This post is part of the Rituals 2015 Event.
Since we’ve moved away from being a culture and civilization entirely dependent on the rhythms of the seasons, we no longer plan our lives around it, save for the inevitable circadian cycles of night and day and even that, we’ve build artificial constructs around. Maybe it’s freedom, but mostly it’s a loss of sacred rituals and a dissolving of our connection to the natural world and the community we belong in.
For the first 20 years of my life, the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year (also Spring Festival) was the dominating celebration of my family, filled with colorful traditions and rituals-golden oranges the size of golfballs, strings of red firecrackers. Today is a very special day because not only is it the eve of the Lunar New Year of the Ram-the Chinese zodiac sign I was born under 3 cycles ago, it’s also a day I get to share a few exciting new things with you that mark an important milestone in the evolution of my personal and artistic journey.
It is especially significant that “Rituals” #myritual2015 is happening this week through March 16th. This special event is an exploration (and celebration!) of the meaningful rituals in our lives and a hand-picked selection of my favorite creatives will be bringing you into their world for a glimpse of theirs, to hopefully inspire you to create your own. It kicked off yesterday with the Orange Opening Ritual by my dear architect friend Anjie Cho, a special Lunar New Year ritual to bring in good energy to your home for the next 12 moons.
I’ll be sharing mine (a little shyly since it’s my first foray into video!) below, a magical storytelling collaboration with 2 wonderful creative minds-the incredibly talented photographer D’Arcy Benincosa, who filmed this vignette to the beautiful music of the soulful author, stylist and composer, Pia Jane Bijkerk. More important is what I’ve realized since we made the video including pointers below on how to maintain a similar practice for yourselves.
What is your most important or meaningful ritual?
With big audacious goals comes the potential for overwhelm and then paralysis. The only way to reach this beautiful dream island far away in the ocean of our consciousness is to swim small strokes, each stroke bringing us closer. My morning ritual is me swimming for my island, one daily stroke at a time. I’ve been playing with iterations of this ritual for almost a year now and the best version of it starts with a cup of green tea and some beautiful inspiration-morning soulwriting, mystical picture books or mementos of travels taken, all help create an otherworldly bubble of enchantment for me to paint in.
Painting always begins with mise en place, the putting in place of my tools of trade-the brushes, the scraping of palette, my paints, the canvas, the music. Sometimes I light a candle but mostly I’m just excited to start. I like to start loose, a legacy of my watercolor years , it helps to remind me that art is about relinquishing control to the spirit, of letting go.
Since the video was made I now paint for 3-4 hours at a time, more if time permits and ends with the cleaning of my brushes-a hypnotic swirling of brush in turpentine, soap, a second cleaner, water and rag. It takes 15 minutes and is surprisingly meditative. When I first began painting in oils I thought I would resent the extra time and care needed for my tools that wasn’t a part of working with watermedia. Instead, I found the ritual of brush-cleaning to be the perfect exit, a threshold of repetitive decompression, like a hot-air balloon gradually descending from her clouds of fancy.
Why is it important to you?
My morning ritual has taught me so many things-the need to structure my day in a profession fraught with a million possibilities, the importance of process and journey, of taking action, however small, towards our big dreams, and the simple, unglamorous act of just doing.
But the biggest thing it has done for me is that it has allowed me to participate in the creation of my own personal mythology, that of exploring enchantment, providing a physical, active representation that I am lighting my own way through my voyage in this lifetime and not just buoyed along by waves of passing ships.
How can others implement this ritual successfully?
Rituals take time to create and will continue to evolve, as the thousands of years of humanity have shown. It took me almost a year to find what works best for me. But more importantly, Ritual truly is, as Joseph Campbell says, an enactment of a myth and without the myth, it’s just a habit. This was what I really had to learn to make it work. Our personal myth, what we have envisioned for ourselves, our pathway to bliss, is the golden key that imbues meaning and importance to the simple daily ritual, making it a thousandfold more likely to stay around till the the magic happens.
On a practical side, I’ve learned to chart my progress on a chalkboard of circles I tick. This personally, help me see and therefore celebrate, the rites of passage. So important.
“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.
“I think ritual is terribly important.”-Joseph Campbell
Share something exciting coming up for you or what you’re working on!
When I closed my online stationery boutique two years ago to explore new horizons, I knew that I would one day reopen this online portal into my world. The day has come, made possible only by the act of ritual. My little shop of nature-inspired curiosities is now open for art-collecting! I have hand-selected for you a few pieces from my debut body of work Journey Through the Seven Seas, as well as a few meaningful favorites from Peekaboo!. Drop by and take a peek! :
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Do you think that we, as a modern society have forgotten the importance of rituals? Can the resurrection of it improve your life or creative practice? Let me know below.
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Amy T. Won is the artist, storyteller and enchantment-seeker behind The TreeSpace Studio, where she shares her explorations and painted mementos of our wonder-filled natural world. You can also find her adventures on instagram and facebook or take a peek at her inspirations on pinterest.
This post is part of the “Rituals 2015” event. Follow #myritual2015 on instagram to see other meaningful rituals by a hand-picked selection of creatives.