Summer

ELEMENT: FIRE

Community, togetherness, relaxation, openness, connectivity, excitement, nurturing, performance, sharing, enthusiasm, fulfillment, validation, interdependence, celebration, collaboration, ease

  • Share time, space, work
  • Commune with people, see art, meet makers
  • Grounded time of surplus that doens’t ask us to rush

Practices

  • Creative community, connection, and collaboration
    • Prompts
      • where do you feel you most belong?
      • what acts of service do you regularly perform?
      • who do you want to thank?
      • name some teachers and what they teach you
      • what is the difference between a friend and acquaintance?
      • is there a group to join that can enrich creative practice?
    • List ten people you want to connect with this summer. What are your creative ties? How could they uplift your voice? Is there a new craft that could harmonize with your current one?
  • Creative conversation
    • dinner party
      • hear about others’ creative concepts, receive energy
      • ask everyone to bring a short poem to share
      • salon style: share WIPs
      • themed dinners to inspire creativity
      • bring item to group altar
      • conversation topics - draw from a hat
  • Know your audience
    • Who is ideal audience? Seek editor or workshop group
    • Event to showcase finished work
    • The action can be small
    • What can you learn about your artwork thru the way others witness and receive it?
  • Plan your performance
    • Envision and write five scenarios of inventive, inspirational performances
    • DIY tours
  • Stealing time for practice. Remember to have fun!
  • Align with the sun (cold baths, watermelon)
  • Shedding
    • Adjust discipline to adapt with weather
    • What can be put down to better fill arms with pleasures and delights of season
  • Summer cleanse (juices, fruits)
  • Swimming
    • “Let creativity be like water.”
    • Cleanse, cold baths
  • Fullness (drink freely, relish)

Month by Month

June: find good pause in project to turn toward social plans. tie up loose ends to lean into spontaneity

Summer Solstice: Root into outward state of being. Solstice party! Intention of extroversion

July: Time to travel, indulge in community, do a short residency

August: final trips, luxuriate in the heat, spoil yourself with swims and friends. Tune into creative focus a bit as summer ends

Summer → autumn: be slow as you turn inward, do not rush. Steal moments of summer that still exist