Practice is In

Dear Starlight,

"Happy Holidays—or as they were formerly called, Happy Holy Days.

Once, these days were dedicated to practices of reflection, reverence, and wholeness and not only the gift-wrapped consumerism they are now. The word' holy,' rooted in the sacred, shares its origins with 'health' and 'wholeness.' Holy days are reminders to reconnect with what truly nourishes us—the practices that make our lives whole, including our spirits. My holy days this week have felt like: "Holy Smokes!" as new thought forms emerge from a smoke screen of illusion.

My letter today is a holy-day plate, a smorgasbord, rather than a casserole of velvety layers with everything in one bite. I have taken the liberty to break it up with illustrations of holy-day plate bits to help connect the parts.

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We are shaped by and embody the landscapes in which we live. These landscapes include not only the visible external environment but also the cultural landscape and the political, economic, and social systems. Our landscapes have been informed and shaped by the history that came before us. Oftentimes, this "shaping" we adopt unconsciously, and we conform like contortionists trying to fit into something that does not fit our nature. We feel the dissonance but cannot always see the harmful structure or systems within which we are participating.

I use tarot as a reflective practice to help me see invisible situations through the lens of archetypes. I recently pulled the Four of Pentacles, the little king holding onto and sitting on his resources. The questions he evoked for my consideration were:

What purpose is being supported by the current system or structure I uphold?

Is this purpose the genuine need or desire?

What other form or structure could be designed to meet the desire?

What choice is integral (whole, holy) to my wellbeing versus a choice rooted in scarcity and fear?

What is the way of integrity?

These questions sat in my pocket and rolled around with me this week. Then, with seeming suddenness, I felt a shift in my body and mind, what could be called a somatic opening, a step towards somatic transformation, an adjustment. I felt the possibility of changing shape.

What if you enjoy the creative process of painting, but someone says, "You have to sell these if you want to paint, and people need to love them to buy them, and if they don't love them, they will not buy them, and if no one buys them then you are not a real painter, and so you should not use your time to paint."

Or, you enjoy running, and someone says, "You need to race if you are a runner, and you need to win; if you don't win, there is no point because you are not a good runner. Why bother running if you are not a good runner?"

Or, you enjoy baking, and someone says, "You should start a bakery so you can make money baking. You should focus on your profitability, so limit your menu and make your chocolate chip cookies seven days a week. And, you need to set yourself apart, so you should make a gimmick, perhaps a twelve-inch cookie, then you can keep baking."

Or, you enjoy ______fill in the blank, but you also enjoy your paid job, your studies, your parenting, etc., and someone says, "You enjoy doing that ___________, but you're just a mom, just a nurse, just a teacher, just a _____________ .

These are statements that shape us. Statements that grow from the system of capitalism. These types of statements have impacted the way I've thought and designed my days.

Throughout my life, I've created beautiful spaces with the desire of nourishing my own artistry, but instead turn them outward for others' benefit, and often at the cost of my wellbeing.

In 2002, I bought my first home, a stately brick house, but instead of inhabiting it fully, I turned it into a shop and gave myself the most diminutive rooms, including the unheated servant's attic room as the studio. Later, I invested in a Hudson, NY, art studio, only to convert it into a gallery before using it as my own creative space. In 2016, I rented a space for my Creativity & Courage practice, which quickly evolved into Instar Lodge, an arts residency and creative community center, which I worked tirelessly to fund with my teaching paycheck, sacrificing my wellbeing and over giving resources I was not replenishing.

Even the studio I imagined for myself in 2018 became a guest house after I focused on Place Corps, the fellowship program I founded.

These examples reveal a pattern: the spaces I dreamed of for my creativity I consistently offered to others without including space for myself. While these choices brought joy and opportunities for others, they often left me depleted, disconnected from my original intent, and longing for unmet creative needs.

There was goodness and sadness woven together in these projects, leaving me with continued confusion, a persistent need for time and space for my creativity, and the desire to support the flourishing of others' creativity. An over valuing others needs above my own.

Hey, little king, something is wrong with this picture. I keep approaching the design with the best intentions but compulsively reject my desires and create something that does not have space for me to inhabit and thrive. How do I design my life in a way that can meet my desire to engage with my creativity and support the flourishing of others' creativity without leaving me under-resourced?

The past week has been a doozy of internal movement. Both my thoughts and my muscular skeletal body experienced an adjustment and realignment. Since the summer, I have been navigating chronic hip and lower back pain. The pain came from a compounded stress situation of over stretched ligaments and loose joints causing misaligned sacrum, hips, pubic bone, and frozen-gripping-pulsing muscles that were working extra hard to keep my bones in place.

Every time I go to the chiropractor, I'm in category 3, which means a danger zone, no yoga, no long walks, etc. It has been disheartening to be doing healing work up to 4x a month and still be experiencing pain and staying in category 3. Both the chiropractor and the acupuncturist have been encouraging me, telling me the body knows what to do, that it will take time, that I need to do my part and be sensitive to what aggravates the process, and otherwise just keep showing up for care. I decided this past week to schedule imaging as I want to see the problem.

