Mind - Grow a seed 🌱
I’ve been thinking about the very first rule in Corita Kent’s Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules, and that rule is, “find a place that you trust and try trusting it for a while.” I think on the surface it could be easy to glaze past this rule and jump straight to, say, rule seven (since it’s yelling at us.) However in an effort to truly try to participate in this exercise, I’ve chosen to think more critically and approach this problem of “finding a place to trust” with a broader perspective. The more I think about this “place” in which we should allow ourselves to “trust”, the more I’m realizing that for me, this process is about planting seeds.
When you plant a seed in the earth (which presumably people do in the winter, before the spring time, since before that is autumn, and that is when/where we harvest), you must trust that the location you’ve selected, and your approach to nurturing that seed, are correct enough to allow the seed the space and time to sprout. It’s very very challenging to grow something from seed (especially if you’ve never done it before, or if you’re impatient like I have a tendency to be sometimes.) You truly can’t see the process percolating under the surface, and this forces a slew of auxiliary methods to appear—suddenly this “trust” we need to cultivate in this “place” requires things like patience, consistency, faith, tenderness, and so on.
“Am I watering it enough? Am I overwatering it? Does the soil have enough nitrogen? Is this getting enough sunlight? Is it too dry in here? Should I just leave it alone and see what happens?” So many questions have come up, and truly only time will tell. Whether we are putting our energy into a creative pursuit or something more personal and private, I believe this first rule is an interesting and profound prompt for the launch of things—the spring.
What seeds have you planted that may be sprouting now? How do you plan on nurturing the sprouts of those seeds? If the seeds you wanted to sprout didn’t, what lessons will you carry with you moving into this new season?
Body - Bake some thighs 🍗
I’m trying something new this week with a recipe card! Feel free to save the jpeg to your drive, or pin it to your “recipes” board lol—whatever floats your boat.
Spirit - Write a letter 💌
My gramma (who turned 90 at the end of last year, and taught me how to write in cursive, among many other things) and I have started sending each other snail mail again. We used to do this all the time when I lived with her while I was just starting my undergrad studies at Art Center College of Design back in 2007.
When I was going through my things during my move, I found our last set of correspondence (which was dated August 2012) and decided that my failure to maintain this exercise was something that needed to be remedied. With my newly found resolve to reengage this tradition, I sent her a note in my fanciest cursive on the fanciest paper I could find. Instead of letting me know she’d received it in the mail (we still speak on the horn once or twice a week), I checked my mailbox and had received a correspondence from her!
I’d like to maintain this physical correspondence for as long as possible so I’ve invested in a ridiculous amount of stamps and blank cards. Tell the people you love that you love them, and bring back snail mail!