Our workshop took place in the gardens of the Père Lachaise cemetery. A fitting location for exploring Samhain, the Celtic new year, a harvest festival preparing the arrival of deadly winter while celebrating the crop yield that will keep us alive. Samhain is also the time for commemorating the links between the living and the…Read more Visage -Contre Visage
inner gardens
Seasonal Stress
Back to school. Often a mess. A tangle of things to do. With the difficulty of trying to find the beginning or the end. A long thread of "to dos". And in France, "to don't s". Why not take a moment to just look at the tangles. Admire the complexity. Admire even how this banal…Read more Seasonal Stress
Pop up Gardens
An opportunity to share Nature the Arts within's working approach came my way recently at an unusual Parisian spot dedicated to creative self exploration. Seymour+, a sprawling loft studio space located in the 10th arrondissement, and its director Melissa Unger, graciously accommodated me as I invested the 5 interactive rooms to facilitate a playful workshop…Read more Pop up Gardens
Equanimity
The vestibular system contributes to sensory information processes allowing for our sense of balance and spatial orientation to coordinate movement. Motion, equilibrium and orientation are largely an affair of the inner ear in complex functional-organic terms. But what about metaphorically? How do we tend towards balance in our daily life choices. Must we listen for…Read more Equanimity
Architectures
Origins of growth, uprooted residents, coy interdependence, enveloping clumps. What more can these Tree-beings and plant companions --witnesses to past imperial adventures-- tell us about being upright, standing with poise and reaching slowly for the light? How much can the myriad architectured solutions to living in an adapted environment teach us about building…Read more Architectures
Solstitium, the Sun stills
"those of us who hold no religious or supernatural beliefs still require regular, ritualised encounters with concepts such as friendship, community, gratitude and transcendence" Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists Winter Solstice. The great Sun sits still a moment and then turns. The long night giving ease to incrementally longer days. This ceasing to move,…Read more Solstitium, the Sun stills
Simple Wastelands
Waiting near a terrain vague in "the zone" (the liminal space between Paris and the suburbs); submerged by the noise of the the cars on the nearby Peripherique, the city's circular highway. Vague terrain? An empty lot. A temporary wasteland. Filled with overgrown things and castaway seeds. I wait, and so I sketch.
Forest Bath anyone?
Nature based ecotherapies such as horticultural therapy or forest bathing are perceived increasingly as good platforms for mindfulness interventions and attentional flexibility training. Restoration theory and evidence based research support the claims of various mood improvement benefits.
Circles and Paths
Let's explore this thing : walking. Can we be in walking while we walk? How does it feel? What does it take to remain there? How often and when do we escape the walking to do something else (thinking, planning, ruminating) besides putting one foot in front of the other? This walking...Where do you feel…Read more Circles and Paths
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