This week, just before the holiday, I went to my chiropractor appointment, and as is typical, she asked how I was feeling. I answered, "I'm in pain, but I've noticed that the acupuncture's assistance in releasing the muscles has helped significantly. I also noticed that the other day, I was feeling good. I was working, and I received some news about a staff member's frustration, and I suddenly felt a hip lock and a jolting pain move through my body despite me not moving in any visible way from the chair." She went to check me and exclaimed, "DAWN! You are out of category 3!!!" Then she welled up, which I was confused by since I was still in pain. She explained your ligaments have finally healed to the point that we can adjust you differently, and you can begin to exercise again. I asked her about the pain, and she said having pain does not mean that I'm not healing. She asked me; when you felt the pain the other day in your hip, what did you do? What did your body want you to do? The truth is I did nothing other than dig into trying to solve the problem of another person's unhappiness while uncomfortably shifting my weight in my chair.

She suggested that the next time I lay on the floor, I lift my legs up and belly breathe. She said that where we want to get to is a sensitivity to what the body feels and needs and that we listen to it before it is screaming at us. She also said that she understands why I want imaging, but that it will not show the ligament problems, that is a feeling and sensing vs. seeing to recognize the problem.

I must add that the little king's questions had joined a pocket full of other questions that I've been walking around with. Which were:

How do I embrace my identity in a way that honors my multitudes of creative explorations?

What prevents me from engaging in the artistry I want to do?

Can I be comfortable doing things for myself?

These questions were shaped in a conversation with someone when I was describing how "I just want to quilt." Still, I don't even begin quilting, or when I finally do, I don't finish the quilt because I'm afraid that might mean I'm heading in the direction of being a quilter, and I don't want to be a quilter. I paused on my ceramics because someone asked me, "What's next?" after exhibiting my ceramics, implying how will I continue to sell my pieces, and I'm confident I don't want to be a production ceramicist. There is no next in the near future.

In this same conversation, this person made a recommendation to me; she said, “Your task for the year ahead is to increase your practices at least 3x. You learn best through embodied practices.”

At first upon hearing this recommendation I thought, ahh, yes, I should increase my spiritual practices for self-improvement…yes, calm my ruminating; meditation? I was not excited about the task of finding more practices for self-improvement.

When I came home from my trip to Nova Scotia, I was motivated to get ready for 2025. This looked like reorganizing my physical space and my schedule to make space for art. I created a sewing studio in the attic, and I cleaned my basement to make a ceramics studio.

As I finished sweeping the studio in the basement this week, I suddenly felt afraid. "What if I don't use it?" Hadn't I spent my life making beautiful spaces to welcome my creative self into but then avoided them or gave them away entirely to others? Will I even visit these spaces before I throw a guest bed in them?

Little kings pocket full of questions rattled loudly, and suddenly, there was blaring clarity: creative practice is just that—practice. Like going to the gym or tending a garden, it requires consistency, discipline, and care. It's not about self-improvement, productivity, or external validation but about cultivating joy and wholeness through the act itself.

Practice is the process of living fully.

Please return to the top of this essay and note all those capitalistic culture suggestions about what to do with one's creative joy… all those suggestions distort practice into productivity!

Practice is the process of how we live. The sellable artifact is capitalism. Suppose we focus on the problem of making a life by selling the artifact. In that case, we have turned our attention away from the enjoyment of practice as a process of living and turned our attention to improving productivity. Very different ways of being. Of course the ideal is when we find the match, as the little king suggests; we design the structure of our lives regeneratively to best support the purpose.

If I am a commitment to joy and courage, as I said last week, then I am also a commitment to creative practice.

When I think about the empty studios waiting for me, I realize (now) these are my practice spaces, and it will take courage and discipline to trust in their value, which is not always visible but more of a feeling thing. Something that may at first feel uncomfortable but over time will provide increased wellbeing.

What I see when I look at my patterns of creating or discovering beauty and sharing it with others is not that my desire was wrong or out of alignment with my purpose. However, the systems and structures I designed and enacted over and over again were flawed. I was over-giving my resources while not replenishing myself. I was overstretched. I advanced into those projects with purpose, passion, no-boundaries, and self-negation. Oops!

WHAAA-LAAAAA!

Swiftly, I see something differently, and I feel differently. In somatics, this is called the opening, when we have the opportunity to begin transforming our shape because we are no longer in automatic embodied behavior.

We have the opportunity to begin embodying new ways of being that align with our values and desires. And just like my physical body, this week, I am out of category 3 and can begin new practices for healing, strengthening, and restoring my wholeness.

Suddenly, answers to the questions in my pocket fell into place:

I am a socially engaged artist. Through active and embodied research, I explore the transformative power of creativity, allowing the artifacts of my work to either be shared, held in private, or composted. As a leader, my purpose is to cultivate a joyful life, inspiring others to embrace creativity and courage as essential to fulfillment..

AND–let me introduce my 2025 calendar, Fulfillment! Lol

I’m going into 2025 with a refreshed understanding of my need for embodying creative practice not for self-improvement or a new career but for enjoyment. I am also stepping into 2025 excited to renew my Creativity + Courage offerings in new forms.

What about you? What practices generate joy for you?

PS.I make a calendar for myself every year as my day planner. I started it back in Instarlodge days with a fleet of ships (worship, fellowship, friendship, etc.). This year, I was inspired to consider what I want my vessel to be full of, and so I made each month an affirmation of that fullness, starting with careful. I'm happy to share a copy with you. You can Venmo $35 and I will direct mail you a 2025 Fulfillment Calendar.