ONE THING EVERY DAY

As we come up on the start of a new month, I am often drawn to commit to some small thing I want to do each day that month.  Writer Austin Kleon says that the real task is doing something absolutely regularly – to give yourself the challenge of not breaking the string of accomplishments.  Maybe you might decide to take a walk every day, to write a haiku, to make a small sketch.  Maybe you want to ride your bike daily or meditate or read one poem. Maybe you want to send an email of appreciation to a friend every day or take a nap every day.  Or maybe you want to make sure you laugh once during the day.  Maybe you want to play the piano or write in your journal.  The thing you pick should be something you really love doing and wish you’d do it more.  I want to learn more poems by heart – but I could never take on a new poem each day.  Maybe I’ll commit to learning a poem by heart each week and the daily practice will be to recite it to someone each day.  Or, maybe I will commit to making an entry in my visual journal each day.  How about you?  Feel free to post your commitments here and it would be fun to see what people are commiting to! 

SIX MINUTE DIARY

THE SIX MINUTE DIARY

I am currently reading an engaging book,  “Opening Doors” by Micah Fialka-Feldman with Lynn Albee.  Check it out by clicking  HERE.  Micah is my friend’s son who has an intellectual disability.  He is currently living independently and is a teaching assistant in the Disability Studies program at Syracuse University.  The book is about how Micah has come to the point in his life where he is.  How he and his family have opened so many doors for him. One of the small examples seems especially fun to me.  In this book, Micha and Lyn Albee tell us about using the “Six Minute Diary”.  A quick way to capture a day. I think the method could work for any of us!  Here is how they describe it;

Divide a single sheet of paper into quarters.  The first quarter is labelled “Happened”,  the second quarter is “Seen/observed”.  The third quarter “Heard/eavesdropped”. and the final quarter is “image”.  The idea is that you spend 6 minutes listing things from the last 24 hours.  List 3 – 5 things in each category.  What happened that is significant, what did you see, what did you hear.  In the last quarter you draw or collage an image from one of the things you recorded that has the most energy for you.  This is intended to be a quick review of your day and is intended to be fun and creative. 

I do highly recommend Micah’s newest book and hope you will check it out.  He is an amazing person who has accomplished much in his life. 

Prayer Nuts

I want to write about the little “prayer nuts” nestled into a small display area in the Rijks Museum.  We all go there to see the grand “Old Masters” – paintings that cover entire walls. And they are very grand and important – worthy of study and praise.  And yet,  and yet .. In the very next room, these three tiny nuts – which I would never have noticed, had it not been for the docent, were these three small nuts.  Called “prayer nuts,” they are minutely carved scenes from Christ’s life inside a nut that is the size of a walnut.  Some are sectioned so they can be opened revealing even more small details.  Some have inscirptions. They were commissioned by very wealthy patrons in the 1500s, not even to be shown – but merely to be owned.  To tuck into the pocket of a grand robe as a mark of wealth.  Or possibly they were used for individual prayer – like unfolding the presence of the divine held within.  Or possibly symbolizing the fact of Christ’s human incarnation (the outer part of the nut) that held his inner divinity. 

It is unknown how long it took the artists to carve these very tiny pieces of art – but one can easily imagine that the slightest twitch could ruin the entire carving.  Just imagine having that kind of devotion to your calling.  To work small. To have trust and patience.  To know your work will likely not be seen.  To pursue it anyway.  These nuts took my breath away in a different way than the Grand old Masters paintings (which also took years to paint and had extremely small details).  Perhaps because the larger works are so well-known and the little prayer nuts captured my fancy because they were almost like an afterthought. 

How much magnificence do we all miss because no-one calls our attention to it?  I wonder how much in this world I don’t behold because it is too small, hidden, unknown, deemed unimportant.                        I’m going to try to seek out smallness this week.