Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I’m mostly excited about the commercials and the halftime show. I’m also excited to sit down and write for a bit this morning, especially since January seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye. Here are a few highlights:
Andy & I rang in the new year with an amazing dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant, followed by a concert at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.
We also stayed at a cool Air B&B with a dry erase wall made of plexiglass. I made a doodle for our host to discover after we left. 🙂
On New Years’ Day we went to a little cafe near our Air B&B, where I saw this card at the register. It’s a sign! More to come in the new year!
The following weekend I had the opportunity to facilitate a mandala painting workshop at the yoga studio near me. It was a great experience that I hope to do again in the near future. Although I wasn’t exactly teaching, I helped to guide participants through their own creative expression. Every mandala turned out differently, and they reflected the styles of each artist. One of the participants commented on how she felt so much more relaxed in the experience, versus the step-by-step paint nights that she had previously gone to.
The procedural painting format leaves little room for creativity. I also feel that it can cause people to place judgment upon themselves, and to think that their painting is supposed to look a certain way. This can result in a lack of artistic confidence. Sounds more stressful than it’s worth!
The American Visionary Art Museum holds an annual MLK Jr. Day workshop for children and families. I’ve been volunteering at the event for the past several years, and it gets bigger every year! This year’s project was a button-making workshop, where participants wrote out their dreams on paper, assembled the paper inside the plastic button casing, and then embellished the outside.
January ended with the Super Blue Blood Moon (say that 5 times fast) on Wednesday. I have to admit, this past school week felt like forever. Part of that was because we’d had time off from school in previous weeks, due to holidays, snow, and the end of the marking period. We even had a 2-hour delay on Tuesday, but the time just seemed to drag. However, I think another factor in this seemingly lengthy week was due to the moon’s impact. I’m a big believer in the energy shifts during changes in the moon phases. This week, the energy and behaviors within different classes seemed a bit ‘off’, and I even felt some distinct changes in energy and emotions within myself. I was able to acknowledge and observe these feelings, but it was sometimes difficult to detach from them.
It’s not to say that everyone was impacted in this same way over the course of the week. Some people may not have noticed any changes at all. A teacher friend of mine posted this article on Facebook a couple days ago, which gave a little more insight to what I was experiencing. I also did a some investigating myself, just to gain more awareness. I found this article to be informative as well.
How do you reflect on different experiences?