Late Summer, Arrival
Grounding with intention and ritual
September workshops are off to a start this week — let’s root into creative expression and play with ink, breath, and paper. Join in for Suminagashi this week in Brooklyn, below. I’ve started offering 1:1 sessions as well. If you’re craving a container for more focused, creative support, let’s connect. For lined paper enthusiasts, you’ll love the newest journal collection over at Odette Press. Read to the end of this letter for the full calendar of my upcoming events. As always, I’m glad you’re here.
Some small red bursts through the trees. Black first, stark, then bits of orange. The fanning of a tail. Migration season means in the mornings I am wide-eyed and eager, eyes two pools of wonder and focus, an arc upward into the canopy and the daylight. I pause and breathe into quiet minutes of focus and reverie, watching birds flit through the growing daylight.
Then, breeze. Chartreuse leaves speak the language of autumn, swaying in the wind of morning, approaching the edge of their descent toward the ground. Yellow-green the ends of trees signal this shifting, as the remainders of summer linger in the rest of the green leave below. Wind comes like fingertips, gentle hands through the crown of the trees, cascading leaves raining down toward the cooling ground. Autumn speaks in a whisper, hinting at arrival.
Daylight wanes and suddenly the city is a sea of layers and jackets. We put on our own cold weather plumage, layers of clothes like landscapes undulating and overlapping, wrapping up in socks and sweatpants. Wrapping up, winding the season down, and turning in.
On a Sunday, in lieu of the beach, I roast a chicken, covered overnight in herbs and yogurt, with the intention to feed myself and friends, pouring miso, corn, and water over what’s leftover in the pan — transforming a lunch roast into soup and dinner, fed for the days ahead.
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As the season shifts, I’m thinking about reverence, severing ties with the time of summer, the days of long sunlight and heat, hot and baring down. Coolness comes, and I’m feeling into the earth of September: the sun wanes, and kids walk in groups to school and birds that flew north through parks and past apartment buildings in May are migrating to their next locations. The wind that was once a relief at the peak nights of August leans colder, now, curling inward on nights with the windows open.
Walking up to the bench where I sit in the mornings to breathe, perch, and practice I take my foot and nudge the the dirt and push the confetti of cigarette ends aside — the smallest act of attention, equivalent to taking a hand and softly runnings it over a meditation cushion: an embodied signal, ritual, or practice to say, here, now. Now the practice begins.
From this perch on the bench, I pause. I’m tuning into my breathing. I’m thinking about cold months to come, but I’m warming in the sunlight, and now is the moment; now is the breath, the day, the sunlight, and this is what I have. I watch how often I’m carried off into something more enthralling, more seductive, and bring myself back.
The word mundane — from Latin mundus, or “world” — is earthy, present, and grounding. Like digging our hands into the soil of life, the earthy and mundane return us to our humanness. Have you felt this breath? Looked to see a single cloud or the flat blue of a cloudless sky? Felt the knife as it sheds pith from lemon skin, and smelled the citrus? Felt the wind as it dances across your skin?
Ritual is a way of honoring and cherishing a moment: taking the mundane and breathing into it with meaning. Whether large or small, ritual can be a way of crossing a bridge, or walking through a doorway — an embodied action that acknowledges the passing points from one moment to the next. Watching a bird in a tree, a meal transform over a stove, feeling a sensation rise and change, there is a shift.
There is a creativity inherent in ritual, when practiced consciously and wholeheartedly — and paired with intention. Defined, in one way, as “a determined mode of action,” ritual can be a way of returning to ourselves, each other, connecting into the mundane, and the earth of our days, the heart of existence.
Over the weekend, as an experiment, I played with experience. I’d been feeling stuck — leaning heavily into my thinking mind, and the dialogue of fears and stories — instead of living through the whole conversation between heart, body, and mind. I turned the moment into a game, a ritual, and chance to explore, experience, and experiment. Who says a ritual needs always be so serious?
The stories of my mind were clouds, sun rays, undulating and passing. Most of the thoughts, it turned out, were strung on the thread of fear; they were birds darting around, flying away, and landing again. I felt into the sensations. With more noticing, pausing, breathing, I could be with the stories as they were, listening deeply into each sensation in the moment, noticing all experience as fleeting.
Then, over time, something shifted. I bridged the gap between mind and body, and felt grounded. Clouds parted in the sky of the mind and made a space where I could choose, embody, and act, and play. Curiosity of mind, intention of heart, and body beacon as guides, carved the path for clarity. Feeling open, courageous, and grounded, I took the next step swiftly. Play was the ritual, the container for experimentation, and intention the guiding force from one minute to the next.
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An intention can be something small: a word written down, planted like a seed, and remembered; a color, an image, a phrase, a feeling. A ritual is the action that breathes life into the intention, and a way to embody and acknowledge the moment. I can make coffee, for example, half asleep, with my mind tuned decades into the past, or worrying about the months ahead; I can tune into the sensations of experience, smell of water on the grounds, watch and they’re swirling around, feeling the wind through the open window on my skin; or, as needed, I can transform the moment into a ritual, setting an intention for the day, holding it in my body, heart, mind, and imagination as a vision and a feeling, and then with each pass of water, with each breath, exhale, and bring it in. In an era of distraction, where our attention as commodity, our attention, and intentions can bring us back again, and again. Like attention, they are strengthened over time — and find strength in the containers we pour our attention into, through the act of embodying these rituals.
What do you bring yourself back to? What mundane acts are you grounding into? What’s your aim or intention for now, and the season ahead? For more, dive into Journaling for Intention, a guided experience in my workshop library.
Let’s Work Together: Creative Life Sessions
Creative Life Sessions are here! Together, we’ll transform blocks into expressions; generate a grounding, foundational practice; reconnect you to the innate creativity within you; and restore your mind, body, and breath. If you’ve been craving 1:1 focus, now is your chance. Click below to explore the process and schedule a session.
From the Studio:
Nourished by, Nourishing:
Sunday lunch, creative connections, friends. A date night with myself — MoMA, then Central Park for impromptu birding — a practice I recommend. Then, apple galette with a layer of honeyed tahini. Here’s a playlist for September.
Classes and Experiences:
