga teacher here in Queensland. Her work is very deliberate and safe, and extremely impactful. You can find more about Tamara James and her colleague Kay Ashwood at Tamara James and Kay Ashwood, and here is a link to one of Tamara’s presentations:
2. MEDITATION: walking meditation, sitting meditation. Here is a link to KinHin walking meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh, a meditation I like to follow when I want to move rather than sit:
Walking Meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh
For those who like sitting meditation here is a 20-minute guided meditation with Jon Kabat Zinn who wrote the fabulous book Full Catastrophe LIving by Jon Kabat Zinn (you can get a free PDF copy of it at this link).
Sitting Meditation with Jon Kabat Zinn
3. CREATIVE WRITING: In our workshops this year we expanded our writing prompts to include famous lines. Here is a link to a host of first lines that you can use to begin your stream-of-consciousness writing. I suggest you keep repeating it throughout the process and also add “And by that I mean”, a phrase I have dreamed-on from Proprioceptive Writing, a writing process originating in the USA. Here is a link to the outline of the Proprioceptive way of writing: Proprioceptive Writing Steps
We begin our workshop writing ritual with one of these famous lines Famous First Lines. I selected three from this list to offer you on the day. You can now select whatever feels good right now. First lines:
We also used our writing prompts from other Rituals of Practice workshops. Natalie Goldberg offers this line “What I really want to say is…”I suggest you add the exploratory line “and by that I mean”…the horizontal storytelling occurs in the “what I really want to say” and the deep dive (vertical investigation, the juicy stuff) begins in the “and by that I mean”.
Here is a link to some of Natalie Goldberg’s writings. This is her latest book, and it focuses on Haiku which became an important topic in our workshop on Friday: Natalie Goldberg and Haiku. Here is a sample of the book Three Simple Lines by Natalie Goldberg
Some relevant Goldberg quotes can be found here: Good quotes to inspire your writing
Above I have outlined our morning rituals of practice.
I wish you well as you weave them into your day.
We have a one-off Zoom workshop in the first week of February 2023 where we will continue to explore, in boutique groups of 4 artists at a time (maximum 5) this time focusing on the power of embodiment. If you scroll down a little bit on the link page you will find more information about our Zoom workshops: