Autumn inspiration
Journaling prompts, poetry, playlists, a Somatic Check-in, and a favourite soup.
I like to deep-journal the quarter days, the solstices and the equinoxes, as well as the cross-quarter days acknowledging the feeling tone of the season. This is my first here in Field Notes, and I am wee bit late after the cross-quarter day of Samhain that marks the beginning of Autumn proper.
To deep-journal means I dwell in more than just everyday events and encounters. I use my senses as a template and think about the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Autumn, and I give myself time to savour and explore themes and stories that come up for me.
In my movement practice I harvest all this in a way that infoms the shapes, sequences, pace and tissue tone of moving.
As the world around us continues to unfold into the bareness of early winter, I hope you enjoy these offerings but importantly I hope that they lead you into discovering your own .
“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters On Cezanne)
JOURNALING
Here are three creative prompts to help you dive in to the season.
A mindmap is a good way to flush all your Autumn association onto one page. You might organise the spokes of the mindmap by the senses, or in other ways like things to do, places and people to see, and things to make.
You might enjoy creating a collage of images that capture what Autumn means for you. Images capture thoughts and feelings in a different way to words. Maybe there is a poem or short story that wants to be told.