small beauties (008)
loving it all from the beginning of time to the end of time
Hi, this week is a recap of highlights from this series. And a goodbye, for now.
I’m opening the blinds, taking the chairs down, and turning the lights on over at Studio Styles. (We’ve just announced a workshop series on creative career development this month, btw.) Summer is over now. See all the flings we’ve released to the sky. September feels like coming back home and catfish pepper soup is waiting for you. It’s a little too peppery; the person who made the soup is still learning your taste but you add cooking cream and wow.
Small beauties 001:
Sacred Design Lab’s report on how innovators are responding to spiritual longings in secular societies, reflecting on the post-film, post-archive workshop, the film Shaihu Umar on a man’s search for his mother.
Small beauties 002:
Reflections on the absence of some sense of a safe father spirit, some pathways out of Nigeria’s food crisis, the delight of Spotify’s typography rebrand, belonging through connection, praying you find reason to convince yourself that beauty and sweetness are for you to enjoy, and some playlist recommendations from my stash.
You guys engaged with this the most.
Small beauties 003:
Reflections on what comes to mind when we feel beauty, doing work where our soul can enjoy visibility and presence, Oliver Sacks dying and looking over the landscape of his life and being blissed out in gratitude.
Small beauties 004:
The spirit of Asake’s album was strong in this one and it was my birthday week. I willed a powerful week and just as I prayed for, every day offered a liberating breaking point of a different kind. Looking back now, how perfect that it marked halfway through this series.
Reflections on Heartward-bound’s question: “How do I follow my heart, trust myself and be my own guide?” and Audre Lorde’s answer in ‘Uses of the Erotic’: “Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours bring us closest to that fullness.”
Small beauties 005:
Reflections on home, homecoming to oneself, letting out a brief dying shriek before jumping off a cliff to let the universe catch me, a reckoning with the fact that the home I want wants me, and an answer to the question “What is the best advice you’ve ever received?”-> “Come home to be liked, we will always like you here.”
Small beauties 006:
Reflections on Facesoul’s words: “The journey that we all go on, you can't put it into words. And what I've learned to realize is that all of us have undergone things in our lives that no one else will ever understand. Everybody's gonna undergo difficulties, the process of life, but when we realize that and we take steps forward, we can then attain a positivity, a beauty that far precedes anything that we could have witnessed before.”
Sometimes look at the mountain, acknowledge its immensity, and change your own size. Claim a new size off the rack. The universe is in you as you’re in it.
Small beauties 007:
Reflections on accepting that fear itself is not an enemy, a thing to be afraid of; finding that happiness for me was not in the absence of, or transcendence above, suffering, but in the enjoyment of all the life—lemons, sushi, obstacles, migraines, the colour purple, peace and quiet, air, privileges, the uniqueness of my being, unique as all beings are, the enjoyment of being part and parcel of everything, just as I am (all the things I love and hate, all the ways I may fall short for others but will always be sufficient for myself), facing walls and saying with authority ‘open this wall for me please’.
One thing about two things? When life gives you sushi, sushi is the life.
Writing this every week for the past 8 weeks has been fun. I like that it has come to an end on my magic number. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all your comments both here and in private conversations. Thank you for letting me know you appreciated it when you did. I wish all the best for you. I truly believe in miracles for you, for all of us. Maybe you reading this is the sign you need to do that thing you need to do. Maybe you reading this is the sign you need to come down to a pause, look around you, see that you are not lost, that you are not simply a project, that you are experience, that you deserve your own freedom and relief, that you and God can build it brick by brick, wherever you start is just a starting point, there has to be one, that this life can be all fun and games, that maybe everything good has already happened and time is just God/the universe’s technology to experience it all and you’re alive because God/the universe needs you in this human form, that you can do hard things, whether the hard thing is going all in or taking a break, starting or quitting, committing or releasing. There is love inside all of us waiting to show us how good it can get. I wish us all the best.
- Immaculata