“I looked around in the unknown year, aware that few are those who come from so far, I was saturated with sunlight as a plant with water…”
— from “The Year”, by Czeslaw Milosz
This year I’ve had some difficulty consolidating my thoughts for reflection or review, so I haven’t really tried to push it more. The last six years of creative practice have really taught me some difficult but useful lessons in accepting silence and wordlessness and not forcing things out of myself when I have no need for them yet.
Instead, I’m just writing today to say hello amongst a widely celebrated beginning and repeating. Sure, the beginning of a year is arbitrary, but at the same time, our planet has gently and steadfastly arrived at a place it left one year ago and will now revisit its well-worn path each subsequent day. This is a comforting thought.
I woke up this morning to yet another grey winter Toronto sky. I wasn’t too upset by it, feeling rather lazy and loose. I savour this combination. Sometimes, I wake up bursting with energy on a slow day, or wake up sluggish on a day requiring a lot from me. It then really is a small joy when the body I wake up with and the day I have to live now are synergized.
“…At the very border of inhabited time the same lessons were being learned, how to walk on two legs and to pronounce the signs trace in the always childish book of our species.”
— from “The Year”, by Czeslaw Milosz
I also woke up with an itch to read some poetry. So following my usual habits of careless divination, I thumbed around my New and Collected Poems by Czeslaw Milosz and found “The Year.” It settled well into the day, and so I have shared it.
Speaking of sharing, I’ve been wanting to share more snippets of my tea practice at home, since there are so many moods and contexts for tea to be had. Today seemed like a great day to start. So here it is.
In other news, exciting things are brewing at the studio and I can’t wait to resume vlogging in this new year.
I had contemplated about doing a wrap-up of all the art-making that happened in 2021, but again, haven’t been able to muster the energy required to do the gathering. We shall just all have to assume that it was good and celebrate quietly.
I hope the day is / was restful for you, and if not, may there have been a comforting moment where you were able to expand into your body and thank yourself for traversing this well-worn pathway so faithfully.