Walking on winter days a good way to set my intention to reflect and regenerate. I have taught a workshop during this week at the turn of the new year. The title comes from a book of poems by A.R. Ammons, Tape for the Turn of the Year.

This week presents us with the opportunity to be separate and quiet. It gives us the permission to be reflective and to play. It gives us a chance to dream and reimagine what we are doing in our work and what we might want to do in the coming year.

I love this photo that reminds me exactly of this introspective mood. To wander and look at things, to hear the breathing of the earth with the trees, and attune myself to this rhythm. It is good to slow down, to repair, renew, heal, and take nourishment for the soul.

Gathering items, as we often do absentmindedly, be they rocks, leaves, branches, shells, is a start. Saving items that might inspire later, drawing them, leaving them out where they can be seen. This non-judgmental way of seeing and creating gives us a chance to go back to the beginning. When we are just beginning we are filled with inspiration and creativity. But it is difficult to reintroduce wonderment if we have been working so long or so hard that our creative side has been submerged to the task of other things.

Dreaming in a way that leads back to new energy, for new series of works, or new ideas and new forms, is time well spent.